Author: frankisemptiness

February 9th, 2021

The furnace is running. Lately, it seems to always be running. It is currently a solid zero degrees Fahrenheit outside. The forecast is for the weather to remain frigid for at least another week. We cranked up the heat inside the house to make Asher more comfortable. We can afford to pay a bit more for gas to keep our two-month-old baby warm.

I got up an hour ago to feed Asher and change his diaper. I let the dogs out (they did not stay outside long). Now Asher is in his bouncy chair sleeping fitfully.

Asher always sleeps fitfully. The visiting nurse came to our house yesterday to check on Asher. We mentioned to her that Asher is a remarkably noisy sleeper. He grunts and groans, mutters and snuffles, and makes the sound of a bleating goat while he dreams his baby dreams. The nurse shrugged and said that these nocturnal noises are normal for a premature birth. The nervous system is the last thing to be completed in a human, and it’s not quite done in Asher. She went on to say that 90% of the premature babies get over this phase. Eventually, we will be shocked and surprised by how quiet he is. This happens already on occasion: Asher suddenly gets quite in bed, and then Karin and I immediately panic. We are okay once we know that he is breathing.

Despite COVID, Karin and I are meeting many new people. Asher’s mom is in jail right now. Asher’s father is MIA. We brought in Child Protective Services (CPS) to help with the situation. That was a life-changing decision. Getting the government involved was like getting on a rollercoaster. We are in for a ride.

Everyone we have met from CPS during the last week (yes, it’s only been a week since this all started) has been friendly and helpful. The case workers, nurses, and lawyers have all seemed to be remarkably grateful to us. They keep thanking Karin and myself for stepping up to care for Asher while his biological parents are unavailable. Apparently, this sort of situation is not typical. My understanding is that often nobody is willing to care for the child. I find this to be both disturbing and depressing.

(There has been a brief pause while I fed Asher another bottle of formula. The lad has all the patience of a boiling tea kettle.)

Everybody we have met has a laser-like focus on the wellbeing of little Asher. That comforts me. They really do care. This is a good fit since it coincides with the our interests. We all want Asher to be happy and healthy.

Thus far, Asher is very healthy, and often happy. He has been thriving in our home. He was doing well when his mother was living with us, and he is doing well now. Asher weighed 3 lbs. and 13 oz. when he was born on December 2nd of last year. Now he tips the scales at 10 lbs. and 1 oz. That’s not bad. He is filling out nicely.

What happens next?

Don’t know.

The father is absent. He has been peripheral to Asher’s life, and I expect that he will remain so. The beauty of having CPS involved is that, if the dad decides to enter Asher’s life, he has to deal with the State of Wisconsin, not with us. If he has complaints or gripes, he can go directly to CPS. I don’t think they will be particularly sympathetic.

The mother’s future is uncertain. She might go back to prison, but I think that is unlikely. Everyone, including her parole officer, is trying to get her into treatment. The universal goal is to get this young woman healthy and reunited to her baby. That makes me hopeful.

Karin and I don’t mind caring for Asher. He is truly a blessing from God. We are not alone when we love him. Many people have offered to help us with Asher. In fact, my sister-in-law, Shawn, flew up from Texas to be with that little boy. Asher is makes us feel like we’re really living. And honestly, Asher is probably the only reason that his mother is still alive. He is alright being with us.

However, it would be better if he was safe and serene in his mother’s arms.

February 3rd, 2021

“[Horror fiction] shows us that the control we believe we have is purely illusory, and that every moment we teeter on chaos and oblivion.”
― Clive Barker

I have attempted to organize the events of the last three days into a coherent narrative, and I have failed utterly. Creating a meaningful story from the chaos and confusion of the last 72 hours is impossible for me to do. Maybe a person who has some distance from what has happened can make sense of it all. I can’t.

So, I will try to describe various scenes, without explanation or comment. They will be like photos without captions, or like shards of a shattered mirror.

To start…

I heard Asher crying late on Sunday night. Karin and I had both been asleep for a while. Asher was in the other bedroom with his mother. I listened to Asher cry, and waited for a couple minutes. It usually takes the young woman about five minutes to give Asher a bottle, and then get him to settle down. Asher cried for much longer than five minutes.

I got up and walked across the hallway. I opened the door to the young woman’s bedroom.

Asher was lying on the floor, on his belly, wailing. The young woman sitting on the floor nearby, her head slumped over. I tried to rouse her, but she was passed out. She’d been using something, but what? I picked up Asher, and felt the old sensation of fear. Anger came too.

The paramedics came after we called 911. They went to the young woman’s room. She hadn’t moved at all. A paramedic patiently tried to pry information from the girl. She balked at that. The paramedic became impatient.

“Hey, c’mon, work with us here! What did you do?”

She mumbled that she had drank hand sanitizer. The medics poured her into an ambulance.

The cops showed up.

One officer came in, looked around, and said,

“I’ve been here before.”

I nodded and replied, “Yeah, you have.”

The police know our address very well.

Karin and I talked to the cops. We told them that we just can’t deal with the stress and fear any more.

The cop asked me, Do you want us to call CPS (Child Protective Services)?”

“Yes”.

Hours later…

I got a call from a doctor at the hospital where the young woman had been taken. He told us that they had dried her out. Then he explained to me that she had left the hospital, gone to a local store, bought booze, and got drunk in public. She was back in the ER, asleep. He told me that her BAC was at five hundred (.500). That’s close to being dead.

Much later…

I drove the woman home from the hospital. Upon our arrival, it became clear the the girl was still drunk, or at least not thinking straight.

A loud argument. Harsh words. She screamed at me,

“I should have stabbed you when I had the chance!”

I took that as a threat.

Another call to 911. Some of the same cops showed up. The girl fled to her bedroom. I walked with the police down the hallway.

The sound of shattering glass.

The sight of a smashed window, with the young woman standing in the snow outside of it.

The cops took her.

Still later..

A two hour-long conversation with a woman from CPS. A change in custody. Papers to be signed.

As we signed the paperwork to get Asher to stay in our home, the lady from CPS said,

“You look worried. Are you regretting doing this?”

“No.”

“Are you worried about the young woman?”

“Yes.”

“But you’re okay with this protection plan?”

“Yeah. This is hard, but it has to be done.”

The lady nodded.

Now…

Asher sleeps next to me. Karin is in bed getting the rest she desperately needs. The young woman is in jail somewhere.

I keep picking up pieces of broken glass.

January 26th, 2021

The young woman was in the hospital for four nights. So, for four nights, Karin and I cared for little Asher. He is eight-weeks-old, and he’s going through a growth spurt. In fact, he gained almost a pound last week. So he is drinking three ounces of formula every two hours, night and day. That means one of us was up with him every two hours.

The first couple nights were chaotic. We didn’t have a system. Then we got a groove. A parent never really forgets how to care for an infant. It’s kind of like riding a bicycle or having sex. Even after many years, the old skills come back.

Karin and I divided up the night shift. She is by nature a night owl, so Karin cared for Asher during the first half of the evening while I slept. I consistently wake up in the middle of the night (after effects of working third shift for decades), so I started watching Asher after midnight. Karin would feed and/or change Asher, and then go back to whatever she was doing. If she was already in bed, she would take care of the boy, and then try to sleep again. I chose to stay up once I started my turn with Asher. For me, interrupted sleep really isn’t sleep at all. I would stay awake until Karin roused herself in the morning.

There really wasn’t much I could do when I was on watch, other than hang out with the little guy. Sometimes, if he was sound asleep, I could put him in his vibrating seat and do some writing, like I am doing now. At other times, Asher was not so cooperative. He’s a good kid, but he he needs to eat, and he needs to poop. He also needs to be held.

I held him a lot.

I walked with him around the house, chanting to him softly. Asher rested his little head on my right shoulder as I held him close to my body. After I while, he got heavy and I sat down with him. I slouched back in a chair, and Asher laid on my chest. His breathing was occasionally fitful, but most of the time it was steady and soothing.

When Asher is sleeping deeply, he makes little sounds with his outbreath that sound like “hah, hah, hah…”. As he rested on me, he relaxed to the point that it felt like his bones had turned to jello. His body was warm against mine. I could feel him breathe. I could feel the rapid beating of his tiny heart.

I suspect that he could feel my heartbeat too. He could sense the pattern of my breathing. We connected without speaking, without words. Two bodies and two souls seeking a common rhythm.

It was hard at times to care for Asher in the middle of the night. It wore me out. I don’t have the stamina that I used to have.

However, someday I won’t be able to hold like I did. Someday we won’t be able to bond like that. It might not make any difference to him, but I will miss that time together.

January 23rd, 2021

Traffic sucked. We were heading westbound on I-94 at exactly the wrong time of day. The afternoon rush hour was in full swing, and the vehicles slowed to a crawl as we were crossing over the Marquette Interchange in downtown Milwaukee. About a mile west of the interchange, the freeway narrows to three lanes. This creates a chokepoint that stalls traffic every day. When we got there, I saw nothing but a sea of red brake lights.

I was taking the young woman to the hospital. She had a packed bag with her. She wasn’t necessarily looking forward to going there, but she was resigned to doing it. I wasn’t thrilled about driving her to the hospital but, like the young woman, I knew it had to be done.

We had just left a house full of anger and sorrow, and being in a traffic jam was actually a relief from that stress. When the cars had been moving along swiftly, we had not said much to each other. We had been focused on our own thoughts. The girl had been munching the last of her McDonald fries, and finishing off a can of Bubbl’r. I had been watching the cars racing past me or changing lanes without signaling. Then it all slowed down.

We had time to talk.

The young woman asked me, “Do you know the ‘Baron Trump’ story?”

“The what?”

“The ‘Baron Trump’ story. Some guy, a hundred years ago, wrote a story about Trump, and it’s totally accurate.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I mean the first name is spelled differently, but a lot of the stuff is the same. It’s like this guy already knew Barron Trump.”

“Okay…”

The young woman continued, “That story is just like my life.”

“How so?”

“Well, remember when I was little, and I thought that I was really a princess? It was like there was this fairy tale about me. Well, Barron Trump has a fairy tale about him. There’s got to be a story about me.”

“You think so?”

“Well, yeah. I mean people always come up to me and say, ‘Don’t I know you?’, or ‘I’ve seen you before somewhere’. People dream about me, and then they meet me. It’s like these other people already know my story.”

I thought for a moment, then said, “Everybody has a story. Maybe it’s written already, or maybe we are writing it now.”

She spoke of her baby boy, “Asher is in my story.”

“Yeah, he is. Did you know ‘Asher’ means ‘Ten’ in Arabic? I’m not sure about Hebrew. The word for ‘ten’ in Hebrew is like that, but not quite the same.”

(“Ten” in Hebrew is עשר, pronounced “Asir”. That is pretty close to “Asher”.)

The girl got interested. Asher’s name means ‘Ten’? Ten has always been my favorite number. You know Asher has a lot of ‘twos’ in his life. He was born at 2:00 PM on 12/02/2020. So, the number two is big. Asher is a Jewish name. What is ‘two’ in Hebrew?”

“I can’t remember. I know in Arabic the number ‘two’ is ‘ithnain’ (اثنان).”

(“Two” in Hebrew is שניים, pronounced “Shnime”)

She shook her head. “What does the number ten mean in Hebrew?”

“It’s just a number.”

“I mean, does it mean something else besides that?”

“I don’t know. I do know that there is a whole science of numbers (gematria) in Hebrew. The letters in that alphabet are also numbers. So, words have hidden meanings, and numbers can have hidden meanings.”

“I wonder what all the twos mean for Asher.”

“Maybe we can find out.”

“Yeah.”

Traffic started moving again. We were quiet for a while.

She told me, “We need to write my story.”

“We may have to change names to protect the guilty.”

By that time we were pulling up to the hospital entrance.

I told her as she pulled out her bag, “I’ll wait here until I know your admitted.”

“Okay.”

“Good luck with everything.”

“Thanks.”

Then she said, “Do some research on Baron Trump for me.”

Then she walked away.

January 17th, 2021

“The Heart Kyol Che is an opportunity for students who cannot sit the traditional Kyol Che, or who can sit only part of it, to participate by doing extra practice at home and doing together practice as they are able. This will run concurrently with the traditional Kyol Che. By doing this Heart Kyol Che together, we will strengthen our own practice, and provide support to our fellow students who are able to sit the traditional Kyol Che. We in turn can draw inspiration and energy from their commitment.”

from Peter Neuwald, abbot of the Great Lake Zen Center, Kwan Um School of Zen

Kyol Che is a winter meditation retreat that is practiced in South Korea.. The participants are often Buddhist monks and nuns, although nowadays Kyol Che is mostly practiced by lay people. The phrase “Kyol Che” roughly means “tight practice”, which implies a enhanced type of meditation routine. Since monastic communities tend to be geared around prayer and meditation anyway, this retreat is just an intensification of their normal regimen. However, the retreat is more difficult for lay persons, seeing as the demands on their lives are different from those of monks or nuns.

That I know for sure. I just woke up fifteen minutes ago to help feed our grandson, Asher. I’m sure that some Buddhist monks and nuns get up at 2:30 AM, but I doubt that they are awakened to the sound of a crying infant.

On Saturday morning, the Great Lake Zen Center hosted a mini-retreat on Zoom. I attended for a while. The retreat went for three hours or so. There was chanting, sitting meditation, and walking meditation on the schedule. The session attracted all the usual suspects. Meditation is often considered “together action”, and there is a real, although mostly spiritual, sense of unity when we all sit in the same room silently. However, due to the pandemic, we aren’t sitting together, and that feeling of unity suffers.

The half-day retreat also offered kong-an (koan) interviews with Zen Master Dae Kwang. A kong-an is a question that does not necessarily have a rational answer. An example of this would be: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” The purpose of the kong-an is to force a Zen practitioner to break through discursive thought to find an intuitive answer. Or perhaps the kong-an is a way for the student to become more aware of his or her attachments. The interviews with ZMDK are ways for the Zen student to find out if they are on the right track with solving the riddle of the kong-an.

I sat through the morning bell chant during the session. That is how Zen practice starts. Most of the time, the chanting helps me to relax and focus my mind. That didn’t happen on Saturday. The other members of our household were busy caring for Asher, and a six-week-old baby produces certain amount of unavoidable noise and chaos. I found it impossible to meditate with the maelstrom of activity swirling within a few feet of where I was sitting. I gave up practicing after the bell chant, and joined the fray.

I also saw no point in participating in the kong-an interview with Zen Master Dae Kwang. I know that years ago he gave me a kong-an to ponder. I have completely forgotten it. If I had joined him for an interview, he might have given me a new kong-an, and I am certain that I would forget that one too. I really like talking with ZMDK, but I’m not going to solve a classic kong-an. It’s just not going to happen, so why should I waste his time?

Yesterday morning, the young woman who we love brought Asher to me in the kitchen. She needed to take a shower and clean up their bedroom, so the girl asked me to watch over the lad. I did so.

I held Asher to my right shoulder. He snuffled and burbled softly as he slept. Asher rested his tiny cheek on my shoulder, occasionally spitting up on my sweater. His right hand tugged reflexively on a long, white strand of my beard. I walked with him.

I thought of another Buddhist friend, Senji. He’s a Japanese monk, and he follows a different tradition. In his order, they chant and drum. They almost exclusively use the phrase “Na Mu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo”. This phrase is a from the Lotus Sutra, a famous Buddhist text. The founder of Senji’s order managed to distill thousands of verses from the Lotus Sutra into seven syllables. I have to admire that.

I asked Senji once, “So, really, what does ‘Na Mu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo’ mean?”

Senji gave me a broad smile and said, “It means: ‘You are love. You are beauty. You are Buddha’.”

I doubt that is a direct translation, but I’ll go with it.

As I walked slowly with Asher, I whispered into his ear,

“Na Mu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo. Na Mu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo. Na Mu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo…”

Over and over again.

I have meditate when and where I can. I won’t be sitting on a cushion. However, I can walk or sit with Asher. I can meditate on him, and follow his breathing. I can feed him or change him. Asher is my Heart Kyol Che.

January 16th, 2021

I wake up at night every time I hear Asher cry. This occurs multiple times. Asher’s shrill voice is not all that rouses me. I also hear that rapid footsteps of his mother in the hallway, as she rushes from their bedroom to the kitchen to make him a bottle of formula. It takes at most five minutes for the young woman to get up from her bed, prepare Asher’s meal, and then feed him. Somehow, that feels like an eternity while I listen to Asher making his needs known.

I could get up to help the young woman, but how? I can’t comfort a hungry baby. Asher knows exactly what he wants, and he wants it now. I can’t help the young woman do her work any faster. It seems like in these instances the best that I can do is to keep out of the way.

Maybe I just have a guy attitude. My wife, Karin, is much more inclined to leap into the fray and give assistance, even when none is required or wanted. Sometimes that works. The young woman is independent in most matters, and prefers to do things on her own. This is usually commendable, but she needs to know her limits. She is learning that the hard way.

She is a new mom.

I hesitate to write about the struggles of a new mother, since I have never been one, and I never will be. I don’t understand all that is involved. I probably don’t understand any of it. I can only rely on my experience in helping Karin to raise three children of our own. Even a dad can learn a few things.

The young woman who lives with us is learning about how to love. She learning what love really means, and this is always a difficult lesson. Love is about sacrifice, so we don’t learn about it, since our society tends to avoid it at all costs. Love may or may not have to do with feelings. In the case of this young woman, she is motivated by her feelings for her six-week-old son. These feelings are no doubt overwhelming. She is starting to understand that she will do anything for this helpless child. Her desires, and sometimes her needs, take second place to what Asher needs. That’s how this works.

The young woman has to learn that her needs do, in fact, matter. She cannot adequately care for Asher without taking proper care of herself. She needs to eat and sleep in order to help her son. It is hard to to know when to receive help and when to give it. We have already run into situations where the young woman has pushed herself too hard for too long, and the consequences have been unpleasant. The girl is slowly becoming aware that Karin and I, two old people, are here to assist her. We can ease her burden within to a certain degree. We are all mere mortals, and we all need to know when to say, “Enough”.

I truly do not know how mothers can raise a child. I know that these women do it all the time, but at what cost? Here we are, three adults in our house, and we are still exhausted from caring for one tiny boy. We have most, if not all, of the material things that this child needs. We just need the time and the energy. Those are sometimes in short supply.

We are all learning how to love. We are all learning when to say, “I need some help”. We are all learning when to say, “I’m here for you.”

It’s a process and a struggle.

It is worth it.

January 13th, 2021

The World Health Organization has defined violence as:

“the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.”

 Americans love violence. We really do.

We are just selective about who we want to hurt.

Many of our Representatives and Senators have spoken out about the violence during the riot at the Capitol last week. Five people were killed during that melee. Without exception, our legislators have condemned the violence of the mob, and the subsequent loss of life. People have described the barbarity as being “un-American”. That is not true. That sort of mayhem was very American. It’s totally American.

Last week these very same members of Congress overrode President Trump’s veto to pass the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) and fund our nation’s military institutions with another $741 billion. The bill passed by a vote of 322 to 87 in the house, and 81 to 13 in the Senate. Very few of our legislators voted against spending damn near three quarters of a trillion dollars to get America the best violence that money can buy. Of those who did vote against this spending bill, I am sure that even fewer did so because they abhor violence.

It all depends on who is getting hurt. We don’t really care if a wedding party in Afghanistan gets blown away by a Hellfire missile fired from a drone. We don’t really care if some Iraqis die when we invade and occupy their country. We don’t care if civilians in Yemen die from disease and hunger because we are arming the Saudis. As far as we are concerned, this is all the price of doing business in the world. We don’t know any of these people, and we don’t want to know them.

However, we definitely do care when a crazed mob of Trumpistas bust into the Capitol and terrorize the legislators hiding there. We are outraged when five people die in this recent madness, but we shrug when we are told that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died because of the violent behavior of the United States.

My son fought in Iraq. He told me about killing people there. He shot some folks, and he stabbed a man to death. My son got medals for doing that sort of thing. The guy who killed the cop at the Capitol with a fire extinguisher won’t get a medal. He will most likely go to prison forever.

The killer at the Capitol has been roundly condemned. The policeman he killed has been called a hero. Flags are flying at half-mast for the cop. Our country honors Officer Brian Sicknick, and it should do so. He was defending those who were defenseless and in danger.

The cop who killed Breonna Taylor in Louisville is free. So is the police officer who pumped seven rounds into the back of Jacob Blake in Kenosha. Are there any flags flying lower for Breonna or Jacob? No. Why not?

It all depends on who is getting hurt.

I wonder if our connection with violence goes deeper than our conscious thought.

I woke up from a night terror an hour ago. Bad stuff. I never remember much from these dreams. I only know that in the dream something dark and evil was coming at me through our front door.

I heard Karin’s voice calling to me frantically. My wife roused me from my dream. This has all happened many times in the past. Karin often pulls me away from my demons. She has some self-interest in all of this. When I have my dark and twisted dreams, I lash out. I sometimes strike Karin inadvertently.

I woke up from Karin’s anxious words. My heart rate was through the roof. I could only hoarsely say, “Sorry.”

It was quiet in the dark.

I finally broke the silence and said,

“Good night.”

Karin sighed deeply. She murmured sleepily,

“Stop hitting me.”

January 11th, 2021

Karin and I don’t often go to Mass on Saturday evening. In general we try to attend church services on Sunday morning. However, Karin has had a hard time gathering her strength early in the day. She is by nature a night owl. In the best of times, Karin tends to drag in the morning. Seeing as she is still recuperating from COVID, it is even more difficult for her to rouse herself. Her energy is very low when she wakes up.

I wanted to take Karin to Mass, but she was unsure about being fit enough to go. She has experienced brief bouts of dizziness and vertigo. She told me that she would decide about attending Mass on Saturday afternoon. Karin felt well about an hour or two before it was time to leave home. She took a shower, dressed, and then I drove her to church.

As we entered the church parking lot, I asked Karin,

“Do you want me to drop you off at the entrance?”

She replied, “No. I’ll walk with you from the car, just in case I need to lean on you.”

This liturgy this last weekend celebrated the Baptism of the Lord. That marked the official end of the Christmas season for the Catholic Church. The creche (Nativity Scene) was still set up when we came into the church. St. Rita has a large wooden Nativity set. It has all the usual figures: Mary, Joseph, Jesus, the shepherds, angels, the Magi. In most ways, the creche is nothing out of the ordinary.

Karin loves one aspect of scene. Most Nativity scenes show Mary gazing at her child with awe and wonder. A person looking at her image gets the idea that she is already worshiping her boy as God Incarnate. The statue of Mary in our church’s manger scene is different. Mary holds her baby to her breast and hugs him.

Karin said, “I really like that. That’s what a real mother would do.”

True.

Karin and I sat together at Mass. Father Michael greeted Karin. He was very happy to see her. She hadn’t been in the church since November. Other people also came up to her to welcome her back. Their words were warm and authentic.

The fact is that the pandemic has shattered the church community. There are many people missing from the pews. Some of them will return. Some of them will never come back. There are various reasons for their absence: illness, fear of infection, crisis of faith. A few of the parishioners are dead. It is a big deal to see somebody is in their usual place once again. It is a bit like witnessing a resurrection.

There is a certain amount of physical movement involved in Mass participation: standing, sitting, kneeling. Think of it as Catholic aerobics. Karin did fine during most of the liturgy. We both knelt during the Eucharistic Prayer. I stood up at the end of the prayer. Karin did not.

Karin sat in the pew. She looked worn out. I stood while the congregation recited the Lord’s Prayer. Karin gave me her hand, I held it while we prayed together.

Karin felt well enough to get up to receive Communion. I was glad for that. I know how important it is to her.

At the end of Mass, several people came up to speak to Karin. I think that was a great comfort to her.

On the way out, Karin spoke to a friend about the creche:

“See how Mary holds her baby? That’s how a real mom would do it!”

January 7th, 2021

Today I feel ashamed to be an American.

Yesterday’s violence and chaos in the Capitol makes me physically sick. How can I talk to any of my friends overseas, and not feel embarrassed? How can I talk to anybody, and not feel humiliated by the actions of some of my fellow citizens?

All my life I’ve watched people in this country wave our flag and puff out their chests, shouting, “America is number one!” In some ways that’s true. We have the largest military. We have the biggest economy. The United States is materially rich beyond the dreams of most of the world. We are world leaders with regards to technological advances. In almost every physical way, America is number one.

How do we rank morally?

Yesterday, the actions of our President, of his political acolytes, and of the MAGA mob, indicate that our country has a deep and pervasive rot in its collective soul. We have always prided ourselves on being a shining beacon of democracy, an example to emulated by other nations. We have believed in the myth of American exceptionalism, the notion that the United States is in some obscure way superior to all those “shithole” countries. We have assumed that we are inherently good people.

It is tempting for me to write it all off as nonsense. After all, our history is loaded with violence and hypocrisy. We have been at war with somebody almost continually since the birth of the United States. We enslaved Black people. We practiced genocide against the indigenous population. We claimed to follow God, when we actually worshiped the Almighty Dollar.

I grieve for my country. Both I and my eldest son served the United States in the Army. We both took an oath to fight for the Constitution, against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I hesitate to call myself a patriot, but if I wasn’t, yesterday’s disaster wouldn’t hurt me so much.

Americans have done many positive things in world, despite everything. People around the world admire American virtues. They depend on us to provide a good example. They want us to be as good as we claim to be.

Yesterday we let them all down. We failed them.

We can be better than we were yesterday. We will be better. I know that. I believe that we really are good people.

I won’t feel ashamed for long.

January 5th, 2021

Tom died five years ago. Actually, he passed away on December 31st, 2015, so that makes it a bit more than five years ago. I am trying to remember things about Tom, but after five years, the details of his life have become fuzzy, and I have to focus on broader themes.

Tom was my sister-in-law’s stepfather, so he wasn’t a close family member. Tom lived down in Texas, which meant that he wasn’t very close geographically either. However, I got to see Tom at least once a year, when we would drive to Texas to visit my sister-in-law, Shawn. One way or another, we would meet up with Tom and his wife, Delphia.

I remember having some long conversations with Tom. Actually, any conversation with Tom was a long conversation. He had been born in Montana, but to me he was a classic Southerner. He spent a lot of time in Louisiana before he moved to Texas. He said nothing in a hurry, and he saw no point in staying on topic. While he chain smoked, we would have wide-ranging discussions about damn near everything.

Tom was older than me. We connected when we spoke about our experiences in the military. Tom had been in the Air Force back in the 1960’s. I think he told me that he was stationed in England during the Cuban Missile Crisis. That had to be interesting. Since I had been an Army helicopter pilot, we would trade stories about flying. He never hogged the conversation. He had great stories.

Tom lived with Delphia in an old farmhouse near Calvert, Texas. Delphia had a green thumb, so there were rose bushes in front of the house, along with other flowers. The house needed some work. Whenever we visited, it looked like there were a number of renovation projects in progress. The funny thing was that there never seemed to be any changes. There were half-completed jobs that stayed that way. After a while, I got used to that.

Tom was a generous man. Mostly he was generous with his time, which I think is difficult for people in our culture to do. Tom was a good listener, and he knew that listening required time. He would sit and listen to folks, even when he had other things to do. This meant that some of those things did not get done. That was okay. Tom’s priority was people, not things.

Hans, our oldest son, really liked Tom. They were kindred spirits. They loved to talk about projects. I am not aware that they actually completed any of them, but they could talk a job to death. They would look at a broken down tractor and come up with all sorts of great ideas about how to get that thing running again. They never seemed to get much further than the planning stage. In the end, the tractor remained a static display in a farm field.

In 2009 Hans joined the Army, and eventually he was deployed to Iraq. Delphia died from dementia in 2012. Tom remained living in the old farmhouse. When Hans got discharged from the military in 2014, he went to live with Tom.

Tom and Hans made a good team. They knew how to care for each other. Hans knew that Tom was grieving for his wife. Tom knew that Hans was struggling with PTSD from his combat time in Iraq. Hans got himself a Harley and a dog that he named Fritz. Hans got a job with a fracking outfit in eastern Texas. He worked long hours, but when he did get back to the old farmhouse, he spent his time with Tom. Tom was Hans’ home.

During the summer of 2015, I drove to Texas and visited Hans and Tom in Calvert. We just sat around and drank coffee for a while. Hans and Tom smoked cigarettes. Fritz came to visit with me. He must have some kind of Great Dane mix. Fritz was just a little smaller than a pony. He rested his enormous head on my lap, and slobbered. Hans convinced Fritz to wait in another room.

I looked around the house while I conversed with Tom. It hadn’t changed hardly at all since Delphia died three years before. The only difference I saw was that things had started piling up: old newspapers, dishes, mail. I got the sense that Tom had lost interest in housekeeping, and Hans had never acquired the knack for it. So, the place looked like the dwelling of two bachelors, which only made sense.

I remember Hans calling on New Year’s Day in 2016. Hans is generally very calm and lowkey. When he called us, he was extremely agitated. He was driving in his pick up truck from the oil fields to Calvert. He told us that there had been a fire at Tom’s place. He was in a hurry to get there.

When Hans got to Calvert, there wasn’t much to see. The farmhouse had burned down to the dirt. There was nothing left. Hans had all his worldly possessions in that house, except for what he had in his truck. Hans had lost his Harley, his clothes, his memorabilia from the Army, and everything else. Fritz was gone too. So was Tom.

Tom died in the fire.

The aftermath of the fire and Tom’s death is kind of sketchy to me. I am not sure how everything turned out. I do know how it affected Hans. Hans was suddenly homeless. Shortly after the fire, the bottom dropped out of the oil market, and Hans was also jobless.

It is impossible for me to overestimate how important Tom was to Hans. Hans was already very familiar with death. He had killed people in Iraq. However, Tom’s death hurt Hans in a way that no other death has ever hurt him. Hans was adrift, and he stayed that way for a couple years. I was worried that he wasn’t going to survive.

Hans is married now. He has a son, and soon he will have a daughter.

If Hans ever has another son, he plans on naming him “Tom”.