"Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil"

"Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil." -- Elie Wiesel

I'm still reeling and trying to wrap my head around the recent events in our Nation's History and where they will lead us. I woke up this morning wondering what outrage we will face next. It seems like we at the nadir, but I've thought that many times before throughout the last six months, and we always seem to manage to sink a little deeper.  We're stuck in quicksand, a deep chasm to hell, and we are being led by a Faustus of our own making, deeper and deeper through the hole.

A story.

Currently on my caseload, I am working with a Holocaust survivor. He has survived -- and thrived -- through many challenges. This gentleman is now at the twilight of his life. He has dementia, and on top of that, he survived a stroke. He's tough as nails. He is often confused, sometimes combative with his caregivers, but he always has been pleasant with me. After the war, he fled to the United States. He became a successful businessman and lived the American Dream. He contributed to our country in immeasurable ways.

Sometimes he lives in the past. Last week -- before Charlottesville -- he was confabulating about the war.  "What are you doing in the war?" he asked me, with a tear in his eye and a break in his voice.

I gently tried to bring him back to reality. "I wasn't born yet when the war happened. It was a long time ago. But my father fought in the war. He was a ball-turret gunner in a B-17 flying missions out of England."

He could barely hold in his emotion as he tearily said, "I hope he killed the Germans."

"Yes, he bombed Germany a lot."

"Good.....good," he said. "I'm glad he killed the Germans."

We were able to get along with our session.

Yesterday, I visited with him again and he brought up the war again. I quickly re-directed him, because if I hadn't been able to do that, I would've broken down myself.

"The war was a long time ago. Now we have some new challenges. Let's get to work."

It absolutely breaks my heart that this man, whose friends and family suffered the unspeakable and paid the ultimate price at the hands of Hate, who fled to the United States and made a good life helping others and conttirbuted to our Democracy and was a successful businessman, lives in a country where rampant hate still lives. And this hate is being given life by the toad (I cannot call him a man) who occupies the White House.

I think about my own father -- what would he think? -- and others in the Greatest Generation, who fought against fascism. We fought that war. The right side won!  Didn't it?

It makes me sick to my stomach.

It makes me question reality.

It makes me question the collective sanity of our country.

It makes me question my sanity. When I wake up, is it actually a nightmare that I am entering?

I at once become paralyzed and ready to act. And then paralyzed again.

And here I sit, paralyzed.  I have no more words.  Except to say, we can not remain indfferent.

*

Because I use this blog to record the events of these days, here is what we are waking up to in today's nightmare:




New York Times full transcript