- One muggy Miami afternoon, my parents decided
to surprise my brother and me
with a early Christmas gift, an exorcism.
They'd flown in an African pastor.
You know one of those charismatic pastors
that speaks in tongues and runs on hot coals.
They believed me and my brother needed
to have our demons exorcized.
My brother, because he was mentally ill,
and you see my very, very loving,
but very superstitious parents believed that mental illness
isn't just an illness, it's a demonic curse
so they believed once my brother's demon was exorcized,
he'd be cured and perfectly normal.
My parents also believed I needed an exorcism
because I was 31, unmarried,
unemployed and childless
and that clearly wasn't normal.
So they believed once my curse was exorcized,
I would be married, with five kids and be a doctor
and or a lawyer and I'd be cured and normal
and not dark and cynical, but who could blame me
for being dark?
I'd watched my brother, a perfectly sweet
and wonderful human being be ravished
by a severe psychotic illness
and no matter how hard he tried,
no matter how many medications he took or how hard we prayed
for a miracle he never got better,
he only got worse.
And then there were my own struggles
which paled in comparison to my brother,
but I never thought I'd be in my 30's and not be married
or not have a career.
And I mean I tried.
Advanced degrees, online degrees, online dating.
None of it worked so I just shrugged and I said,
that's life, life sucks.
But deep down, I didn't want to be so dark and cynical.
I wanted to believe my brother would get better.
I wanted to meet Mr. Right.
And most of all, I wanted to be a storyteller,
but after years of rejections and disastrous dates,
I didn't see how any of that would happen.
So I just shrugged and I said that's life, life sucks.
Well, my Nigerian family wasn't buying my life sucks motto.
While my parents believed my curse could be exorcized,
my family in Nigeria had a much, much better solution.
They wanted me to travel back to Nigeria
and perform a traditional ceremony to make peace
with the gods.
The ceremony they wanted me to perform
was one of the most revered and feared in all of Nigeria.
It was a ceremony for Olokun, the water goddess,
also known as the mermaid.
They would immerse you in Olokun's sanctified waters
and then bring you back up, pure and new,
cleansed from your wrongs.
When my dad told me this, I said,
"But I haven't done anything wrong."
Then he said, "Oh, it is symbolic, like getting baptized,
"and you must sacrifice a white goat."
"Oh," I said.
"That's really exciting."
And then I asked my mother,
"Mom, what's your tribe's version of the ceremony?"
She said, "We throw babies in the river."
"Babies?" I said.
"Oh yes, but only the deformed babies," she said.
"Okay, so it's perfectly okay to drown deformed babies?"
And she said, "No, they do not always drown.
"If Olokun pushes the baby
"back up out of the water,
"it means it is a mermaid child.
"It was meant to be deformed, like a mermaid."
So even for me that was one
of the darkest things I'd ever heard,
but it was also quite beautiful.
The idea of a mermaid saving a child
that'd been thrown away by the world
for being deformed and not normal
and she pushing it back into the world,
confirming that she'd made it that way.
It was never meant to be normal.
But my parents didn't really believe in mermaids and gods.
Those were all myths.
Demons, however, are very real to my parents.
So there I was in their living room about
to have this crazy African pastor drive demons out of me,
but then something happened.
The pastor laid his hands on my head
and he closed his eyes.
I remember he said, "I am having a vision,
"you are a storyteller, yes?"
I said yeah.
"I see it, I see you telling your stories
"to millions of people all over the world.
"God is going to use your stories
"to change the world."
And then a miracle did happen.
I started to cry because he said
the one thing that I so wanted to believe
but I couldn't see for myself.
And then I felt something push me
off the floor.
My parents would say it is your renewed soul
being exorcized from the demonic curse,
and my cynical side would say yeah right
because years later I'm still unmarried and childless,
and my brother is still very, very ill.
But now I believe in God and I believe in mermaids,
and I believe God made me and my brother
his little deformed mermaids.
And if he made us this way,
then we must be okay.
And most of all, I believe it was God
who pushed me off the floor that day
because deformed mermaids
can still be great writers,
and wives and mothers.
All they need is a gentle push.
♪ Soul pancake ♪