frankisemptiness

How not to Comfort Someone

July 4th, 2025

There are times when I or somebody I know struggles mightily with a problem. The person who is hurting might be sad or angry or a combination of the two emotions. How do I comfort them? How does somebody console me when I am in a bad place? That depends on a lot of things.

For me to encourage another individual requires that I know the person, at least somewhat. The better I understand them, the better I can act in a way that is helpful. Over the years, I have learned that there are some things that are often counterproductive. I have also discovered that I can sometimes make a huge difference.

I try not to give advice. My experience has been that most people do not want it, even though it might be useful in their situation. I have almost never wanted advice when I was in a bad way. I just wanted to be heard. I am convinced that is what most people want and need when they are wounded. They want another person to listen to them, really listen. If I truly listen to the story of somebody’s pain, then I can decide how to respond. Listening is the first and essential step.

I try not to fix things, even when the temptation is strong. I am by nature a problem solver, at least when I am not actively creating more problems. However, fixing a problem for someone else is not necessarily helping them. It is better if I can give the person the resources to solve a problem on their own. I have learned the hard way that some things cannot be fixed. Death is one of those things. Sometimes, the only response is to grieve withe person for what is lost.

I try not to give glib or inauthentic responses to somebody else’s pain. Nothing pisses me off as much as when somebody tells me, “You are always in our prayers.” Depending on the person saying that, those words might be true and heartfelt. However, I am convinced that once in a while those words translate to, “I’m saying this to get you to shut up. I’m tired of listening to your bitching.”

It also bothers me that, when I am exhausted and at wits end, someone tells me, “Stay strong!” No shit. What do you think I have been trying to do? It’s not like I have an untapped reservoir of strength available. The individual exhorting me to be strong no doubt wants to be encouraging, but sometimes that just infuriates me instead.

Sometimes, a person tells me about their suffering, and I simply cannot comprehend the depth of their pain. Their experience is beyond my understanding. At that point, I might tell them, “I don’t know what to say.” That’s okay. It’s honest. If I don’t have the necessary words, then I remain silent.

Words are often too clumsy. I am good with words, but I also understand their limitations.

When words can provide no comfort, then it might be time for a hug.

Dragons

July 3rd, 2025

“There are dragons ahead!”

Thus proclaimed our grandson, Asher, at supper last night. His statement came completely out of the blue. Asher is four and a half years old, and he tends to say things that. He was calmly eating some French toast when he decided to mention dragons. I don’t know why. Maybe he didn’t either.

His comment made me think of the old medieval maps that were based partly on facts and mostly on wishful thinking. The cartographers of that time drew up charts describing the few areas of the world that they knew and then filled up the remaining blank spaces on the parchment by using their imaginations. A popular way of explaining the unknown was to write, “There be dragons”.

Perhaps these old mapmakers were right.

After Asher mentioned dragons my wife, Karin, talked about an old song from Peter, Paul, and Mary called “Puff, the Magic Dragon”. Karin tried to sing the song for Asher but couldn’t remember the lyrics. I could remember most of them, but I didn’t want to sing. Something caught in my throat when I recalled the last verse on Puff. The was a pang of intense sadness.

After supper, I tried to dig up a recording of the song. If I was at all competent with technology, I would have looked it up online. However, I don’t have a smart phone. I do have a sound system with an ancient turntable that I bought back in 1982. I also have a vinyl record from Peter, Paul, and Mary which has the song on it. I dug out the album, pulled the record from the jacket, and played Puff for Asher. Some old, well-used vinyl discs have that crackle and pop that is both endearing and infuriating. This record did. Asher listened to the music, although he was mostly fascinated by how the phonograph player worked.

The first two verses of the song are a story about a boy’s adventure and his fantasy. The child mentioned in the song is Little Jack Paper. The boy reminded a lot of Asher. I can easily imagine Asher having a dragon for a friend.

“Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee,
Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff,
and brought him strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff. Oh

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee,
Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee.

Together they would travel on a boat with billowed sail
Jackie kept a lookout perched on Puff’s gigantic tail,
Noble kings and princes would bow whene’er they came,
Pirate ships would lower their flag when Puff roared out his name. Oh!

The song makes me think of other dragon stories. Dragons are found in oral traditions and in dreams. Despite the fact that these are mythical creatures, they are universal parts of the human history. They do not fly around the skies, but somehow, they still exist.

Carl Sagan wrote a book about dragons, aptly titled The Dragons of Eden. He does not suggest that there were ever physical dragons, but in his study of human evolution, he says that dragons are part of our innermost being. He states that they slumber fitfully in the R-complex of the human brain, an extremely archaic part of the organ that contains “the aggressive and ritualistic reptilian component”. Anecdotally, Sagan asks, “Is it only an accident that the common human sounds commanding silence or attracting attention seem strangely imitative of the hissing of reptiles?” We don’t see the dragons in the material world. We find them in our dreams.

In The Power of Myth from Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers, the two authors, discuss the topic of dragons. Moyers asks, “How do I slay the dragon in me?” Campbell replies by telling Moyers that slaying the dragon is about a person following his bliss and breaking down internal barriers. Campbell says, “The ultimate dragon is within you, it is your ego clamping you down.”

If the dragon is within each person, it is also part of the humanity as a whole. Campbell also says that “The myth is a public dream, and the dream is a private myth.” The serpent that hides in my subconscious is hissing within every person on earth.

Th last verse of the song is as follows:

“A dragon lives forever but not so little boys
Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys.
One grey night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more
And Puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar.

His head was bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain,
Puff no longer went to play along the cherry lane.
Without his life-long friend, Puff could not be brave,
So Puff that mighty dragon sadly slipped into his cave. Oh!

This verse makes me want to weep. But for whom should I cry? For the little boy who must grow up? Or for the dragon who has forever lost a friend?

If the dragon is within us, can we ever leave it behind? Must we always try to slay it? Is it possible to befriend the dragon, fearsome as it may be?

Can my dragon be like Puff?

Fathers and Sons

June 28th, 2025

Conflicts between fathers and sons are inherent in the human experience. Myths from all times and all places tell stories of the struggles between the generations. The Bible, especially in the Book of Genesis, describes fraught relationships between the patriarchs and their children. These tales from various sources are uniformly disturbing and often violent.

They are also very real.

I’m old enough to know how these fights work out, or don’t work out. I’ve been in the role of the son and that of the father. Neither position is pleasant. As I look back, the power struggles were somehow inevitable. That doesn’t make them any less traumatic. It just means that I can accept the results of those episodes.

I had several intense confrontations with my father. They all ended inconclusively. Nothing was ever resolved. We would separate for a while and then make an uneasy truce. There was always a reside of resentment. The issues at the core of our fights were still there lurking in the background. My dad has been dead since 2018. We never really reconciled, not completely. Now we can’t.

In 2009 my oldest son, Hans, joined the Army. He did this knowing full well that my wife and I did not want him to be a soldier. I had been an Army officer in my youth, and I knew to a certain extent what Hans was doing. I also knew that he was going to war, guaranteed. If he joined the military, he would be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. Hans knew that too and signed up anyway.

Hans’ decision hit me and my wife hard. I was upset for quite a while, and Hans and I did not communicate for several weeks. My wife and I traveled to Fort Knox, Kentucky, for Hans’ graduation from basic training. I found that to be deeply troubling. Eventually, in 2011, Hans was deployed to Iraq. Most of the things I feared came to pass. Hans was wounded. Hans killed people (plural). He came back a very different person.

Hans became his own man. Doing that had its costs, both physically and emotionally, and maybe spiritually. Reestablishing a relationship with me also has had its costs. We are close again, but on very different terms.

A few years after Hans came back from his war, I sat with him and had a couple beers. I told him how hurt his mom and I were when he enlisted. Hans smiled at me and said,

“That was a pretty big fuck you, wasn’t it?”

Indeed, it was, but it was necessary for both of us.

Going Home

June 27th, 2025

“There’s no place like home”. – Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz

Back in July of 1976, I joined the Army. To be more specific, I was accepted as a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. USMA is part of the U.S. Army, but it is a military organization sui generis. Nothing else in the Army, or in the world at large, even vaguely resembles it. I could try to describe it, but there isn’t enough space in this essay to make the effort worthwhile.

The first year as a student at West Point is brutal. It’s a harsh environment for a “plebe” (that’s what a freshman is called at USMA), and going to that school is kind of like attending an Ivy league college and doing time simultaneously. The first chance for a plebe to leave the place is at Christmastime. After five months of getting jerked around by upperclassmen, I was anxiously looking forward to going home for two weeks.

I didn’t get to go home. My home no longer existed.

In order to explain what I mean, I have to give some background information. Before I left for West Point, my parents had already decided to sell their house. They never mentioned any of this to me while I was still living with them. My folks loved secrecy. I grew up in a home where paranoia permeated everything. In any case, I found out about the sale of the house after it had already been sold. My parents sent me a letter with a newspaper clipping that advertised the fact that the old house was available for purchase. I did go back to my family on leave, but I went to a place I had never seen before in my life.

They say that you can never go home. That’s true. I found out immediately after I met up with my parents and brothers that I was an outsider. My five-month absence had left a vacuum in the family structure that had quickly filled. They were happy to see me, but I wasn’t an integral part of their day-to-day lives anymore. I was a just a visitor. That new status was hard to accept, at least at first.

Would it have made any difference if I had been able to go back to the house where I had grown up? Probably not. If anything, going back to that dilapidated old farmhouse would have made the change more poignant. Even if my family had remained in that home, it would not have been mine anymore. I would have still been a stranger there.

It’s been nearly fifty years since I last saw the inside of the old house. I think the structure still stands. It has to be well over one hundred years old by now. I don’t how it’s been remodeled over the years, and it really doesn’t matter. If I walked into the front door, I would still feel the presence of ghosts in the rooms. They would not be friendly ghosts. They would be there to trigger my bad memories of growing up in that place. I have plenty of dark recollections. I am not nostalgic about my childhood. I prefer not to be reminded of it.

You can’t go home. For some of us, it’s not even a good idea to try.

Resilience

June 25th, 2025

I asked the young woman to help me find the building. We were on the northside of Milwaukee and the local area was forbidding. The street had been dug up recently and almost all of the structures bordering the road looked abandoned. Actually, it wasn’t hard for us to locate the recovery center. It was the only property that looked well-maintained. The building was like a welcoming home set among some ruins.

I parked in the lot next to the building. The young woman went into the rehab facility to take a drug screen. I waited for her to come back. If she passed the test, then she would come back, grab her bags, and start residential treatment. If she failed, well, I had no idea what we would do. I would probably have to take her back to some shitty motel until she could get into another recovery program. I didn’t even want to consider that possibility. I would just wait to see what happens.

Years ago, when I was a boy, this part of town was a bustling economic hub. All of these vacant buildings were factories. They made things for A.O. Smith and for Masterlock. Teams of workers filled these places and made money, for themselves and for their employers. These businesses were humming with activity. That was a long time ago.

Now, it’s desolate. The neighborhood has a post-apocalyptic vibe to it. I bet at night it looks very Blade Runner. The car parked next to me had a yellow club on the steering wheel. The owner had placed an open copy of the Bible on top of the dashboard. The pages of the book were water-damaged and stained. I’m not sure what would deter thieves: the Bible or the club. Maybe neither or maybe both.

We drove through the local area in order to get here. On the main drag were many shuttered businesses. Even the liquor stores and the Baptist churches couldn’t make it around here. That’s rough.

I sat in the car and waited. There were trees lining the street, at least part of it. Milwaukee may have severe poverty, but the city keeps things green. I think that makes a difference. No place is truly a wasteland if there are trees growing there.

It’s been hard for the young woman. She has struggled for so long. I have lost count of how many rehab programs she has attended over the years. It is both depressing and inspiring to me. She often relapses, but she never, ever gives up. She wants to get clean and stay clean. She is the most resilient person I have ever met, and I admire her courage.

She came back out of the building with one of the counselors. The counselor was smiling and friendly. They picked up the young woman’s belongings from the car. Then they went back inside.

I sat in the car and sighed deeply. I could relax at least a little bit. She was in the program.

She was safe.

Do the Right Thing, if There is One

June 24th, 2025

“And I divvied up my anger into 30 separate parts
Keep the bad shit in my liver, and the rest around my heart
I’m still angry at my parents, for what their parents did to them
But it’s a start” – from Growing Sideways by Noah Kahan

Sometimes people like to talk about making a fresh start. I don’t think that such a thing is possible. We are always in the middle of a story, one that has been going on for decades or millennia or even longer. When somebody comes into the physical world as an infant, he is she is not a tabula rasa. That person already carries the history of all life in their DNA. Every human arrives as a unique version of a history book. We are never at the beginning, and we are never at the end.

As Faulkner wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

I have spent the last couple weeks fighting with ghosts and inadvertently wounding the living. The evil that I have done or that others did a quarter century ago has come back to the forefront, and there has been hell to pay. I am not done paying, not by a long shot.

There are three people whom I love dearly. They hate each other. I cannot help one of them without hurting the others. I found that out quite clearly a few days ago. I had to make a decision to do something that was essential for the health and wellbeing of one of the three. I knew when I made the decision that it would devastate one of the others. I also knew that more individuals, outside of those three I mentioned, would be affected negatively. It was, and still is, an impossible situation. It makes me angry.

I think about the story in Genesis when Abraham haggles with God to get Him to show mercy to the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. As God is planning to nuke those two cities, Abraham asks Hashem,

“Should not the judge of all the world act with justice?”

I have a similar question. If God wants me to do the right thing, then why put me in a position where there is no right thing?

I am at a point where I do not ask, “How can I make things better?” I ask, “How can I keep from making things even worse?”

I am blind to many things. I understand the consequences of my actions far too late. I have made people angry with me. They’re right to be angry. Maybe I am right to be angry too. At some point I will apologize and try to make amends, but not now. I’m not sorry yet, or not sorry enough.

Everybody is wounded. We all bear the scars of the past, and as long as we live, the sins of the past live within us. The good that was done to us or for us lives there too. It helps if I can see the suffering of others. I may still harm them, but perhaps not as much.

Sometimes, I am tempted to despair. But that is a luxury I cannot afford. Too many people depend on me. My wife needs me. Our grandson, Asher, needs me. I have to keep going.

For them.

Comrades

June 8th, 2025

My son, Hans, called me a couple days ago. He lives down in Texas close to Madisonville, which means he doesn’t live near much of anything. Anyway, he started telling me about how he went into Brookshire Brothers to buy some groceries, and a couple old boys from the VFW were sitting at the front entrance of the store, taking donations and handing out little American flags.

Hans told me, “Dad, I wasn’t wearing anything that said ‘Army’ on it, but this old vet, probably from WWII, hands me a flag and says, ‘Thank you for your service.’ How did this old boy know I was a vet?”

I replied, “You just look like a vet. A person can tell.”

Hans went on, “The old guy asked me where I was sent. I told him, ‘Iraq’.”

(Note: Hans always pronounces “Iraq” as “Eye-rak”).

Hans continued, “The old guy nodded, and said, ‘I figured that’. “

Hans kept talking. He’s been thinking about maybe joining the American Legion someday. He said that the local post has a bar. That does not surprise me at all. I think that in a place like that a bar would be the very first thing to get set up.

Hans said, “I don’t need to talk with the other vets. I don’t really want to. It would be nice just to sit around with them, listen to music, and have a couple beers.”

That makes to total sense to me. Hans doesn’t want group therapy. He wants to be with his tribe. The point of joining a group like the American Legion or the VFW is to be with other people who “get it”. Hans, or any other vet, could mingle with the other members of the post and not need to explain their military experiences. In fact, it might be less painful for Hans if he didn’t talk about what happened to him in Iraq. He could trust that the other veterans would understand his history without him saying a word. If Hans did want to talk, he could trust that somebody at the post would be willing to listen and not judge him. He would be with his comrades.

Hans was in Iraq back in 2011. He’s had some time for the wounds to heal. He’s had some time for the trauma to fade. Maybe now is the time for him to reengage with other vets. I don’t know. I think it might help.

Reaching out to an Enemy

June 8th, 2025

The following letter from me was published in the Chicago Tribune yesterday.

“We fear what we do not know, and we hate what we fear. The recent attacks on Jews in Colorado and DC, along with the continuing slaughter of civilians in Gaza, indicate that the killers knew little or nothing about their victims, except that those people are somehow the “enemy”. It is easy to dehumanize a person if you cannot recognize him or her as being like yourself in some way. In our world the hard thing to do, the courageous thing to do, is to reach out and attempt to understand others, especially those who seem to be our enemies. However, to end the violence that is what we must do.”

Coming Full Circle

May 31st, 2025

We took our grandson, Asher, to the May Festival a couple days ago. The May Festival is an annual event put on by the Tamarack Waldorf School. It celebrates the arrival of spring, which in Wisconsin is well-worth celebrating. We live in a climate where it is not unusual for people to wear hoodies on Memorial Day or even well into June. It has only been within the last week or two that all the trees finally have their leaves. When our world suddenly turns a vibrant green it’s definitely party time.

The festival was held in a tiny park a couple blocks from the school. Tamarack is located on Brady Street on the lower east side of Milwaukee. The school really has no green space of its own, so the park is better place to celebrate the annual resurgence of the natural world. There is a small knoll in the park. That is where everyone gathered in a circle at the beginning of the festival. Karin, Asher, and I got there just as the show was about to start. We found a place in the circle. It was an eclectic group: caregivers, little kids, and a few teachers. The school has a diverse population. It even had that twenty-five years ago when our children attended the school. In a way, it felt like we were back home.

One of the teachers led the entire circle in an a cappella version of a Waldorf song. The tune was accompanied by body movements. The teacher had told all the newbies to watch what the older kindergarteners (“the tall pines”) did and just follow their lead. The song was a hymn of praise to nature and springtime. It might have been a bit overly sentimental, but it struck a chord in each person in the circle.

After the song, the kids dispersed to do other activities. The school had set up a station to give each child a temporary tattoo (the logo for the school). There was also a table to get bags of popcorn. There was a place to blow soap bubbles. Most of the children gravitated to the jungle gym. That’s where Asher went.

I stood on the mound and stared at the other families at the gathering. My mind flipped between the present scene and images from a quarter century ago. There was feeling of disorientation and profound sadness. A lot can happen in a family in twenty-five years, and in our family a lot did happen. A kid went to war. A kid got divorced. A kid did time in prison. Those are just the highlights. My mind flickered between memories of our children when they were innocents and the current group of kids playing and laughing in the park where I was standing. So much was different and so much has been lost. I didn’t know what I was doing when I raised our kids. As I watched the children, I asked myself, “Do I know any better this go around?” I have no idea. Then I caught a glimpse of Asher doing exactly what a four-year-old should be doing. I got my balance back.

Karin and I struck up a conversation with a kindergarten teacher who might become Asher’s guide in the fall. We told her a bit about the old days, when this school was just starting. Karin and I were there at the very beginnings of the organization. We didn’t stay long. I couldn’t deal with the chaos and conflicting interests that accompanied the birth of the school. I was an angry and impatient bastard back then, and I was not at all helpful. We homeschooled for three years and then we came back to school after the dust settled a bit.

The teacher was fascinated by our history lesson. Karin drifted off to talk to other folks that she knew. I told the teacher more stories of the school. She seemed interested and I love an attentive audience. I told her about the time I was a chaperon for our youngest son’s class trip to New Orleans. We went there in 2008, three years after Katrina. That was an adventure, but then I am convinced that any visit to New Orleans qualifies as an adventure. The teacher I spoke with had been to “N’aalins” years ago and she fell in love with the town. So, did I. We agreed that the city has a soul, and it teems with both angels and demons.

Later, I found Karin again. She was talking with a young man who had once been a teacher at the school. I didn’t recognize him at first. His hair was thinner, and his middle was thicker. We talked for a while. He remarked that we were back in the school with Asher, and that we had “come full circle”.

That’s not quite accurate. A person never comes full circle. A person may return to a place or to an organization, but that individual comes back different and returns to something that has also changed and has changed forever. We are coming back to Tamarack, but it isn’t the same school. Oh, the school is still in the same building, and the curriculum is pretty much the same, but in some ways, it is alien to us.

I looked at the new parents at the festival and I saw strangers. They have more tattoos and piercings than my generation ever had. They have different views of what it means to be a family. They have different challenges, and they probably can’t understand our struggles. They are bringing new things to an education model that is already a century old. Their children, like our Asher, are entering a world beyond my comprehension.

At the same time, I can see, or better feel, the similarities between these young people and me. We have the same fears. We have the same hopes. We might all become friends. That is my hope and wish. My wife and I are entering the winter of our lives. The other parents are beginning their summers. All of our little ones are laughing and crying in the early springtime of their generation. We have that in common.

Transcience

May 29th, 2025

“We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.” ― Carl Sagan

“Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form.” – Heart Sutra

“All things must pass.” -George Harrison

It’s springtime. Finally. The trees have leaves, even the walnuts and locusts whose branches remain bare until almost June. There are flowers blooming, although the tulips and the daffodils are fading fast. It is a time of rapid and obvious change. The world seems to be waking up after a long, cold winter. However, it was awake and in motion even then.

Some change makes us sit up and take notice. Some of it is so slow and gradual that we can be convinced that nothing is happening at all. However, everything is transient. The only constant in this world is change.

Sometimes I feel like each day is a lot like the last one. Then, suddenly I become aware that new things are happening. Our four-year-old grandson, Asher, lives with us. Every once in a while, I look at him and it is like seeing a completely different boy. He’s somehow taller or he’s able to ride a bicycle without any help from me. These changes sneak up on me. There is a flash of consciousness, and then I know that Asher has become somebody else, somebody new. The feeling is both exciting and a bit disturbing.

If Asher is constantly changing, then I am too. I occasionally notice that when I look into a mirror and see an old man staring back at me. My beard that was once almost black in color is now mostly white. Most of the hair on my head is long gone. There are lines on my face that have become increasingly deep and rough. Physically, I am not the man I was ten years ago, or even the man I was ten minutes ago. It’s all in flux. I am a shapeshifter like everybody else, like every other thing in the universe.

Am I the same person on the inside? I don’t mean in a physical sense, but more in a spiritual way. Would I even recognize the person who I was when I was in my twenties? What would I have in common with that individual?

There is a Buddhist tradition about the five Skandhas. Skandhas are different attributes of people and things that are continually shifting and evolving. The bottom line is that nothing and nobody has any permanent being. It’s all ephemeral. If that is true, then there is no “Frank” writing this article. Or if there is one, that version of “Frank” will not last.

I would like to think that at the core of each human being there is an eternal soul, that there is something that survives change and even death. If there is such a thing, I don’t think we can perceive it. It is covered up with the Skandhas, veils of illusion. God may know who I really am, but I don’t.

Perhaps, when I leave this world, I will see things as they really are. Maybe, I will even see who I really am. And maybe what I really am is something constantly in motion, a tiny dynamic force that is part of a much larger evolving whole.

That’s not so bad.