I'm Major Jackson, and this is the slowdown.

When medical science runs its course, we desperately pursue other pathways to healing, such

was the case with my grandmother.

To be released from the hospital with a terminal illness, she handed my grandfather a list

of herbs to purchase that Harry's occult and spiritual shop on South Street in Philadelphia.

My grandfather took me along.

The pharmacy, founded in 1917, started as an old-style apothecary, but Harry began shifting

his business to serve black migrant southerners and their requests for powders and oils.

It was still a thriving business when I was a kid.

I marveled at the skulls throughout the shop.

The bottles neatly organized in front of wooden cabinets.

In a moment of desperation, my grandmother, who was a staunch Christian, embraced the old

traditions of her ancestors.

If you go back, every culture has its folk ways, charms, bombs, and practices meant to ward

off evil or bring healing.

My grandmother concocted some medicinal elixir.

She survived her cancer another 18 months.

I cannot confidently point to her tinctures.

I'm just happy we had her a little longer.

And then of course, there are the swindlers, those who seek to profit off the desperation

of the ill and dying by offering fake cures.

Today's poignant narrative poem highlights the extent of our vulnerability when we wish

...