E.T. to the Rescue 

By Keith Varnum
 

“Ouch!” reverberated from the kitchen as Leslie opened her front door.  

I arrived to pick up my friend and her seven-year-old daughter Kriya to go to the movies. Kriya just burned herself quite severely on a toaster. She came running from the scene of the crime to her mother. The blistered skin on her finger was white, swollen and already beginning to peel off her finger. Kriya was wailing and obviously in great pain. Her mom applied medicated ointment to her finger, but it wasn’t relieving the sting of the burn. 

“Keith, can you help us out?” Leslie knew I recently completed a course in a healing method called Reiki, a technique involving the laying on of hands. As a caring mother, she pleaded, “Would you do some Reiki on Kriya’s finger?” 

Without waiting for my response, Leslie turned to Kriya and told her, “Keith has done this healing class, honey. He knows how to cure burns and take all the pain away.” 

Of course, I wanted to help if I could. However, I’d finished the workshop days earlier and had yet to use my new skill in a real-life situation.  

Buying time to think of a strategy, I softly asked Kriya to let me see her burn. Still sobbing, she hesitantly held the hurt finger up for my inspection. “I’m going to put my hands over your finger,” I said gently, still stalling until I could come up with some strategy. Kriya shook her head and pulled her injured hand away from me.  

Help! I instinctively implored whoever was listening above. Silently asking how I could assist her, my heart and intuition clicked in. I knew Kriya had recently seen the movie “E.T.” My inner advisor said, “Tell her it’s just like E.T.” I had no idea of where I was going to go from there, but I followed my inner instructions. 

Kriya’s tears stopped flowing. She smiled and asked, “Oh, you mean when E.T. takes his finger and fixes the boy?” 

Scrambling mentally to follow her lead, I blurted out, “Yes, it’s just like when E.T. points his finger and the finger starts to glow.” 

“Oh, okay,” Kriya nodded, offering the injured finger to me with the trust only a child can give so completely. 

Since Kriya wouldn’t let me lay my hands on the affected area, I asked silently, What would E.T. do in this situation? Of course, I knew. Very delicately, I extended my index finger to oh- so-lightly touch her outstretched, wounded finger. I whispered softly, “We’re going to do just like E.T.” 

Her face glowed with anticipation. She relaxed and sighed sweetly, “Oh . . . E.T.” 

Kriya, Leslie and I sat together in silence for several minutes. After a timeless interval, Kriya withdrew her finger from our intimate contact. Not only was the pain gone, but also the white, blistered, burned skin had disappeared. Her finger was completely healed. Kriya examined her finger closely just to make sure, rubbing it up and down with wonder. 

Meanwhile, I sat there in total awe, listening to Kriya as she whispered faintly to herself, “E.T. . . . E.T.”  The tragedy and pain over, she started playing with some marbles, content in her innocence that I fixed her finger just like E.T. would have done.