When it was over, the lady next to us asserted, “Your prayers have been heard, and whatever you came for has been cured.”
Mr. and Mrs. Gilreath said the same thing as we were leaving. “That is the way the hands on healing works,” Mrs. Gilreath explained.
I turned to Raj. “Let us see,” I said.
We took Rajan onto the stage behind the curtain to see if his testes had descended. We both sighed in disappointment. They had not. Raj and I looked at each other, reading the sadness in each other’s eyes. Despite our skepticism, we had been so hopeful. While I’m not sure why I fell down or what it meant, I believed strongly in prayer and still believe in it, even though this priest’s prayers did not heal our son. I cared deeply for my son’s wellbeing, and I would never stop praying for him.
In 1980, we applied for Rajan to attend the preschool at Summit Country Day. Although Rajan still wore a cast on his feet, he was able to walk, and so one day, we scheduled him for an interview at the school. We were nervous, wondering if he would be able to answer all the questions, because he had spent a considerable amount of time in the hospital and in doctors’ offices. But since Raj worked with him, teaching him the alphabet and numbers, he did well and was accepted.
During all this time, we treated Rajan as a normal child, disciplining him and asking him to help with house chores appropriate for his age. Raj had taken a pair of rubber thong sandals, removed the top straps, and taped them to the bottom of his cast so he could walk with a flat foot. It gave him confidence to walk more without being wobbly. It seemed that although his body was not growing as it should (he was small for his age), he was progressing well at school. Raj would talk with Rajan’s teacher often, and she said he did well in all the classroom activities and was learning at the same rate as the other students. We were thrilled to hear of Rajan’s progress and how competitive he was.
Every year, we celebrated Rajan’s Fourth of July birthday by setting off fireworks outside our house. In 1980, when Rajan was three, a police officer showed up. As he approached me, all the kids hid in the garage.
“What’s going on?” the police officer asked.
“Officer, today is my son’s birthday, and we are setting off fireworks to celebrate the Fourth of July, just like the rest of the country.”
“I’m sorry,” the officer said. “One of your neighbors thought the kids were playing with fireworks.”
“Would you like a beer while we set them off?” I asked.
“No thanks,” he said. “I’m on duty. You just carry on.”
Once the kids realized the officer wasn’t going to arrest me, they came back, and Rajan asked him, “Wasn’t it fun, the fireworks?”
The officer left after a few minutes when he saw I was the one setting off the fireworks.
As with the fireworks, I enjoyed pleasing Rajan and making him happy. One year, while driving with my family to a hospital management convention in Tucson, Arizona, with my family, I played a book on tape, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and Rajan loved it so much he begged me to play over and over. We all grew tired of it after playing it once, but for Rajan’s sake, I played it again and again.
As time passed, my career continued to flourish. In February 1979, I was asked to present a paper at a convention in Orlando, Florida. The paper was titled “A Simple Approach to Controlling Inventory Dollars,” and I was thrilled to walk around the convention center wearing the prestigious name tag and blue ribbon indicating I was a speaker.
After my presentation, my old industrial engineering professor, Russ Buchan, approached me with a big grin on his face. “Look at you, Kris. Look how far you have come. It seems not long ago you were a student of mine, and now here you are presenting a paper!”
The following year, I flew to Tucson, Arizona, and Atlanta, Georgia, to present a paper about the case cart system that Mrs. Gilreath and I developed. At that point, I was known at the national level in the Hospital Management Systems Society, and I felt like I was walking on air to be able to wear a blue ribbon and walk around the hotel as a speaker. After attending these conventions, I came to be known as a good speaker because my presentations were results-oriented.
Chapter 19
In late May 1981, my family and I visited India so our parents could meet Rajan for the first time. They were overjoyed to see Rajan and hold him close to their chests. He bonded with my father right away. While there, my father said the words I longed to hear.
“We have gotten our passports,” my father informed me. “Now we just need a visa to come to the States.”
After four weeks, I returned to America early for work, and once my parents completed all the requirements a few weeks later, they came to the States with Raj and the boys. They agreed to stay six months with us in the States because I persuaded them that they would get a much better taste of America the longer they stayed. Also, I simply missed my parents, and I did not want them to come, only to leave in hardly any time at all.
I hoped my parents would see our big house and two cars and find comfort in knowing we were doing well. I hoped my mother would see how comfortable I was and wouldn’t feel that I should move back to India. Also, I hoped they would see my lifestyle in the US and decide
