Frank is Emptiness

February 1st, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

January 28th, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fine. Go for it.

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

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

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

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

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

Then he slammed the door shut.

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

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

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

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

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

January 25th, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 19th, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am learning how to be.

January 19th, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

January 12th, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Grampa.”

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

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

I concluded my part and said,

“The Word of the Lord!”

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

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

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

Indeed, he is.

January 14th, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 13th, 2025

I know a young person who is currently in a hospital. She does not have access to her own phone, but she can call out from the hospital phone once or twice a day for brief periods of time. I’ve come to expect her daily calls. I am not surprised to hear from her.

A few days ago, I got a call from the hospital. I picked up the phone and heard the cheery voice of a nurse announcing to me that I had a call from So-and-so. That struck me as a bit odd since the person who usually calls me does not go through anyone else. She calls straight through to our house. The nurse made the connection and I said,

“Hello.”

There were a few seconds of silence on the other end of the line. Then I heard a quiet voice ask,

“Who are you?”

I told the person who I was. There was another pause and then the individual said,

“Oh, yeah, well, hey, so when do you think I will get out of here.”

I said, “I don’t know.” I was confused. If this was the young woman I knew, she was on some heavy-duty meds. I wasn’t sure. 

The young lady replied, “Well, maybe soon. You know, yesterday I got funny looks from a couple people here, both male and female. Maybe it’s because I can’t poop. I have to take a stool softener. Who is going to pick me up?”

This was feeling creepy. The voice was wrong. Once again, I said, “I don’t know.”

She went on in a sedated monotone, “Yeah, will it be Grandma Lynn?”

Now I was certain. This was not the person I knew. Maybe there was some kind of a mix up at the hospital. I was talking with a total stranger who appeared to be feeling no pain.

Then she said, “Hey, I’m homeless and poor, but those aren’t the same things. They are just two aspects of the same reality. I think I will skip lunch. I don’t want people looking at me funny. I have to take a stool softener.”

I hung up. 

Now, days later, that call still freaks me out. Who was this woman? Who did she think she was talking to? Did she even care who I was? Did she just want to talk somebody, anybody, and she convinced the nurse to put in a call to my number? Should I have kept listening?

What would you do?

January 4th, 2025

The news media have spent a great deal of time reporting on the recent acts of deadly violence in New Orleans and Las Vegas. In particular, there has a been lot of speculation as to the motives of the two perpetrators. Since both men are dead, it is unlikely that we will ever really know why they did what they did. Speculation is ultimately pointless. What is of interest to me is that both individuals were veterans. I am wondering how significant that fact is.

At this point, the military background of Shamsud-Din Jabbar and Matthew Livelsberger would seem to be the only common denominator between the two men. In most other aspects, they led very different lives. It makes me wonder.

I have a son, Hans, who is a combat vet. He was deployed with the Army to Iraq. He’s been back for well over a decade, but his experiences in Iraq have had a long-lasting effect on him. The two veterans who committed terrorist acts a few days ago may have also been permanently scarred by what they saw or did in Afghanistan. This is clearly a gross generalization, but some vets never really come home. They return to America as warriors who are still fighting.

There is a series of ancient legends about Cú Chulainn, a fierce Irish warrior from the Celtic times. The stories speak at length about how Cú Chulainn would go into a violent frenzy while in combat, and how difficult it was to calm him down afterward. In Wikipedia there is part of a tale that explains what other warriors (in this case his enemies) had to do bring him out of this berserker mode:

“He returns to Emain Macha in his battle frenzy, and the Ulstermen are afraid he will slaughter them all. Conchobar’s wife Mugain leads out the women of Emain, and they bare their breasts to him. He averts his eyes, and the Ulstermen wrestle him into a barrel of cold water, which explodes from the heat of his body. They put him in a second barrel, which boils, and a third, which warms to a pleasant temperature.”

The story is not to be taken literally, but it effectively describes what measures are required to return a soldier from a war. I had a conversation several years ago with Native American rancher whose daughter had fought in Iraq and had been wounded there, at about the same time my son was deployed. The rancher’s culture, like the traditional Celtic culture, has rituals and time-tested methods of healing a warrior. The rancher told me about “horse medicine”, a way to establish a bond between a returning vet and a horse to help dissipate the warrior’s rage and fear. The rancher told me that the horse would absorb the negative energy from the veteran, sometimes to the extent that the horse would die. The process of healing took a long time for his daughter, but she was able to finally leave Iraq. I’m not sure that my son has ever been able to do that.

What does all this have to do with Jabbar and Livelsberger? Maybe nothing or maybe everything. Our American culture does not have traditions or rituals to heal a veteran and bring the warrior back home. We somehow just expect that the soldier will adapt and recover on their own. That is often not the case. Many vets never leave Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan.

They continue to fight their wars to their own detriment, and sometimes to detriment of those around them. Then these old wars may find a new home in New Orleans or Vegas.

January 6th, 2025

We had just finished eating supper. I was getting ready to clean up.

Suddenly, a four-year-old shouted, “The floor is lava!”

I looked at Asher and asked, “What?”

He repeated, “The floor is lava! You have to get your feet off the floor. Hurry!”

“Why?”

“BECAUSE THE FLOOR IS LAVA!”

I sat on a chair and lifted my feet off the floor.

Asher told me, “I need to throw my stuffed animals on the floor, so I can walk on them, and not step into the lava.”

“Let’s not do that. Asher, I need to wash the dishes.”

“Can we play hide and seek first?”

“On lava?”

“The floor is…floor now.”

“Oh.”

Asher asked again, “Can we play hid and seek?”

“Well, for a while.”

“Okay! I need that little flashlight.”

“Why?”

He looked at me incredulously, “To find you!”

“So, I’m hiding first?”

“Yeah.”

I replied, “Okay. I’ll find a place.”

Asher said, “No. You’re doing it wrong. Go into the bedroom and turn off the light. Then I will come and find you.”

“You can’t tell me where to hide.”

He ignored my comment and said, “Here. Just go into your bedroom and turn off the light.”

I went in there and hid behind the bed. I heard Asher yelling,

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, ten, twelve! Here I come!”

I squatted down in the dark, and I heard him run down the hallway. He opened the bedroom door and flashed the light here and there. He got confused, and said, “Grandpa?”

“BOO!”

I jumped up and he jumped back. He was laughing hysterically.

He said, “You can’t do that!”

We played for a short time. I got tired of it. I told him,

“I have to wash the dishes now.”

Asher slumped over a bit and said,

“Okaaaaaaay…”

I walked over to the kitchen sink and turned on the faucet.

Behind me I heard, “THE FLOOR IS LAVA!”