Nothing hurts a parent more than watching your child suffer. My three-year-old daughter had the flu recently and a piece of me crumbled. I know that things could be worse than a cough, a fever and some phlegm. But seeing her hacking and restless makes me restless. "Go to the store and pick up some Zarbee's and Chestal with honey," my wife ordered, our daughter tucked between her arms.
I ran to the door like a rom-com protagonist, stopping to blow a kiss at my hacking child before blasting to the drugstore to clean out the child medicine aisle. I took it all: Zarbee's and Children's Tylenol and Children's Motrin and Children's NyQuil, even though I know my wife won't give the baby the hard stuff. I bought it because I take it. Those overpriced Whole Foods herbal and homeopathic cold remedies do nothing for me — I need that old stuff like Robitussin (which we call The Tessem) and heavy-duty cough drops that dissolve into my hot tea. So I buy the children's versions for her, just in case. As I load the cart, I walk past a refrigerator case of ginger ale — the one fluid that has cured generations of Black people. This is what the baby needs, I think.
