Low Magick: It's All In Your Head ... You Just Have No Idea How Big Your Head Is - Lon Milo DuQuette 2010

My Brother Remembers Our Father
Appendix

My life has always been filled with magical events and personalities. In chapter 4, I told how my father had an oddly mystical influence on my brother Marc and myself. In chapter 13, I mention my brother’s psychic and healing abilities. For the reader who would like a little more insight on both these subjects, I offer this brief appendix. It is a chapter from my brother Marc’s autobiography. This little story took place when I was two years old, and provides, I believe, a poignant window onto the character of these two precious magical beings in my life.

ONCE UPON A TIME

Excerpt from Orange Sunshine—

How I Almost Survived America’s Cultural Revolution.¹

Dad was not a religious man. Mom accused him of being an atheist. She once whispered to me, in a conspiratorial tone of voice, that Darwin’s Origin of Species was his Bible. Naturally, I wanted to be an atheist and read Charles Darwin. I wanted to be just like my dad. Thus, I was very surprised by what he asked me to do.

I had just gotten home from school, and was in the kitchen looking for a snack. Dad was on his way to work. He paused on his way out the door, and squatted down eye-level to me. He smelled of cigarettes and appeared very somber.

“Son, the little boy who lives in back of us is real sick. His mom accidentally slammed his hand in the car door. The doctors fixed his hand but he hurt it again. He was playing in his yard and got dirt and dog poop under his bandages. The wound got infected, and he’s back in the hospital. The doctors don’t think he’ll live. He’s got lockjaw. Would you please pray for him, son? God listens to you.”

Dad stood up, grabbed his black metal lunchbox, and without another word, went off to his job in the oil fields. I was eight years old and had no idea why my dad thought “God listens” to me. I didn’t know what tetanus was. I visualized a little boy lying in a hospital bed with a huge lock around his jaw. I silently prayed, “God, if it be your will, please let the little neighbor boy live. Amen.” I didn’t know the kid. I thought my prayer was very half-assed and insincere.

Several days later, I overheard Mom and another neighbor talking about the little boy. They said he was making a full recovery and would be home soon. Dad never again spoke of his prayer request, so I haven’t mentioned it until now.

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1 Marc DuQuette, Orange Sunshine, pp. 1—2.