Frank is Emptiness

February 9th,2025

I know an elderly woman who was the primary caregiver for her son. Her son suffered from cerebral palsy and paralysis. The young man was often in pain. Yet, he was an artist and apparently a warm, loving individual. This woman took care of her child for decades. Her life revolved around her boy, even when he was grown up. From what she told me, looking after him was sometimes extraordinarily difficult, but also extremely rewarding. She has no regrets about spending so much of her life serving him. She is sad, but only because her son is dead, and she misses him.

I know a couple from the synagogue that I used to attend. They are quite old now, and they spent years caring for their son. Their boy was born about the same time that I was. When I was a helicopter pilot in West Germany in the early 1980’s, their son was an officer in the Soviet Army fighting in Afghanistan. He came back from his war severely wounded and deeply traumatized. The man was a brilliant engineer, but he became an alcoholic who could function only part of the time. As the years went by, his parents spent more and more of their time and money helping him. They would stay with him for months on end, and they were always worried about him having a relapse and ending up in a hospital. They buried their son two years ago. Their only regret is that they couldn’t do more for him. Until the very end, they had hoped he would heal and be well.

I have a friend who is caring for his father. His dad has Alzheimer’s disease, and my friend goes to his parents’ house twice a day to help his mom get his father in and out of bed. The father has increasing difficulty with speech and movement. My friend sees the gradual deterioration in his dad, and it grieves him. He insists on being there for his father, even when it is inconvenient or stressful. He won’t abandon him.

Being a caregiver in our society is common but somehow abnormal. We live in a culture which is relentlessly transactional. The basic question in almost all of our affairs is: “What’s in it for me?” Unless a person is a professional caregiver, like a nurse, there is no tangible reward for helping another person on a continuing basis. Sometimes, the person receiving the care gets well and that can be gratifying. However, often the person who needs the help has a chronic or debilitating condition, and they don’t get better. However, as you can tell from my previous examples, there are people willing to be of service for extended periods of time.

My wife and I are fulltime caregivers for our four-year-old grandson, Asher. We have been in that role since he came home from the hospital’s NICU as an infant. Like many other caregivers, we are watching over our charge 24/7/365. I have had a number of people look at me, shake their heads, and say,

“I couldn’t do what you do. I don’t know how you do it.”

Honestly, I don’t how I do what I do, but I still do it. I firmly believe that nobody knows what they can do for another person until they are confronted with that challenge. Some people can’t be caregivers and some people won’t. Like the other folks I have mentioned, my wife and I chose to care for Asher, and we continue to make that choice.

Is it hard? Hell yeah.

So, why do it?

We do it out of love. That answer probably explains nothing, but that is the only answer. Love is hard to describe. It is not rational. It is not self-serving. It is mysterious and it is powerful, perhaps the most powerful thing in the universe.

February 12th, 2025

On Monday morning I took our little grandson, Asher, to see his therapist. He goes there once a week. The therapist is highly competent and has a good relationship with Asher. She knows how to handle the boy, and she truly cares about him. Asher is usually loveable and fun to be with. Usually. Occasionally he has a meltdown. He did yesterday when we arrived at the therapist’s office.

Asher has had more than his fair share of trauma is his life. During his four years in the world, he has already been through a lot of chaos and stress. My wife and I have provided almost all of his safety and security. Even so, that has probably not been enough. That is why he is going to a therapist. Asher needs more guidance and support than Karin and I can give him.

Asher often needs things to be done a certain way. I believe that he wants things done in a particular way partly because he just wants to get his way. Little kids are like that, and so are adults. However, he needs stability. He needs structure. Too much change too quickly can freak him out. It’s difficult for me to know when change becomes too hard for him to handle until it is too late.

We were a bit late getting to the therapist’s office. Her place is on the fourth floor of a building, and we have to take the elevator to get there. Generally, Asher and I have the elevator to ourselves, and Asher always pushes the button for the fourth floor. Yesterday that didn’t happen. Two other people needed to go up from the lobby, and an older gentleman pushed the 4th floor button for us. Bad move.

Asher totally lost it. He needed to push that button himself. When we got to the fourth floor, he was screaming and crying and demanding that we take the elevator back to the lobby and start the journey all over again. I refused to do that. We were already where we need to be. I was carrying him, and he struggled to get free so that he could get back on the elevator. Asher was loud. He was loud enough to entice the therapist to come out of her office to find out what was wrong.

The therapist asked us to come into the room she has set up for her work. It is packed with toys, including two teddy bears that are as big as I am. Asher was out of control. He stood between me and the therapist screaming. The clinician tried to sooth him and remind him to use his words. She told him,

“Breathe, Asher. Breathe like you’re blowing a bubble. Remember how we practiced that? Do you want to blow real bubbles with me?”

No. He didn’t want to blow bubbles. There wasn’t much of anything he wanted to do besides lashing out. He spent a couple minutes hitting me. I just let him do it. It didn’t hurt except for that one shot to my groin. The therapist offered to let him hit the teddy bears. That’s what they were for. He didn’t want to hit a stuffed animal. He wanted to hit me.

His anger abated slightly, but Asher was still too upset to talk. He wanted me to hold him. The therapist wanted me out of the room so she could work with Asher. It was extraordinarily difficult for me to leave. Asher was crying and holding on to my right hand for dear life. The therapist gently tried to nudge me out the door. She assured me that Asher would be fine. I finally left, with Asher screaming as I went outside.

The mall is next to the therapist’s building. I walked in there and wandered to a bookstore. I bought a novel and slowly walked back toward the office building.

I thought as I walked. I experienced intense sadness. When Asher had held my hand, I felt like I was him. I could remember how I felt when I was that little. I don’t recall much from my childhood, partly because it was so long ago, but mostly because I don’t want to remember any of it. I have slammed a lot of doors in my mind. I don’t remember hardly any events from when I was little, but I remember emotions. Those stick with me. When I was a little boy, and I was scared or angry, did anybody hold my hand? Did anybody pick me up when I was crying? I don’t know. I don’t think so. I wanted so much to just pick Asher up and hold him until he calmed down, but the therapist needed me to leave so she could do her job. I had to be an adult and do that.

I got back to the office as Asher’s session was ending. The therapist brought him out. She was smiling. He was laughing with her.

Asher was fine.

February 10th, 2025

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

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

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

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

February 10th, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It sends a message.”

Good.

February 4th, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

February 1st, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

January 28th, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fine. Go for it.

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

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

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

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

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

Then he slammed the door shut.

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

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

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

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

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

January 25th, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 19th, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am learning how to be.

January 19th, 2025

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

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

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

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

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