Author: frankisemptiness

March 15th, 2025

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” – the Litany Against Fear from Dune by Frank Herbert

I am afraid. I worry about many things. As the legal guardian for our four-year-old grandson, Asher, I fear that he might lose his government health insurance if Congress and President Trump gut Medicaid. I wonder what is going to happen to Social Security and Medicare. My wife and I depend on both of those programs. The state of the economy frightens me as tariffs and other forces introduce chaos into the system. I won’t even start talking about foreign affairs. This essay would be far too long if I did.

I am certain that I am not the only American who is anxious about the present situation, much less the future. If the polls are at all accurate, then millions of other people in our country share my concerns. Many of them live in far more desperate conditions than I do. There may be changes coming that qualify as existential threats for a lot of folks.

So, what do we do?

The Serenity Prayer states:

“God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.”

There is wisdom in that prayer regardless of whether a person believes in God or not. There are some things in life that I cannot change, and I just have to roll with them. There are other things, in my personal life or in my community, that are possible for me to influence. Fear is not inherently bad. The point is not to let fear paralyze me. That is why Frank Herbert describes fear as “the mind-killer”. Fear is a universal emotion and a necessary warning to humans that there is danger. There is a choice in what I do with this emotion.

I know a brave young man who climbs up on tall buildings nearly every day to weld structural steel. People tell me that he is fearless. That is incorrect. He is often frightened, and that is as it should be, because the danger he faces is real. However, he allows the fear to pass over him and through him, as it says in the Litany. His fear forces him to be careful in his work. He exercises caution, but he still gets the job done. He completes the mission.

We are surrounded by voices telling us to be afraid. Social media encourages that. The fact is that fear sells. Politicians know that, and the worst of them manipulate us through our anxieties. It is exceedingly rare for someone in politics to inspire confidence in us. Most of them prefer to be predators.

Am I saying that everything will be okay? I tell Asher that, but I am not saying it in this article. We face dangers that are real. Some bad things can happen and will happen.

So, once again, what do we do?

We need to trust in ourselves. We need to trust others. That means we have to take risks. We may not be required to climb up 44 stories to work on a new high rise, but we need to listen to our fears and then act upon them.

March 13th, 2025

It was an interesting day. My wife, Karin, was sick, so I took charge of our grandson, Asher, for most of the day, from the time he woke up until midafternoon. Asher is four years old. He’s a feisty lad. The boy is full of energy and eager to do things. That’s healthy, but it is also exhausting for an old man like me. I took Asher out for breakfast at a 1950’s-style diner. He consumed scrambled eggs, sausages, and pancakes. Asher is adept with a knife and fork. After that, we spent well over an hour at the local library. Asher spent most of the time playing interactive games on a huge touch screen. We did actually read a book while there. Then we went to a playground.

It was a warm spring morning, so we went to Kayla’s Place, a large playground that attracts dozens of children on a good day. I expected to spend an hour there with Asher. The visit lasted far longer than that. Why?

Asher found a girl.

From what I’ve seen, Asher does not actively look for a girl to play with. He just finds them, or sometimes they find him. That’s his karma. In this particular case, Asher noticed a young lady wearing a lavender shirt with sparkly stars on the front of it. She was carrying a stuffed animal: Rocky from Paw Patrol. Asher just happens to have the same stuffed animal at home, so he casually mentioned this fact to the little girl. He gave her his patented smile with the prominent dimple on his right cheek. After that, they became inseparable.

The girl’s caregiver, who I assume was her grandfather, was there to watch over her, just like I was observing Asher. I tried to strike up a conversation with the man, but he would have none of it. There was no sign of solidarity from him. I don’t know why. In any case, he was continually busy advising his young protege. The guy had a nearly constant monologue going:

“Okay, Sweetie, give the other children some space. That’s good. Thank you. Now, don’t be bossy. That’s better. Thank you. Watch out for the little person next to you. That’s good, Pumpkin. Thank you.”

This went on and on and on. I don’t hover over Asher like that. I watch him, but I let him do his thing unless it somehow seems unsafe. Actually, when Asher and I are together, he generally does most of the talking. He has a lot to say.

Asher and the lavender girl wandered all through the playground. They went down the slide together. She pushed Asher on the swing, with her caregiver providing a great deal of unsolicited advice to her. Then Asher pushed her on the swing. They crawled through a tunnel that looked like a big caterpillar. They both fell over inside it and laid next each other laughing. At one point, after riding on top of a couple giant frogs that rested on large springs, Asher came up to her and stood in front of her grinning. The girl asked him,

“Why are you standing so close to me?”

That was an innocent question, but it was one that she probably won’t need to ask ten years from now. She will know why.

They were playing on some parallel bars. Asher fell off and she helped him to get back up. Then she took his arm, and they walked hand in hand around the playground.

I thought to myself, “They sure aren’t wasting any time.”

The girl’s grandfather watched with some concern. I glanced at him and said,

“Wait until they’re teenagers.”

He did not respond to that. however, he suggested to the little girl that she play with other kids. She gave him a cold stare that said, “I’m busy here. Do you mind?”

After a while, the girl asked her caregiver for a snack. He pulled out a bag of arrowroot biscuits. Who buys arrowroot biscuits, and why would they do so? They were basically cookies, and the girl offered Asher one. He ate several. I am sure the grandfather assumed that I was starving Asher.

The girl convinced Asher that they should play a game where each of them was a Paw Patrol characters. Asher seemed uninterested, but the girl was adamant. She told Asher to chase her. He did.

After several laps around the playground, she wore his ass out. She kept running but he slowed to a walk. I guess he should get used to this sort of thing. He will no doubt be chasing some other girl in the future.

Asher came up to me and took my hand. I asked him,

“What do you want?”

He replied, “I want to go home.”

He started for the exit, completely ignoring the little girl.

I told him, “Say goodbye.”

The girl was sobbing, and her caregiver was unsuccessfully trying to console her. Asher waved to her and said, “Bye!”

No response from the girl. Apparently, he left her brokenhearted.

I never thought all of this would start so soon.

March 8th, 2025

A few days ago, Karin and I took our four-year-old grandson, Asher, to an orientation at the Tamarack Waldorf School on Milwaukee’s eastside. We plan on enrolling the boy into one of the kindergarten classes at the school for the fall semester. Karin and I are familiar with the school. Two of our children went there. Our youngest son was at Tamarack for kindergarten twenty-five years ago. My feelings about being there again are conflicted. It seems so strange to be starting this cycle again.

It would probably be helpful if I tried to explain what a Waldorf School is. People have written entire books describing Waldorf education, so I will give a very stripped-down version of what it is all about. Waldorf schools have a curriculum that is holistic in that each subject has some connection with every other one. Every grade level has a theme to it. The underlying assumption is that the development of an individual child resembles the course of all humanity history in microcosm. Each boy and girl reenact the journey of all mankind. I find that to be a remarkable idea, and it implies that every child is intrinsically of value.

The kindergarten is the start of the journey, and beginnings are important. There is an obsession in our culture to treat students as commodities. Schools, be they public or private, tend to groom children to become industrious worker bees, ambitious cogs in the corporate machine. They are told to be winners, whatever that means. I have had people encourage me to start teaching Asher how to read now. They tell me that he needs to get ahead, or at least not fall behind the kids in his age group. The Waldorf school will not push Asher or his classmates to be competitive this soon in life. They will learn how to socialize, how to draw, how to sing, and how use their imaginations while playing. In short, Asher will get a chance to be who he is, and right now he is just a little boy.

Asher got to spend an hour with other children in the kindergarten classroom while the adult caregivers talked in the room next door. The school building is old. It has to be a century old if not more. The windows are tall. The floors are all hardwood. Nearly everything in the classroom is made of natural materials. There are many things fashioned from wood or ceramics or cloth. Each kindergarten room has a loft that the kids can use as the tower of a castle or the bow of a pirate ship. Everything that exists in the classroom is there to stimulate a sense of wonder in the child. There was one plaything in particular that caught my fancy. It looked a bit like a model of a tree. There was a vertical wooden shaft with metal leaves surrounding it in a spiral pattern. The leaves on the top of the tree trunk were small and they increased in size as they got close to the base. Asher dropped a wooden ball from the top of the tree. The marble rolled and followed the spiral of metal leaves, and the ball struck a musical note upon bouncing off of each leaf. Each consecutive leaf rang a lower note as the ball descended. It sounded like somebody was playing a scale on a xylophone. Asher was delighted with the toy. So was I. The room had other objects just as fascinating.

While Asher was playing with his potential classmates, Karin and I sat with other adults to listen to a kindergarten teacher describe the class activities. Asher will play outside everyday regardless of the weather. He will go each day to a nearby park. He will listen to his teacher tell him stories. He will draw or paint or sculpt with beeswax. He will play games with the other kids. He will make friends. He will share snacks with them. He will become more human.

I felt sad. I wasn’t feeling that way because of Asher. I’m excited for him, perhaps even more excited than he is. I felt sad because our own children went to this school, and they still suffered mightily when they became adults. They have experienced enormous trauma in the years since they were Asher’s age. They were like Asher at one time, just little kids, and now their innocence is long gone. Was their time in a Waldorf kindergarten of use to them? Did it prepare them at all for the challenges they faced? Did it do any good?

I don’t know. I can never know. I do know that our grown-up kids are resilient and brave. Maybe being in a kindergarten like Asher’s gave them a chance to grow strong. Too many children never have the opportunity to be young. They are forced to grow up way too early, and that causes trouble later on in life. We want Asher to be little boy while he can. We want him to have a childhood.

March 1st, 2025

I have a neighbor who lives down the street from me. I see him every once in a while, although not so much now seeing as it’s winter and it’s cold outside. I used to take walks with my grandson, Asher, in the warmer weather and we would see Rob puttering around in his garage. I never could tell what exactly he was doing. He’s an older gentleman and I think he might be a little deaf because he always had talk radio blaring while he worked. He would have his back turned to the street, puffing on a cigar, oblivious to the world outside of his workshop. I would call out to him. Sometimes, he heard me and turned around to wave at us. Once in a great while, he stopped whatever he was doing, and we’d talk for a bit.

Rob has Marine Corps stickers on the back of one of his cars. He also has stickers showing that he’s a Vietnam vet. Sometimes, we would talk about the military. Rob’s stories are better than mine. Back in August of 2021, he told me one of them. I was there with Asher. He must have been in the stroller because he wasn’t even one year old at the time. Asher wasn’t much interested in what Rob had to say, but I was.

Rob had been a Marine sergeant on a Navy ship in the South China Sea on April 30th, 1975. He was involved when the U.S. frantically tried to evacuate Vietnamese civilians as Saigon was falling. He told me about how chaotic it was. They were shoving aircraft off the side of the ship to make room for more. It was total bedlam.

Rob told me the story the day after Kabul fell to the Taliban. We talked about the evacuation from Afghanistan. I asked him what he thought about it.

He just shook his head and gave me weary smile. Then he said,

“Well, I guess we didn’t learn much.”

It’s almost spring, and soon I will probably see Rob in his garage again.

What will he say to me if I have to tell him that Kyiv has fallen?

March 3rd, 2025

This letter of mine was published two days ago in the Capital Times of Madison, Wisconsin. It was also published this morning in the Boston Globe.

Henry Kissinger is said to have quipped, “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”

During Kissinger’s time as secretary of state, the people of South Vietnam found that statement that to be true. Since then, the Afghans have learned that lesson the hard way.

It seems like the Ukrainians will also discover that Kissinger was right.

February 27th, 2025

I have a friend, a former coworker, who has a nephew in prison. The nephew is doing ten years for killing a person while driving drunk. My friend told me that the nephew’s father, who is in his seventies, is worried that he might not be alive when his son finally gets released. I thought about that. The father has a legitimate concern. He can visit his son once in a while, but he may never have a close relationship with his boy again.

I have another friend. This man did sixteen years in prison for shooting at a cop. He has kids, but he never got to see them grow up. They had a father who was absent from the most important years of their lives. They were raised by other people.

I know a young woman who is going to prison. She has a small child. She will miss seeing him start kindergarten, along with missing other milestones of his life. They will be able to exchange snail mail and have video calls, but the boy won’t see his mama very often. She won’t be able to care for her child. Someone else has to do that.

Should people like the three I mentioned go to prison? Probably. Do they need to be isolated from the society at large? Yes, at least for a while. Is there a better way to deal with them?

I don’t know.

In our country, we like to talk about a “war on crime”. That’s an interesting metaphor. Our criminal justice system focuses on public safety, which is as it should be. The system also tries, at least sometimes, to give victims of crimes some closure and recompense. However, the system is more about retribution as a form of deterrence than it is about restoration and healing the wounded community. We look at the situation as a war and we fight it that way.

If we are in a war against crime, then there are noncombatants, just like in any other kind of war. If there are noncombatants, then there is often collateral damage. People who had nothing to do with the crime suffer because they are somehow related to the perpetrator. These people can be parents, children, spouses or friends. They have done nothing wrong, but they will be punished just like the person who committed the offense.

Is justice really justice if innocents suffer along with the guilty?

February 25th. 2025

Our little grandson, Asher, wanted me to hold him. I bent over and held out my hands. He let me grab him and pull him up. Asher wrapped his arms around my shoulders and smiled.

My wife, Karin, was sitting on the couch. She smiled too and said,

“Grandpa is always Asher’s favorite.”

There seemed to be just a touch of envy in her voice. I had never noticed that I was Asher’s favorite. My impression was that Asher gave his affection equally to whomever was willing to satisfy his needs or wants.

I asked Karin, “Why am I his favorite?”

She said matter-of-factly, “Because you’re his rock.”

“I’m what?”

“You’re his rock. That’s what people say about you.”

Apparently, I am oblivious to what people say about me, because I found it surprising to hear that. Since that brief conversation a few days ago, I have been pondering what it means to be Asher’s rock.

There is an old song by Paul Simon titled, ‘I am a Rock”. The lyrics of the song describe a person who has withdrawn from society and has made himself impervious to emotional suffering. The last verses of the song say,”

“And a rock feels no pain. And an island never cries.”

I don’t think that is kind of rock my wife meant. However, I have in fact been that kind of person. The song was a touchstone for me in my teenage years, and following the suggestion of Pink Floyd, I spent many years “comfortably numb”. Some rocks don’t feel. Karin wasn’t referring to that sort of rock.

I believe that my wife and others think that Asher trusts me. They see that I supply Asher with security. I am there for him, and he knows that.

Many years ago, I volunteered with a program that tried to help families with troubled teenagers. During each cycle of the program, we spent one entire session discussing the topic of trust. In other sessions we tried to teach communication skills and other ways for family members to work out their problems. However, none of those things mattered unless the people in the family trusted each other. Trust was absolutely crucial, and it was often completely absent. Parents might not trust their teenager because the son or daughter is an addict. A son might not trust the father who had abandoned him. A daughter might not trust a mother who is manipulative. A husband or wife might not trust the partner that betrayed them. Without trust there is no way forward.

We used to do a group exercise called the Trust Wheel. Each person would draw a picture of a wheel with themselves as the hub of the wheel and the spokes representing the individuals who they trusted. We would discuss each drawing, and the artist would explain why they trusted certain people and how much they trusted them. Some wheels had very few spokes.

I know from experience that I can love a person deeply and not trust them any further than I can throw a refrigerator. Love and trust are not the same things. Love can be enduring regardless of a person’s actions. Trust is a terribly fragile relationship that requires constant maintenance. Trust has to be nurtured with thousands of small acts of honesty and dependability. However, trust can be destroyed in a moment. All that is required is a single act of betrayal. Ask anybody whose partner has cheated on them. It is nearly impossible for that trust to be rebuilt.

Asher trusts me. He knows that I will be there when he goes to sleep, and I will be there when he awakes. He knows that I will keep him safe. The two of us fight at times, but he knows that I won’t turn my back on him. This is vitally important for a four-year-old, and probably for anybody else. He needs a rock in his life, and for now I am it.

February 21st, 2025

Examination rooms in hospitals are all pretty much the same. The room where the three of us sat looked just like the rooms at other ERs. Asher wanted to know what everything was. He pointed out a thing that looked like a balloon attached to a plastic tube. Karin explained to him that it was there to give a patient oxygen if they needed it. He asked about the boxes of blue latex gloves. Karin told him that the people working in the hospital wore the gloves sometimes. He pointed to one of the boxes and said,

“There is LX on the box.”

Karin told him, “That’s for ‘extra-large’ gloves. You read the letters as ‘XL’.”

Asher replied with the unshakeable confidence of a four-year-old, “No, it’s LX.”

Karin corrected him, “You are reading the letters backward.”

Asher insisted, “It’s LX.”

Karin glanced at me. I said, “Maybe he’s used to reading Hebrew.”

Karin gave me a weak smile and then grimaced from pain in her neck and left shoulder. We were at the urgent care facility because she was hurting. She had noticed the pain in the shoulder the day before, but she had tried to ignore it. She had taken an Advil and used some ice, but the pain got worse. It hurt when she moved her arm. It hurt when she turned her head. It hurt when she coughed. Finally, it just hurt too much, and suddenly we decided to take a ride to the hospital. Karin really did not want to go. Doctors and PAs have a habit of telling patients things they don’t want to hear. Karin was afraid of what she might hear.

The PA ordered some x-rays. She had asked Karin about the pain. The pain and numbness extended from her neck down to her left hand. The PA asked Karin if she had any idea what caused it. Karin had a clue about that. Two days prior she had been feverishly working to complete a sweater for Asher. The sweater had intricate patterns and required tight knitting. To do the work Karin had spent hours holding her shoulders stiff in order to get the handwork just right. She admitted to the PA that she might have overdone it.

The x-rays showed quite a bit of arthritis in and around the shoulder joint. There was inflammation. The trapezius muscle was tight as a snare drum.

The PA prescribed pain meds and a lidocaine patch for the shoulder. The PA also suggested a muscle relaxer, but the side effects sounded way too interesting. Karin is going to get a call in the near future about starting physical therapy to help with the pain and stiffness. The PA told Karin to pause frequently while knitting. She might as well have suggested that Karin take periodic breaks from breathing.

I have been reading “My Name is Asher Lev” from Chaim Potok. The book is about a young Hasidic Jew who cannot stop drawing. He is a gifted painter who struggles with his talent. The story eloquently describes the intensity and passion of an artist. For Asher Lev painting is not a hobby. It is his life.

Karin is a true artist. Her fiber arts are an integral part of her being. She has been knitting for probably sixty years. She also likes to crochet, weave, dye, and spin. Karin is almost constantly working with her hands. She is endlessly creative. She attempts new projects to challenge herself. She experiments with new techniques, new colors, new textures. Her art keeps her young in mind and spirit.

However, her body is getting older. This not the first time that her hands or arms have registered a complaint. She has to pace herself in order to do what she loves.

This is hard.

February 16th, 2025

I received a brief but heartfelt email yesterday from an old friend and West Point classmate. The first sentence was striking. He wrote:

“I’m sure I’m not alone in worrying about you.”

Based on my experience, that is often the first comment of a person preparing to stage some kind of drug intervention. I find it shocking that somebody would actually say that. I guess it never occurs to me that there are people who worry about me.

My friend is aware that I have a lot going on. There are numerous stresses and ongoing crises in my life that test my patience and endurance. At times they seem overwhelming, but I muddle through them. I’m not in danger of a meltdown, but I can see how others could be concerned that I might have one.

Then he wrote, “I’m not trying to be flippant, but is there a hobby or activity that brings you pure happiness?”

That’s a good question, but it made me laugh. Hobbies? Seriously? The mention of a hobby implies that I now have copious free time available to me in my retirement years. It’s like I’m bored and want to take up pottery or golf. I know that my friend is aware that my wife and I are the fulltime caregivers for our four-year-old grandson. That means we do not have much free time at all. Karin and I haven’t had a day off from watching Asher in the last four years, and that is probably not going to change any time soon.

He also asked, “Do you have something that brings joy to you?”

That is another good question, and I take that one seriously. The truth is that caring for Asher, while often a hassle, brings me joy. It really does. He is an intelligent lad and possesses a youthful energy and innocence that I lost decades ago. He is generally fun to be with, and I don’t know what I would do if Asher were suddenly not part of my life. Raising Asher is not a hobby. I can’t just stop caring for him and then go back to that work when it is convenient to me. Raising the boy is a vocation. It is a calling. To put it into military terms, it is my mission. Yet, it gives me a sense of purpose and often joy.

If I in fact have a hobby, it is writing, what I am doing this very minute. Writing is something that is a creative outlet for me, and I can squeeze it in during those brief periods of time when Asher is not making insatiable demands upon me. I write to process experience and express my thoughts and feelings. I post these essays in the hopes that somebody, anybody, will find them useful. It is not an entirely selfish activity. I am gratified if I learn that something I wrote resonates somehow with another person.

My wife, Karin, takes refuge in her fiber arts: knitting, weaving, crocheting, spinning, dyeing. She has told me that her handwork keeps her sane. She too engages with her “hobby” during those intervals when Asher does not need her. The various types of handwork are her passion. She creates wondrous works of art. She just completed a massive blanket to give to our granddaughter in Texas. It is pink, purple, and white in color. It is filled with images of mushrooms and fairies. It’s gorgeous. Karin never sells her work. She gives everything away. Her talent is her gift, and she freely shares that gift with others.

Are there things we would like to do but cannot, at least at this time? Yes. We would like to travel again. I would like to do volunteer work with migrants and veterans again. Karin would like to take extended classes on weaving again. Those things will have to wait. Asher takes priority.

I don’t want my friend to worry about me. I have my struggles, but I am able to handle them. Sometimes, the struggles are what make life meaningful.

February 9th,2025

I know an elderly woman who was the primary caregiver for her son. Her son suffered from cerebral palsy and paralysis. The young man was often in pain. Yet, he was an artist and apparently a warm, loving individual. This woman took care of her child for decades. Her life revolved around her boy, even when he was grown up. From what she told me, looking after him was sometimes extraordinarily difficult, but also extremely rewarding. She has no regrets about spending so much of her life serving him. She is sad, but only because her son is dead, and she misses him.

I know a couple from the synagogue that I used to attend. They are quite old now, and they spent years caring for their son. Their boy was born about the same time that I was. When I was a helicopter pilot in West Germany in the early 1980’s, their son was an officer in the Soviet Army fighting in Afghanistan. He came back from his war severely wounded and deeply traumatized. The man was a brilliant engineer, but he became an alcoholic who could function only part of the time. As the years went by, his parents spent more and more of their time and money helping him. They would stay with him for months on end, and they were always worried about him having a relapse and ending up in a hospital. They buried their son two years ago. Their only regret is that they couldn’t do more for him. Until the very end, they had hoped he would heal and be well.

I have a friend who is caring for his father. His dad has Alzheimer’s disease, and my friend goes to his parents’ house twice a day to help his mom get his father in and out of bed. The father has increasing difficulty with speech and movement. My friend sees the gradual deterioration in his dad, and it grieves him. He insists on being there for his father, even when it is inconvenient or stressful. He won’t abandon him.

Being a caregiver in our society is common but somehow abnormal. We live in a culture which is relentlessly transactional. The basic question in almost all of our affairs is: “What’s in it for me?” Unless a person is a professional caregiver, like a nurse, there is no tangible reward for helping another person on a continuing basis. Sometimes, the person receiving the care gets well and that can be gratifying. However, often the person who needs the help has a chronic or debilitating condition, and they don’t get better. However, as you can tell from my previous examples, there are people willing to be of service for extended periods of time.

My wife and I are fulltime caregivers for our four-year-old grandson, Asher. We have been in that role since he came home from the hospital’s NICU as an infant. Like many other caregivers, we are watching over our charge 24/7/365. I have had a number of people look at me, shake their heads, and say,

“I couldn’t do what you do. I don’t know how you do it.”

Honestly, I don’t how I do what I do, but I still do it. I firmly believe that nobody knows what they can do for another person until they are confronted with that challenge. Some people can’t be caregivers and some people won’t. Like the other folks I have mentioned, my wife and I chose to care for Asher, and we continue to make that choice.

Is it hard? Hell yeah.

So, why do it?

We do it out of love. That answer probably explains nothing, but that is the only answer. Love is hard to describe. It is not rational. It is not self-serving. It is mysterious and it is powerful, perhaps the most powerful thing in the universe.