August 8th, 2025
We were at the playground with the big sandbox. Asher likes to go there. He has a plastic bin full of beach toys that he insists on taking to the park. There isn’t a beach, so he plays with his shovels and trucks in the sandbox. Sometimes other kids are there. Asher is a good sport about letting the other children use his things. Most of the time the other kids ask before they use his toys, especially if their caregivers are nearby. Sometimes, they don’t ask. Asher doesn’t seem to mind, and I don’t either.
After a while, Asher got tired of playing in the hot sand. Even though we arrived at the park early in the morning, it was still quite warm in the sunshine. He had a drink from a cold smoothie, and then he decided to go on the swings. A group of children had just come to the playground from the Salvation Army center down the street. The kids were part of some kind of summer youth program that the Salvation Army sponsors. There were a couple chaperons with the group. One of them was a Muslim woman. She wore a hijab and a long abaya that went down to her ankles. She sat down under the shade of an oak tree close to the playground.
A little girl came over to the swings and tried to make friends with Asher. He wasn’t interested. The girl was sturdy looking. She had a very round face and a page boy haircut. She was wearing a dress with lavender unicorns on it. Asher likes unicorns, and he likes lavender, but not so much this time. It should be noted that for reasons that are obscure to me Asher is a babe magnet. He has the uncanny ability to attract girls, usually older than himself. Admittedly, he has a winning smile and a dimple on his right cheek that can melt hearts. However, he wasn’t smiling at the girl. He just stared at her as she spoke to him nonstop.
Eventually, the girl moved away and climbed on to the monkey bars. She hung on them for a bit and then she asked me,
“Are you his grandpa?”
I nodded.
She asked, “Does he talk a different language? Or is he too young to talk?”
Little did the girl know that Asher can be a relentless chatterbox. His verbal skills are very strong. I know from experience that it is sometimes almost impossible to get the boy to shut up when he is on roll.
I told her that Asher didn’t speak to her because he’s a bit shy (that’s kind of a lie, but whatever). She asked,
“How old is he?”
“He’s four-and-a-half.”
She replied, “I’m six-and a half. It’s kind of like being halfway six and half seven. He’s half between four and five. We got that in common, I guess. Is he in school yet? I’m in first grade, almost in second grade. I can only hang on to two of the bars on the monkey bars, even though I’m six-and-a-half.”
Then she told me, “I don’t worry about falling off the monkey bars. I’m tough. I don’t cry if I get hurt.”
She showed me her ankle and said, “I scraped my foot here. It was bleeding a little, but that’s because I scratched at it, but it’s better now and I didn’t cry or anything.”
I forget what all else she said. She rambled on for a while. Then she went back on to the monkey bars and swung unsteadily from one bar to the next. The Muslim woman got up and shouted to the girl,
“Be careful! Don’t go so far! You’ll fall!”
Ah, the voice of a mom calling.
I turned to the woman and said, “You have a very brave girl!”
She looked at me and said, “But she must be more careful. She could get hurt.”
At that point, I said to her, “A salaam alaikum.”
She blinked for a second, then smiled and replied, “Wa alaikum asalaam.”
I told her, “I know a little Arabic.”
She asked me, “Where are you from?”
I looked around for moment and said, “I’m from here.”
I need to mention that I grew up in the local area, but I was far away for twelve years of my life. I almost never ask people where they are from anymore, especially if they have a foreign accent. In today’s political environment, with all of the fear and xenophobia, I am reluctant to pry into somebody’s history. My wife is from another country, and I lived overseas for three years. I know how it feels to be “from somewhere”.
I told her, “I studied Arabic in the Army, but I don’t remember much.” That’s true. I took Arabic for four years at West Point, but that was many years ago. I am not fluent in the language at all, but having studied Arabic makes me relatively comfortable with Arabs and other people who are Muslim. I helped tutor the children of a Syrian refugee family for several years. My extremely limited Arabic was helpful at times
I talked to the mom about Asher. She talked about her tomboy daughter. She told me that it must be hard for me and my wife to care for the boy. I replied,
“Sometimes it is, but Asher is also a blessing.” I fumbled for the Arabic word. I said, “He’s a baraka.”
The woman laughed. “Yes, exactly. He is a baraka.”
It was hot. The kids were wilting. The group from the Salvation Army lined up to go back to their building. The little girl went to her mother.
The mom waved to us and yelled, “It was good to meet you!”
Yes, it was.
Frank is Emptiness 