Author: frankisemptiness

January 17th, 2022

I had a long conversation with a young woman on Saturday afternoon. I started by asking how her job was going. She sighed and said,

“I cared for six COVID patients yesterday.”

“Oh…”

Then she paused for a moment and said,

“But I only cried once.”

The woman is a freshly minted nurse. She just started working at a local Milwaukee hospital. She is currently working in the ER. The nurse has only been there for a couple months, and she is already exhausted. Timing is everything, and her timing is exceptionally bad. It’s not her fault. COVID is raging right now, and she walked right into the fiercest part of the pandemic.

She told me, “I talked to a nurse who has been working for thirty years. She said that things have never been like this. Years ago, they had a shortage of equipment, and they had to get creative with what they had available. But it’s never been this bad.”

The young woman works twelve-hour shifts three or four days a week. Her schedule changes, so I don’t know how many hours she gets in total each week, but those are long shifts. I used to work for twelve hours straight, and I was always completely drained at the end of day (or night). She is always busy in the ER, usually too busy. The work is fast-paced and stressful. It wears on her.

The woman told me a story about a 92-year-old man who was in the ER. He didn’t make it. She said,

“He was the nicest man. He always said, ‘thank you’. He never complained.”

There was nothing this nurse could do to save the man. It’s not her fault that he died on her watch, but the death haunts her.

The woman explained to me that the hospital is completely full up. There are no open beds. The ER is often filled to capacity. Overflow patients sit in the waiting room, and they wait and wait. There aren’t enough nurses. Everything is maxed out.

What seems to bother the nurse most is that she can’t give the patients the care that she wants to give them. She doesn’t have the time or the resources. She doesn’t want to be the person who makes decisions that might determine whether a person lives or dies.

A long time ago, I was an Army helicopter pilot. I was responsible for the lives of the passengers riding in my aircraft. That was sometimes a heavy burden. But it was never anything like what this young woman has to bear. She is intelligent and she is strong, but still…how much can she handle?

She told me that FEMA was scheduled to come and help in the middle of January. she asked,

“It’s the middle of January now. Where are these people?”

I don’t know all the reasons why she chose to become a nurse. I am sure that part it was to serve others, to heal the sick and wounded. She cares deeply about her patients.

Is it possible to care too much?

January 11th, 2022

“To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.” — Henry Kissinger

I know an Afghan family. I use the term “know” loosely. I have never met these people. I have never spoken with them. I was placed in contact with them by a friend of mine who worked for years as a peace activist in Afghanistan. The activist knows the mother/wife in the family personally. My friend asked me to be their “buddy”, and to help them in whatever way I can. I agreed to do that.

I don’t know exactly where this family is living. I don’t need to know. They are somewhere in Pakistan keeping an extremely low profile. Their fled from Kabul before the city fell to the Taliban. They cannot go back home, and right now they cannot go anywhere else. Their goal is to find a new home in a country that is safe for them. Pakistan doesn’t qualify.

I had a consultation with an immigration lawyer on Zoom yesterday. I wanted to find out how this Afghan family could come to the United States. The lawyer, a young woman in California, tried to explain to me what was available to them. There was a lot to take in, and the attorney was not terribly optimistic about their chances. She talked about the family applying for a humanitarian parole. This method of coming to the United States is described as follows:

“You may apply for humanitarian parole if you have a compelling emergency and there is an urgent humanitarian reason or significant public benefit to allowing you to temporarily enter the United States. Anyone can file an application for humanitarian parole. If you do not have an urgent humanitarian reason for your visit, you must follow the normal visa issuing procedures set by the Department of State.” – from the USCIS website.

This is probably easier than applying for refugee status. Getting refugee status (if the person is outside of the U.S) or asylum status (if that person is already within the borders of this country) is a total bitch. The individual applying for refugee or asylum status has to prove that he or she has been persecuted in their home country, or that their lives are in imminent danger if they should return there. The burden of proof is solely on the petitioner. The United States does not have to prove anything.

Two years ago, I sat in on a session of the Immigration Court in Chicago. A migrant that I had been trying to help was in court seeking asylum status. She was from Mexico, and she was living illegally in the U.S. with her children. She had a lawyer with her in court. The woman and her lawyer tried to convince the judge that her life was in danger if she returned to Mexico. Her boyfriend (the father of her children) had managed to run afoul of somebody higher than himself in the food chain of a cartel. The boyfriend fled, as did this woman and her kids. The woman pleaded with the judge, literally begged him, to give her asylum.

He refused.

The woman had not provided sufficient documentation to show that she was in danger. She also did not give a good enough cause for her potential persecution. The kicker with applying for asylum or refugee status is that a person not only needs to prove that they need protection, but they also need to show that they are being persecuted for five specific reasons: race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. It’s not good enough that somebody wants to kill you. They have to want to kill you for one of those five reasons.

Asylum denials are often in the range of 90%+ at U.S. Immigration Courts. Who flees their country with documentation proving that somebody is out to get them? The cartels usually don’t send out signed letters to warn people that they are going to be murdered. I bet that the Taliban don’t do that either. It is often impossible to prove that a person’s life in threatened. Hence, the high denial rate.

The humanitarian parole does not have such a strict standard. However, this Afghan family in Pakistan still needs to show that their lives are at risk. The lawyer that I spoke with on Zoom indicated that the vast majority of humanitarian parole applications are being denied by USCIS. It’s the same story as with the asylum cases. The applicants cannot provide sufficient documentation to convince the U.S. government that they are in danger.

This family has already applied for humanitarian parole. Now they wait for their case to wind its way through the Federal bureaucracy. A lawyer told me today that they might wait a year for a decision, and the decision may very well be “no”.

How is it that the United States could fight a war in Afghanistan for twenty years, and now the Afghans who helped us are left twisting in the wind? There are thousands of people like this family I know. They are suffering. They have no idea what the future will bring. They have little hope.

The only thing that they did wrong was to trust us.

January 1st, 2022

“Be here now.” – Ram Dass

A few flakes of powdery snow fell from the sky to settle on to the shoulders of the people standing at the gravesite. It was cold. A man wearing a fedora pulled his overcoat closer to himself. Everybody wore something on their head. A couple men only had yarmulkes as head covering. The ground was frozen, and a light wind ruffled the top of a tent that had been set up for family and guests.

I think of that day as I carry Asher in my arms. It’s cold today too. I got up dark and early to care for our one-year-old grandson. I am watching over Asher so that my wife, Karin, can a get a bit more sleep.

The funeral was only three days ago. It was the second funeral for me in as many weeks. Ellis died after a long struggle with cancer. His death came as no surprise, but it still hurt. I am not sure how Ellis felt about me, but I loved the man.

Asher plays with his blocks and his little trucks. I sit on the living room floor with him, observing how his tiny hands move quickly and with dexterity. His fine motor skills improve with each day, with each passing hour. The boy scatters his toys throughout the house. Later, I will pick them all up to give Asher the opportunity to do it all over again.

The rabbi explained at the beginning of the service that the “levaya”, that is the funeral, comes from the word to “escort”. He told all of us gathered that the levaya consists of two parts: we first escort Ellis to the next life, and then we escort his family to their period of mourning. Our job was to give Ellis a proper burial, to send him on his way to Hashem.

I am feeding Asher a banana. He loves bananas. He is shoveling in the pieces of fruit with both hands. He is hungry and apparently ambidextrous. He loves food. He savors it. When Asher eats, he is in the moment. nothing else matters.

Each of shoveled earth on to Ellis’ coffin. The members of the family recited the mourner’s kaddish. Then all of us there formed two lines facing each other. We formed a path for the members of Ellis’ family to walk as they left the grave to go to their cars.

Rabbi Dinin said.

“We are now going to escort Jane and her family as they go to grieve for Ellis. You don’t need to say anything to them as they pass by. There are no right words or wrong words to say. Just be there for them. Just be there.”

We spoke softly to the family as they walked past us. Perhaps they heard me say, “Be at peace.” Maybe not. I did what I could.

There is a fundamental question is Zen: “How can I help?” It is not a riddle like: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” It is an eminently practical question. We ask ourselves this question continuously. Zen meditation enables a person to recover the innate ability to know what to do moment to moment. We rediscover our way to intuitively know how to help.

The answer to the question is often simple, but seldom easy. Sometimes it means taking control of a situation. Sometimes it means getting the out of the way. Sometimes the answer calls for gentleness. Sometimes, as any soldier knows, the answer may even require an act of violence. However, we know what must be done, and we are able to do it, if we choose.

I have just put Asher down for a nap. I held him close to me until he fell asleep. I had no need to look at him. I could feel his breathing slow down, and I could feel his whole body relax. Asher is at peace.

After Ellis’ family got to their vehicles, I walked away. I glanced back at Ellis’ grave. He too is at peace.

December 28th, 2021

“When I was little, I thought that adults knew what they were doing. I was wrong.” – Stefan Pauc (my youngest son)

I spend the early hours of the morning watching over our grandson, Asher. He is a one-year-old toddler, and he requires me to be constantly vigilant. The boy is always exploring his surroundings, and always just moments away from getting into trouble. Often, I have to say things like,

“Don’t touch that! It’s hot!” or “Where did you find that?!”

He doesn’t understand the words that I say, but I’m pretty sure he understands the tone of voice that I am using.

Despite my best efforts, Asher still manages to get a bump now and then. Apparently, the sharp corners of any piece of furniture must have especially strong gravitational pulls, because his forehead seems oddly attracted to them. It is impossible for me to keep the boy perfectly safe. He is a moving target. I am not omniscient, and I am not omnipresent. In short, I’m not God.

Adults are supposed to protect children, and I think we try our best to do so. However, the world is a dangerous place and children have to venture into it. Their job is to continually test their limits and push them to the edge, and our job is to make sure they don’t fall off of that edge. There is always tension between those two endeavors.

It makes me wonder sometimes: How do adults function in the world? I’m not sure that I actually know any adults. I know a lot of grown-up kids. If the standard for being an adult is for that person to know what they are doing, then I, along with countless others, are clearly not adults. Most of the time we are just kind of faking it. We muddle through scary situations, and hope for the best.

Years ago, I think it was when I was at West Point, I watched a movie in class. It was an old, black and white, version of “Lord of the Flies”. The film was based on the book by Wlliam Golding. It was the story of a group of British boys stranded on an island. As they fend for themselves, the veneer of civilization is stripped away, and they descend into barbarism. It’s not an optimistic tale.

The final scene in the movie is moving. There is no dialogue. The boys reach the shore and encounter a naval officer, who has arrived to take the children home. Our professor asked us a question about that scene. He said,

“Tha naval officer is there to rescue the boys. Who will rescue the naval officer?”

I have often thought about that question. Is there a meta-adult who will rescue us? Jesus? Buddha? Anybody?

December 21st, 2021

“Not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory, do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy.” – William Wordsworth “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life’s star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar.”

At Christmas many people display a creche, a manger scene. The focus is always Jesus, the Christ Child. All the other figures in this display gaze at the infant with adoration. They recognize that the child is divine.

Every child is divine. Every baby comes from God.

When I held my little grandson, Asher, in my arms early this morning, he was warm and tired. When he rested his head and slowly went to sleep, I could hear his soft breathing, and I could feel the rise and fall of his chest. I could smell his hair next to my face. I could see his right cheek against my shoulder.

Asher was at peace, and so was I.

Asher is also God’s son.

December 18th, 2021

Beth Hamedrosh Hogodel cemetery is located at 134 S. Dana Ct., Milwaukee, WI. It is a hard place to find, at least it was for me. I drove past the entrance by mistake. There was a cement truck blocking most of the street and I thought the road was closed, so I drove around to find a different way into the place. There was none. I had to circle back and squeeze through the only open section of a bridge that was being replaced. The Jewish cemetery is small, actually tiny in comparison to other graveyards. I-94 is right next to the cemetery. The highway and the burial ground are only separated by a dilapidated wooden fence. The location could hardly be called peaceful.

I was several minutes late for Jim’s funeral. Jewish funerals tend to be brief. Jim’s service lasted barely half an hour. I missed the first part of the rabbi’s eulogy. Even though he had a microphone and loudspeaker, it was hard to hear his comments over the roar of the semis on the freeway. It was also a windy day with grey clouds skittering across the sky. Between the howl of the wind and the noise from the traffic, it was difficult to understand any of the rabbi’s talk.

The rabbi, from what I could make out, spoke about Jim’s intelligence and his commitment to the things that mattered to him. He said that Jim was a brilliant man. I would agree with that. He taught mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His outside interests were eclectic. He once gave a talk at a Purim celebration about Yiddish cabaret music in Odessa and Lvov prior to World War II. That was a rather obscure topic, but Jim was able to make it fascinating to me. Jim was one of those people who never stopped learning. He had the insatiable curiosity of a toddler.

I only knew Jim from our conversations at kiddush after the Shabbat morning service. Jim didn’t talk much. He preferred to listen. I found that to be refreshing. Most people, including myself, are not good listeners. Jim was.

There were maybe twenty people at the graveside. Some wore yarmulkes, some not. I didn’t. I knew a few folks there from the shul: Neil, Ken, and Susan. The others were strangers to me. Each of us knew bits and pieces of Jim’s life. It is unlikely that anybody knew him completely. We all cared about him.

The rabbi explained a ritual to us that was traditional for funerals. Each person was encouraged to shovel a spade full of earth on to Jim’s casket once it was lowered into the ground. This was one last act of kindness that we could perform for our friend. It was an act for which we would never receive any recompense in this world. The rabbi went on to say that we should use the back side of the shovel blade to move the dirt. Using the wrong side of the spade indicated our reluctance to say goodbye to Jim. We were doing something that needed to be done, but we did it with sorrow in our hearts.

I participated in the tradition. I had never done that before. I shoveled a bit of soil on to Jim’s coffin. I found it to be a deeply moving experience. It was a physical act, something tangible.

Goodbye my friend. Peace to you always.

December 9th, 2021

I left the Army in the summer of 1986. For reasons that are now obscure to me, I kept some of my uniforms. I put away my dress blues and my Class A uniforms for safe keeping. I placed them in a closet with my full dress uniform from West Point. There really wasn’t any point in hanging on to those clothes. I just didn’t want to let them go.

In March of 1987 our first son, Hans, was born. When Hans came into our lives, then I felt like I had a good reason to keep the uniforms. I figured that, when Hans was old enough to understand, I would show them to him. It seemed like a good plan.

It wasn’t.

In 1991 my wife, Karin, and I built a house, and the uniforms found a home in a new closet. Sometime after that we had a major thunderstorm roll through the area. It dropped a couple inches of rain, and it knocked out the power during the night. This, of course, meant that the sump pump did not work. This meant that, hours later when I looked down the stairs into the basement, I could see my reflection in the water on the floor. The water wasn’t deep, but it was a mess to clean up, and the basement was damp for quite a while, even with a dehumidifier and fans going full blast.

A long while after that, I remembered Hans and my uniforms. I looked into our bedroom closet and found…nothing. I asked Karin about it, and she told me that she had put the uniforms into a suitcase and placed it in the basement. I looked around and found the suitcase on the basement floor. I opened it up and found my uniforms. They were soaking wet and moldy. Absolutely nasty. I threw the uniforms and the suitcase directly into the trash. There was no saving any of that.

I was livid, just furious. I took it out on Karin, and she couldn’t understand why I was so upset. I didn’t understand why either. I just was. I talked to Hans about that incident years later. He thought for a moment and said,

“Yeah, I think I remember all that yelling. You and Mom started going to therapy after that.”

That sounds about right.

I didn’t get to show Hans anything. That hurt. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, but I felt like part of my past had been stolen from me.

Fast forward to December of 2015. Hans joined the Army in 2009, and was deployed to Iraq in 2011. He ETS’d from Fort Hood in 2014. Then he moved into an old Texas farmhouse with Tom, an elderly widower that Hans knew well. Tom lived in the house with their dog, Fritz, while Hans worked for a fracking outfit in east Texas.

On the last day of 2015, the old farmhouse burned down, with Tom in it. Fritz died in the fire too. Hans also lost almost all of his worldly possessions. The only thing he had left from the military was his DD214 (discharge papers). Everything that Hans had from Iraq was gone. He had his past stolen from him.

To the casual observer it might seem that the loss of military memorabilia is something insignificant. In monetary terms that’s true. In other ways it’s not. The loss of my uniforms and Hans’ loss of artifacts from his time in Iraq hurt us because those things were memory aids. They were talismans. Seeing, touching, or even smelling these objects conjured up memories that were otherwise unavailable. These things were comforting in the sense that they were physical proof that what we had experienced was real. Sometimes, without them, it is hard to believe that we were once soldiers.

I kept one thing, and I never showed to Hans until he was in high school. I had my class ring from West Point. I would occasionally pull it out of a drawer and gaze at it, like Gollum in “The Lord of the Rings”. Eventually, I got tired of that. One day I walked into Hans’ bedroom and handed to him.

I have never seen it since.

December 4th, 2021

“So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun”

John Lennon – “Happy Christmas”

I worked as a dock supervisor at a trucking company for almost twenty-eight years. For almost all of those years, the company had a Christmas party (later referred to as a “Holiday party”) during December. Perhaps the corporation had the best of intentions, but I always felt that these festive gatherings were the antithesis of what Christmas means. Christmas is, or should be, about joy.

Maybe I would feel differently about it if I had been a driver or a dockworker. As a supervisor, I was required to attend the party. All salaried employees had to go to the holiday bash. The hourly workers were invited to be there, and many of them did show up. I simply rebelled against the entire concept of mandatory merriment. It was like being told,

“You’re going the party, and you’re going to enjoy yourself, dammit!”

It reminded me way too much of when I was in the Army, and I had to attend formal dining ins. I never understood the idea of socializing with people that I didn’t even like when we were together at work. I’m no good at false camaraderie, even if I’m drunk.

Debauchery was a key element of the holiday party. The big draw, for those who came willingly, was the fact that there was an open bar for one hour prior to the catered meal being served. Guests tended to show up exactly one hour before dinner, and the bar was packed with bodies until it closed.

It is impressive to see how much a person can drink when the booze is free. One year, I sat with a guy who worked on the dock for me. He had spent the previous sixty minutes going back and forth to the bar. Once it close, he proudly displayed a semicircle of glasses in front of his dinner plate. He had accumulated a total of seven tequila sunrises to help him make it through the meal.

He slept in his car that night.

Before the dinner officially started, the boss gave a brief speech. It was always the same. He thanked everyone for their hard work and effort, and told us all that the coming year could be even more profitable. He exhibited the moral code of the cancer cell: bigger is better.

Then somebody got up to give a blessing. The boss usually picked somebody who wore his religion on his sleeve to say the prayer. Without fail, the recitation was long and rambling. At the end, there was a mumbled “Amen” heard from most of the tables. The more inebriated guests shouted out, “Go Packers!”

The meal itself was generally awkward. Many employees had brought their spouses. These people often did not know anybody else at the table. The dinner conversation tended to be about work, which was plainly depressing.

I left the party as soon as was appropriate to do so, sometimes earlier.

So, what does any of this have to do with “joy”.

Sometimes, it is easier to define a word by showing what it is not. The company Christmas party was never a time of joy. It was at best a time of reluctant social mingling, well lubricated by alcohol.

Joy is spontaneous. It cannot be scheduled. It cannot be forced. Mandatory joy in an oxymoron.

Our grandson, Asher, is one year old. He often shows us what joy really is. He may smile contentedly as he munches on a blueberry. He might giggle when lifted off the ground by a pair of strong arms. He will laugh when the dog licks his face.

Asher finds happiness in the smallest and simplest of things. His smile is authentic and infectious. His joy lights up the room.

True joy lights up the world.

November 26th. 2021

Karin, Asher, and I were all invited to a Thanksgiving dinner. It was a small family gathering hosted by the parents of Mikaela, our youngest son’s girlfriend. The invitation was a godsend. Karin and I are the full time caregivers for Asher, our baby grandson. Asher will be one year old next week. Karin and I seldom have time to scratch together a quick meal, much less cook a Thanksgiving feast. We weren’t sure if we would cook anything that day.

Our son, Stefan, was there with Mikaela when we arrived at her folks’ house. Rick and Nena greeted us warmly. I spent some time talking with Mikaela’s younger brother, Nick. When the food was ready, we all sat down at the table.

Rick and Nena explained to us that they have a family tradition during the Thanksgiving meal. Each person at the table is supposed to tell the others what they are grateful for. That’s kind of standard practice on this particular holiday. Karin and I used to do that sort of thing too, years ago.

Mikaela told us that she was grateful for the encouragement and support she had received from her parents in her efforts to become a nurse. Nick was also grateful to his parents. Rick and Nena were thankful that they had such great kids. I don’t remember what Stefan said.

For Karin and me it was easy to decide on what we were going to say. After all, we were looking at the little guy sitting on Karin’s lap. We said that we were grateful to have Asher in our lives. He’s truly a blessing. I added that we were grateful that we have the resources to care for the boy. Lately, I have been communicating with an Afghan refugee family. They also have a baby in their care. Karin and I have a home, good health, and money. The refugees are in good health, but they don’t have those other things. Karin and I struggle sometimes to raise Asher, but we don’t have to struggle nearly as hard as that family from Afghanistan.

What should we really be grateful for?

Love.

We have love in our family, as does Mikaela’s family. The Afghanis have that love too. Love will get you through a lot of hard times.

Money is good to have. Having a home that is warm and safe is a big deal. However, people can get along without those things, at least for a while. Love is all-important. Love is what allows us to survive.

November 20th, 2021

For several years I taught a citizenship class at Voces de la Frontera in Milwaukee. Every Wednesday evening I would go over the one hundred questions on the citizenship test with the people who wanted to take it. One of the questions had to do with the duties of an American citizen. One answer to the question was that an American citizen is required to serve on a jury when asked to do so.

Honestly, there are not many things that an American has to do. We have to pay taxes (most of us). Other than that, the only other duty we have is to serve on a jury. Juries are a curious thing. Only countries that have a judicial system in the tradition of English jurisprudence have juries. The people I taught at Voces were mostly immigrants from Mexico, and they did not know or understand what the jury system was about. So, I tried to explain it to them.

I have served on two juries in my life, both of them were for civil trials. I tried to make it clear to the students in my class that they will get the opportunity to serve on a jury once they are citizens, and that there really is no way of getting out of that duty. I emphasized that serving on a jury is a heavy responsibility. A juror makes decisions that drastically affect the lives of others in the community. It’s a big deal.

People in our country often don’t think of jury duty as a big deal, until something traumatic happens. I am thinking in particular of the recent Kyle Rittenhouse case in Kenosha, Wisconsin. For several days the American justice system has been examined under a microscope, and it has been found wanting. The “not guilty” verdict of the jury has simultaneously caused both outrage and celebration. No matter what the jury decided, the verdict would have inflamed the passions of people throughout this country. However, they had to make a decision, and they quite possibly made the right one.

Rittenhouse was accused of intentional homicide after killing two men at a demonstration in Kenosha in August of 2020. He pleaded self-defense. The prosecution had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Rittenhouse did not act in self-defense and that killings were not justified. The prosecution was unable to do so. Rittenhouse walked away a free man, even though it is clear that he shot down two men.

I will go back to my own experience as a juror. I was the foreman of the jury in both cases (nobody else wanted the job). As I mentioned, I was only in involved with civil suits. The rules are a bit different with a civil trial as opposed to a criminal case. However, there are many similarities.

The most glaring similarity is the fact that in both types of trials a juror is required to decide on only certain questions. A juror necessarily takes a narrow view. A juror is not allowed to speculate on the wider ramifications of a verdict. A juror can only look at the evidence presented in court, and then use that evidence to make “yes or no” decisions. It is tempting to a juror to go off on a tangent during deliberations. As the jury foreman, I often had to reel people back in:

“Yes, that’s interesting, but we need to decide this question in front of us.”

I am sure that the twelve individuals on the Rittenhouse jury privately pondered the potential effects of their verdict. However, whatever they thought about race relations, or about gun control, or about whether Rittenhouse was just a young punk, they could not let those considerations influence their verdict. They were required keep a laser-like focus on the evidence. That was their sole job. That is the job of anybody who serves on a jury.

In both civil and criminal cases, the jury will make somebody deeply unhappy. That’s just how it works. In any trial somebody’s life will be turned upside down. Civil cases generally only involve money, but even mere money can make or break a person’s life. When I was on a jury, I was acutely aware that my choices would have a serious, and perhaps everlasting, impact on the people involved in the trial. Everyone else on the jury was aware of that too. Each one of us took our role seriously. To this day, I am impressed and proud of the attitude and actions of my fellow citizens when were jurors.

Jury duty is difficult. I left both trials feeling uneasy. I did what I thought was right, and I have no regrets about my decisions. And yet…the experience left me drained. I can only imagine the feelings of the jurors in the Rittenhouse trial.

When we completed our service as jurors, Milwaukee County gave us all a refrigerator magnet that said: “It was fair, I was there.” With regards to the trial I helped to decide, that statement was correct. The twelve of us on the jury did our best to be fair.

One last thought. Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty on all charges. He’s a free man. I am guessing that he is also a haunted man. Oh, he’ll be treated like a hero by certain politicians and pundits, for a while. That won’t last. He will be celebrated (and manipulated) for a week or a month, or maybe even a year. Then he will be alone again with his conscience.

My oldest son fought in Iraq. He killed people there, all of them in self-defense. He did what he had to do to survive. Even so, my son does not sleep well. Killing another human being changed him forever.

How will Kyle Rittenhouse sleep?