Author: frankisemptiness

February 10th, 2025

The following letter from me was published by the Capital Times today. The Capital Times is the main newspaper for Madison, Wisconsin and the surrounding area.

“One of the very first executive orders signed by President Donald Trump was to stop the flow of refugees into the United States.

Included in that population of refugees were a large number of Afghans, people who had been our country’s friends and allies for 20 years. Clearly, Trump has the authority to keep refugees from entering the U.S., but these people at least should be allowed to come here.

It is shameful for America to ban Afghans who sacrificed almost everything to help us.”

February 10th, 2025

It is often a struggle to get Asher ready to go to church on Sunday. I don’t think this is a problem unique to Asher. He is a four-year-old boy, and generally little kids don’t enjoy sitting in a pew for an hour. Of course, Asher rarely sits in the pew. He is a perpetual motion machine, constantly on the go. Twice a month, Miss Rachel offers a preschool version of a religion class during Mass, and that keeps Asher happy. However, yesterday she was not at church, so Karin and I had to keep our grandson occupied for an hour.

I find it enormously difficult to focus on the liturgy when Asher is feeling squirrelly. I always have one eye and one ear open in his direction. He tends to run off or throw a stuff animal into a neighboring pew. He is a talkative lad, and yesterday he insisted on speaking loudly while the priest delivered his homily. Honestly, I got more out of Asher’s comments than I did out of the sermon. Still, it would have been nice to be able to have been an active participant in the service and worship with everyone else.

I served as lector at the Mass yesterday. This means that I stood at the ambo (lectern) and proclaimed a passage from Scripture to the assembled congregants. Often, Asher likes to come up front with me while I speak. I talked to him about that after we all finished praying the Gloria and it was time for me to go up near the altar.

I asked Asher, “Are you coming up with me?”

He shook his head. “No, I am going to stay with Oma.”.

I took him at his word and walked up to the ambo. I read from Isaiah 6:1-8. When I was about halfway through the reading, I heard the footsteps of a small person coming toward me. I glanced down, caught Asher up into my arms, and continued to read aloud. The priest ignored Asher’s intrusion. I’m sure he noticed, but he sat in his chair stone-faced.

At the end of the Mass, the priest asked the congregation,

“So, what do the children want to do now?”

He smiled a bit and said, “It was kind of magical time, but now it’s over.”

I didn’t quite know how to take his remarks. I shrugged it off and we got Asher ready to go.

I took Asher to our car and put him into his child seat.

A fellow parishioner stopped at our car to talk to me. He said,

“You know, it means a lot to me when you pick up Asher like that during the reading.”

He smiled, put his hand over his heart, and continued,

“It sends a message.”

Good.

February 4th, 2025

My wife just got off the phone with someone dear to us, who just happens to be residing in the Milwaukee County Jail. This person will be there for a while and then will be going to prison for a currently unknown amount of time. One might think that we do not need to be concerned with this individual while they are in jail. In theory, we could ignore the person for years to come, but we won’t do that because of love and/or stupidity. We refuse to abandon them.

For those who have never been in jail or never had a friend or family member incarcerated, it is often a shock to learn how dependent the inmate is on outside support. Even the simplest tasks become almost impossible to do when a person is behind bars. I will give you an example of what I mean.

My wife recently spoke with the inmate because I cannot. The prisoner has been slapped with a “no contact” order by the court. This order applies to that person’s relationship with me, and only me. Why the judge decided to keep the inmate from contacting me directly is obscure. In a way it doesn’t matter. The actual effect of the order is that my wife has phone conversations with the inmate and then has to pass the information on to me. This individual has been in prison before, so we know the drill. During the person’s previous stint in prison, I did all the leg work necessary to get the inmate what they needed. I will still probably perform that role this go around. It’s just that for now all the needs of the prisoner have to get filtered through my wife. It’s just one more layer of confusion and delay.

One thing the inmate wanted us to handle was an unpaid traffic ticket. The person’s concern was that, if the ticket did not get paid, there might be a warrant issued for the individual, and that would make their eventual release from jail much more interesting. It would normally be a small thing easily resolved. Not this time. The inmate has no way to pay the fine on their own. They have no access to their phone or their credit cards or the Internet. Somebody on the outside, meaning my wife or me, has to pay the fine for the inmate.

I attempted to pay the ticket this morning. Being as we are living in the 21st century, I expected that I could go to the county sheriff’s website and pay it online. I was correct that there was a screen for doing just that. I started filling in the blanks when I realized I did not know the citation number, which is a mandatory piece of information. The inmate might know the number, but probably not. In any case, we can’t call the prisoner. They have to call us. I had to call the sheriff’s department, and after a few transfers, talked to a helpful lady who dug through her files to give me the number. Then I went back to the payment screen and coughed up $275, 3% of which was some kind of fee for doing nothing.

All in all, the payment process was hassle, but not a major one. The problem is that this episode will be just one of many. We will be resolving a plethora of problems for the inmate during their time in the slammer. From experience I know that it will not get easier.

We are the inmate’s lifeline to the real world. Most of the time, we are okay with that responsibility. I am certain that there are many incarcerated people who have nobody on the outside to help them. Those prisoners are screwed, plain and simple. That is the only thing that is simple.

February 1st, 2025

It’s quiet in the house. Karin is spinning wool on her wheel. Our grandson, Asher, is intently watching some You Tube video. Karin and I try to keep him off of the screen, but he nags us until we give in. We check on him to make sure he isn’t watching something violent or scary. We let Asher watch his “movies” a couple times a day. We could be stricter about it, but we’re getting old and we’re tired. He’s young and relentless.

Asher turned four years old in December. He’s a good-natured boy. He’s smarter than I am. I feel sure of that. He’s very strong verbally. At times, talking with Asher is like talking to an adult. He’s good with his hands. Asher is adept at putting things together, and even better at taking them apart. He has a stubborn streak, but he also has a gentle soul. I hope he can keep that (I mean the gentle soul).

I took outside today to play. It was chilly with a strong wind. He drew with chalk on the patio for a while. Then he rode his bike in the street. We didn’t stay outside for long. His hands got cold, and his cheeks got ruddy. We like him to be out of doors at least once every day. He doesn’t need to out for an extended period of time. He just needs fresh air and movement.

Karin and I have been busy with Asher all day. We take turns with him. In the fall things will be different because he will start kindergarten, but for now he is with us always. Even when he starts school, we will be busy with the boy.

A few days ago, Karin said to me, “I guess we’re it”, meaning that she and I are his support system. Right now, there is nobody else, and there probably won’t be for the foreseeable future. I think we always knew that. I think we were aware from the beginning that Asher would probably be our responsibility for the rest of our lives. Recent events have driven that point home. I suppose that, as we age, others will step up to help raise him. We can’t depend on that. We have to depend on ourselves, and Asher has to depend on us.

January 28th, 2025

It was cold and windy in the motel parking lot. Flakes of fluffy snow were swirling in the breeze. I watched traffic flow by on the highway. It was almost 4:00 PM, and cars had their headlights on already. I was waiting in the cold for the locksmith to arrive. I was standing next to a 2009 Buck Lucerne with a shattered window on the passenger side. Except for the driver’s seat, the car was mostly filled with junk; empty energy drink cans, food wrappers, and that sort of thing. The inside handle on the driver’s door was broken. A person had to roll down the window and use the outside handle to open the driver’s door. I knew this from experience. The car was unlocked. Nobody was going to steal it.

I needed the locksmith to make me a key for the ignition. It wasn’t my car. It belonged to somebody I knew. That person had been staying at the motel and was now in police custody. I had no legal responsibility for the vehicle. I was doing the incarcerated person a favor, and I was doing it reluctantly. I had done this sort of thing for the person often in the past, and I was tired of it. However, at some point, the car needed to be moved, and I thought that I might as well get this over with.

It wasn’t like the management of the motel was in a big hurry to get the Buick off of their property. There were cars and trucks on the lot that looked like they had been there for years. Shipwrecks on four wheels. The motel was in the same general condition as the Buick. The place had seen better days, and it seemed like many of the guests had made the motel their permanent residence. Living in the motel was better than being homeless, but not much. Online the motel was described as being “charming”. I guess it is, if you call Gaza your home.

Getting a key to move the car was the last step for me in a day-long treasure hunt. The incarcerated person needed me to find their phone and wallet. I did. Those things were in the motel room. The person needed me to find their car key. I didn’t. Even if I had been able to contact the person in jail, they wouldn’t have been able to tell me where the key was. They couldn’t remember.

This whole episode reminded me of the movie “The Hangover”, where some guys have a wild party and wake up unable to recall any of it. The movie is funny. This experience was not. In the past, I have sometimes gone on a binge and wondered what I had done afterward. I know how that feels. The incarcerated person has done this kind of thing more than once. In fact, this individual’s version of the movie has endless sequels. Only a couple weeks ago, the person wound up in a hospital in Illinois unable to remember where their car was or their credit cards or their winter coat. Somebody else needed to do some detective work.

The locksmith pulled up in his van. I told him that the Buick was unlocked. He asked for my ID. I explained to him that it was not my car. He asked the name of the owner. He did some research online and decided that I was probably legit. He said, “Let’s hope that the door key and the ignition key are the same. If so, I can make it. It will be $215 plus tax.”

Fine. Go for it.

He pulled out a spray can of lubricant and some kind of locksmith tool. He probed the door lock for several minutes and then went back to his van to fabricate a key. He returned with the key and inserted it into the ignition. The lights went on. He pulled out a computer and attached it under the dashboard.

I asked him, “What does that actually do?”

Without looking at me, he replied, “This tells the computer in the car to turn on the fuel pump with the new key.”

He placed the computer on the driver’s seat and said,

“Okay! This will take twelve minutes! We don’t open the door! We don’t close the door! We don’t do nothing for TWELVE minutes!”

Then he slammed the door shut.

I stood in the cold and watched the snowflakes. I waited and waited. The locksmith sat in his van.

He came out and checked on his computer. Then he turned the key. The engine sprung to life.

He said, “Let it run for at least ten minutes. How are you paying?”

I pulled out a credit card and he rapidly removed money from my account. I got into the Buick as he pulled out of the lot. It was only a five-minute drive back to my house. I parked the car near the barbwire fence, well out of the way. When the car had been running for over ten minutes, I turned it off. I waited a moment and cranked it up again to make sure the key would work a second time.

I went into the house and took off my coat. Then I settled down for an hour-long Zoom session with my therapist. I needed that.

January 25th, 2025

A person who I care about is currently in jail. I was the one who called the police on them, and I don’t regret doing it. The person was at that time a danger to themselves and to others. Still, I feel bad about making that decision. It hurt. Intellectually, my choice to call the cops makes total sense. Emotionally, it feels horrible.

I have had several people, including two therapists, ask me if I feel a sense of relief that this person is incarcerated. Yes and no. I can relax a bit knowing that nobody got hurt and, while the person is in jail, they will not hurt any member of the public. One therapist told me that this individual is “safe” where they are. That depends on what “safe” means. The person is in a secure facility and under nearly constant supervision, but that is not necessarily the same as being safe. Inmates often carry homemade weapons. It’s not hard for somebody to make and use a shank. Jails tend to be full of people who are violent or at least unstable. The person I know may in fact be safer than they would be on the outside, but that isn’t saying much.

While the person was at large, they caused me and others intense stress and anxiety. That is for now a thing of the past. Yet, it’s not like they just dropped off the face of the earth. It’s not like I say, “Okay, we’re done with that person. We can move on.” I can’t. There is still a relationship. The person is absent but not gone.

This person has been in jail before. We all know the drill. While they are incarcerated, whether it be in jail or in prison, they will need my support and that of other people. An inmate has very little access to many of the things we take for granted. This person is allowed extremely limited phone time and may only call out. Nobody can call them. They have no computer access. Basically, an inmate has a few phone calls, and they have snail mail. That’s it. In practice, this means that somebody on the outside, in this case meaning me, has to handle their personal affairs. I am just as closely bound to this person as I would be if they were sitting next to me, maybe more so.

I go to bed at night thinking about this person. I think about them again as soon as I wake up. I worry about them all during the day.

For better or worse, they are constantly with me. I guess that’s okay.

January 19th, 2025

Some problems don’t have solutions. This is a fact that I have often found difficult to accept. I am by nature and training a problem solver and troubleshooter. I often expect that, with sufficient knowledge and resources, I can fix almost anything. As I have grown older, I have found that there are many things that I cannot fix.

I have been trying to care for a person with a chronic and perhaps fatal disease. I have known this person all of their life and have actively been involved with the treatment of their disease for well over a decade. There was a time when I thought I had a handle on things and that I knew what to do for the person. I no longer think that way. I don’t know what to do, and I probably never did know.

A debilitating disease is hard on the sick person and on everybody that knows them. Even people who are supposed to be experts really don’t know how to treatment the ailment. It is a shocking realization to learn that everyone is fumbling in the dark for a cure, or even for a way to just alleviate the suffering. Over the years, we have tried a wide variety of treatments. We have received advice from many well-meaning people, and some of it has been good, but never quite good enough. What has been an effective treatment for one person is not necessarily useful for anyone else. Every person is unique and constantly changing. There is no single cure for all people with a particular disease. There can’t be.

It has been hard for us to deal with the progress of the disease. There have been interludes of relative stability and good health. These periods have occasionally been long enough for us to relax. The temporary calm sometimes lulled us into a false sense of security. Then, without warning, there would be a crisis, and all hell would break loose. Suddenly, things were crazy and terrifying. There were days filled with panic. Those crises stay with us and scar us. I am at a point where I can no longer relax. I am always on edge waiting for the next emergency.

I ask myself, “What should I do?” Sometimes, there is something I can do to help. Sometimes, there is not. When I can’t find a way make things better, or at least not make them worse, I feel utterly helpless. This is a feeling that I have often and with increasing frequency.

“What should I do?” is probably not the right question. I have become aware that I may not be called to do anything. There are times when I only need to be. Sometimes, I can only be a witness. I can only listen. I can only suffer along with the other person.

I am learning how to be.

January 19th, 2025

It’s a solid three degrees Fahrenheit outside. I spent a short time in God’s freezer earlier today. I had to do some shopping, and when I cranked up the car, I saw the hated “low tire pressure” light. I wasn’t surprised at all, but I was still frustrated. Sudden temperature drops almost always cause it to pop up. There must be one tire with a bad seal that loses just enough air to trigger the light.

I found a gas station with an air pump. Most every filling station has a pump. The trick is to find one that lets you fill your tires for free. The Kwik Trip has an air pump that costs nothing to use, but it is almost always in use or broken. Today it was broken. So, I went to a Shell station and paid $2.50 to inflate the tires up to 35 lbs. I found that annoying for several reasons. One was that it seemed ridiculous for the owners to gouge a customer for using the business’ air. Another reason was the fact that I had to fill the tires in the cold and the wind.

It’s nearly impossible to get the tiny plastic tire caps off while wearing gloves or mittens. So, I had to remove them with my bare hands, and then I just kept my gloves off while pumping up the tires. It didn’t take long before my fingers got red and stiff. Then they hurt, and they kept hurting for quite a while after I finished replacing the caps and drove away.

The episode reminded way too much of the days when I worked as a supervisor on a loading dock during the winter for a local trucking company. The dock was not heated, and the hundreds of doors in the building were usually wide open. The outside temp was the inside temp. My superiors insisted that I do all of my computer work on the cold dock. I never understood the logic behind that. That was also a job that could not be done well when wearing mittens or gloves, so I took them off. I remember how my hands would ache after a while. I would take a break in the warmth of the office and wait there until the pain ebbed away. Then I would go outside and start the process all over again. That went on for an entire shift.

I retired nine years ago, and I am grateful that I did. As I age, my tolerance for cold weather diminishes. On days like this, I am happy just to sit inside my warm house (like I am doing right now) and look at the frigid landscape through my window. The few minutes I spent pumping up my tires today helped me to recall why retiring was such a good decision.

January 12th, 2025

There are very few children coming to our church services. It’s not like when I was a kid. Back then, there was a special place called a “crying room” just for restless babies and toddlers, and their moms. Older children sat with their parents in church, and woe to the youngster who caused any commotion. Adults were in the minority at any Mass, and they spent an inordinate amount of time keeping their offspring quiet.

The demographics are reversed now. Grey heads or bald heads dominate. There are more walkers than strollers in the church. A few families show up with little ones, but they are rare. People long to hear the voice of child, even if the kid is crying his or her lungs out. I suspect that one reason for the shortage of children at the services is the fact that their parents’ generation has no use for the institutional Church. Another factor is that families are much smaller than when I was a boy. A family with even three children is unusual.

We care fulltime for Asher, our grandson. He is four years old now. Karin and I take him to church most every Sunday. It is sometimes a struggle to get him to Mass, but generally he is a good sport about it. He can be squirrelly. He is not one to sit still in the pew, but then where can you find a little boy who does that willingly? In the old days, the more mature people in the church would give dirty looks to the parents of unruly children. At least, that’s what my father thought. He was ruthless about his kids being well-behaved and not embarrassing him. It made for stressful times during the service, and often afterward.

I read from the Scriptures this morning during the Mass. I am assigned to proclaim the Word to the congregation on occasion, and I am used to doing that. I started serving as a lector (reader) back in 1992, so I am comfortable with speaking in front of a crowd. It takes a lot to get me flustered. Asher sat with Karin in the pew as I got up to read from the book.

Today I read part of Paul’s letter to Titus. I dislike reading from Paul’s letters because he loved long complicated sentences with many subordinate clauses. It is nearly impossible to read some his epistles out loud and be clear and compelling. His words often sound like something from a dry academic lecture. Listeners get bored almost instantly. I get bored, and I’m doing the reading.

As I stood at the pulpit reading Paul’s epistle, I heard the sound of footsteps coming up the steps toward me. I looked down to my right and saw Asher standing next to me. He grinned and said,

“Grampa.”

I hefted him up on to my right hip and continued to read to the congregants. I got back into the flow. It is expected that a lector pauses briefly at the end of the Scripture reading before speaking the final verse. I did that.

Asher immediately interjected, “Hey, that little girl is running!”

I concluded my part and said,

“The Word of the Lord!”

I carried Asher down to the pew. We muddled through the rest of the service. He played with his monster trucks and ate blueberries. I glanced around to check for any disdainful looks from my fellow worshippers.

At the end of Mass, the priest came down to greet us. He’s an elderly man with a good heart. He smiled at Asher and said,

“I loved how he came up to join you for the reading. That was beautiful. He’s a good guy!”

Indeed, he is.

January 14th, 2025

“Stop! Stop yelling! You’ll wake up Asher!”

That’s what I heard as Karin wrenched me out of the night terror. This is not the first time that she has had to do that, and I am certain that it won’t be the last. It’s extremely disorienting when Karin has to drag me back into the material world. She only does that when she is worried that I will hurt myself or somebody else during a night terror. I tend to thrash about and scream. That bothers her.

Asher sleeps with me. He has never slept alone, and he insists that I hold him in my arms when he is ready for bed. Often, we both fall asleep simultaneously, and I will wake up hours later only to realize that my left arm has gone completely numb from the weight of his head on my bicep. At that point, I generally try to free my arm from underneath his noggin without waking the boy. I can usually find a way to slide it out.

My night terrors like to arrive early in the evening. They don’t appear often, but when they do, they mean business. I don’t know why they come. Their emotional content is overwhelming, and the dream events are vague and illogical. Like any good horror story, the scary parts are half-hidden and obscure. If Karin does not wake me soon enough, my heart rate goes sky high, and I wind up with a sore throat from yelling. These are not pleasant episodes.

Last night, I dreamed that Asher was lying in bed with me, which in reality he was. At the foot of our bed stood two mysterious figures. One looked like a massive white wolf and the other reminded me of a vampire, jet black with glowing red eyes. The two of them exuded menace. I knew intuitively that they were demons. I wanted to protect Asher, so I started praying at an incredibly high volume. I got through one Hail Mary and one Our Father. The two demons quivered and flickered like candle flames in a drafty room.

Then Karin burst into the bedroom. It was just as well. If she had left me alone, I would have recited the whole rosary like the lead singer from Five Finger Death Punch, and I would have awakened the little guy.

Once Karin was certain that I was up, she quickly left. I glanced to my left and saw Asher fast asleep. His cherubic face was illuminated by the moonbeam that was pouring into the room from the skylight. He dead to the world. He hadn’t heard me at all. Good.

I did not go back to sleep for quite a while. The images in my mind were still vivid and raw. Are there really demons? I pondered that. Carl Jung was convinced that dreams are meaningful. I have to agree. But what do they mean? What did this one mean?

I’m up now, obviously. Asher is still sleeping, and he is likely enjoying innocent dreams. He tends to giggle in his sleep. I’m happy for him.