Awaken

11Searching for Inner Peace

As my reputation grew and my speaking invitations increased, I found myself warmly welcomed all over the world. But when the car service drew closer to home on my return trips from the airport, I found my stress level rising and my jaw clenching. I would exchange a cursory, monosyllabic greeting with my wife, check in on the kids, and flee to my refuge in the finished basement. Everything I needed was there. My large home office was on one end of a long rectangular room, while the other side was a state‐of‐the‐art home theater, with seven speakers, a 119‐inch pull‐down screen, and two rows of leather couches. I had a bathroom and a guest bedroom down the hall.

Other than at the height of his manic periods, my son, Alok, had always been very loving and sweet‐natured. But by 2006, while I was finishing Firms of Endearment, his condition had become more acute, requiring him to be hospitalized multiple times. He had cycled through several specialized programs at different schools in the Boston area. The school authorities said that they could no longer adequately meet his needs; he would need to be placed in a residential program. The only one available was the Kolburne School in the Berkshires, 140 miles away from Boston. Keeping him at home was not an option.

Both our daughters had been doing well at school and each had a small circle of close friends. At their ages (13 and 11), they were acutely concerned about being embarrassed in front of their ...