What She Will Ask Me

From the Editor’s Desk

November 30 , 2018

I have just returned from Austin, Texas, where I spent nearly two weeks while something very important happened. To wit, I became a grandfather. The little girl entered the world on Thanksgiving day.

We waited in our hotel room until we got the word. Then, the following day we were privileged to meet her. We drove over to my son and daughter-in-law’s house and there she was, beautiful and well. I even got to hold her, briefly.

As I did so, I felt what you would expect—awe, wonder, and an intense, almost overwhelming desire to protect her, and make her life as lovely as she is. It was, in short, what every heathy human being feels what you hold a newborn and discover again the amazing presence of new life.

(Why is that seemingly absent in Trump and his minions? It seems they lack a part of themselves, almost a part of their souls. There is an emptiness within them, and, hollow men and women, they are as capable of emotionlessly tear-gassing an infant as they are of breathing without reflection).

But, over the days that passed after that, when we would drive over to see the three of them, and be of help if we could, I began to wonder something. To wit, what will the child think of us when she is grown? When she is adult?

She will, after all, quite likely find herself in a world where there are no longer ice caps, where the gap between rich and poor has widened so far as to make us two separate nations (each loathing the other), and when America has—as the result of the vast incompetence of men and women like Trump— slid down to the status of second or third class power, if that.

As she looks back on my generation, and that of her parents, she will ask How was it possible? How could it be that we allowed into office a man like Trump? A man and an administration who would, in the end, work to destroy our national influence, power, and well-being? Who would crush the middle class to save a few more pennies for the already wealthy and powerful? Who were, in the end, as deadly as plague and cancer?

She will ask all those things.

And, I, alas, will have no answer.

Only an apology…

Which, I fear, will be worse than useless.

I have just returned from Austin, Texas, where I spent nearly two weeks while something very important happened. To wit, I became a grandfather. The little girl entered the world on Thanksgiving day.

We waited in our hotel room until we got the word. Then, the following day we were privileged to meet her. We drove over to my son and daughter-in-law’s house and there she was, beautiful and well. I even got to hold her, briefly.

As I did so, I felt what you would expect—awe, wonder, and an intense, almost overwhelming desire to protect her, and make her life as lovely as she is. It was, in short, what every healthy human being feels what you hold a newborn and discover again the amazing presence of new life.

(Why is that seemingly absent in Trump and his minions? It seems they lack a part of themselves, almost a part of their souls. There is an emptiness within them, and, hollow men and women, they are as capable of emotionlessly tear-gassing an infant as they are of breathing without reflection).

But, over the days that passed after that, when we would drive over to see the three of them, and be of help if we could, I began to wonder something. To wit, what will the child think of us when she is grown? When she is adult?

She will, after all, quite likely find herself in a world where there are no longer ice caps, where the gap between rich and poor has widened so far as to make us two separate nations (each loathing the other), and when America has—as the result of the vast incompetence of men and women like Trump— slid down to the status of second or third class power, if that.

As she looks back on my generation, and that of her parents, she will ask How was it possible? How could it be that we allowed into office a man like Trump? A man and an administration who would, in the end, work to destroy our national influence, power, and well-being? Who would crush the middle class to save a few more pennies for the already wealthy and powerful? Who were, in the end, as deadly as plague and cancer?

She will ask all those things.

And, I, alas, will have no answer.

Only an apology…

Which, I fear, will be worse than useless.

~mjt