A Healing Family - Hardcover

I think back to an incident that occurred when Hikari was about five or six years old. At the time he was larger and heavier than the average child of his age, but his mental development was perhaps no more than that of a three-year-old. When we took him out for walks, he would choose the most inopportune time and place to collapse in a heap or rush off in whatever direction caught his fancy, nearly dislocating the shoulder of the person holding his hand. On the day in question, I had set out with Hikari for a department store in Shibuya. In retrospect, I suppose the excursion may have been the result of some minor argument with my wife, which might explain why it was just the two of us. At any rate, the department store where we went to do our shopping consisted of an old and a newer building, connected on one of the upper floors by a passage; and it was while we were making our way through the sports section in the old building that Hikari decided to make yet another of his frequent, forceful changes in direction. Though the shock was enough to draw a groan from me, I managed to keep my composure and explain to him that we were going where I said we were going. Still, Hikari continued to pull, determined to follow his own instincts.

I can remember even now the strange sense of disembodiment I felt at that moment, as if I were being plucked right out of reality itself, which I assume is one of the side effects of sudden anger. In any case, for some reason I simply let go of Hikari's hand and went straight to the new building to do the shopping I'd come to do. Then I spent a few minutes looking over the latest offerings in the book section. Finally, I made my way back to where I had left him, but naturally there was no sign of the boy. It was only then that I panicked. I ran off to report a lost child, and almost immediately the loudspeaker began broadcasting his name and description; but I knew that even if he did hear the announcement, Hikari would either have no idea that he was lost or no way of doing anything about it. I started to search the floor where I'd left him in both the old and new buildings; then I searched the floors above and below. I had wandered through the store for nearly two hours when I stopped to rest on the landing of the staircase in the new building. It was while I was thinking about the call I would have to make to my wife, staring vacantly out the foggy window, that I spotted him: a short, oddly bent figure, not unlike a dog, making its way slowly but steadily up the stairs of the old building. I dashed to the floor with the connecting passage, and on my way down the opposite side I found him, scrambling along in his overalls, red wool cap pulled down around his ears. His pudgy cheeks were flushed from the exertion, but otherwise his face betrayed no unusual emotion. He barely glanced in my direction. Still, that afternoon as we rode home on the train he held tight to my hand.

Since that day I have often imagined the frightening consequences we might have had to face: we might simply have lost him for good, or he could have fallen down the stairs, or had his hands crushed as he tried to crawl onto an escalator. Would I ever have been able to see myself as anything other than a criminally negligent father who had sent his son toddling off to his fate? In all likelihood, this one momentary lapse would have meant the end of my life with my family. And even now, because of this experience, whenever I see an article of the sort that appears frequently in the newspapers these days about some young mother dropping her baby on the floor to stop it crying, I can never bring myself to condemn these inexperienced, unfortunate people; instead, I identify with them, imagine myself in their shoes, feel their torment. I have no doubt that there are instinctive emotions that allow us to raise our children lovingly and well; but there is also instinct involved in that sudden, inexplicable anger one can feel toward a baby crying in the night....