There Are Ample Reasons for Despair

spoken by Robert Reich on FaceBook, April 4, 2025

A friend is caring for her father
as he slips away into senility.
Every day is another sign of absence
of the dad of breakfasts-for-supper
and suppers at the ballpark,
summer beach trips and fall hikes.

Lately, she has given up
trying to help him remember
what he ate this morning
and secretly hidden his phone,
so he can’t sell the family farm
to a caller from Fort Worth.

One day last week, he insisted
he had figured out how
to make money without people,
using a genius invention
that would do all the work—
if she would just help him login.

Instead, now she just sits with him
and listens to his sleepy mumbling,
daydreams in which he is still
suave and handsome and in
charge of his privileged life,
though, actually, he never was.

written by Anne McCrady

NEWSLINKS: CNN, FOXNEWS, MSNBC, Reuters, Irish Star
AUDIOLINK: SoundCloud
ESSAY: Substack