JANUARY 24, 2025 – I apologize for what’s become a work-week-long rant over politics. Don’t worry, though: as a modern member of the species, I have a short attention span. In short order another barking dog will rattle my cage, capture my fleeting thoughts and pin them down until the next wildfire, school shooting, extreme weather event, or celebrity imbroglio dominates the half-day news cycle. In due course, I’ll have plenty else besides politics to post about here.
The earth, meanwhile, will continue to revolve around the sun, thanks to the laws of physics and long arc of time. I know this from what our nine-year-old granddaughter told me she learned about Galileo in school yesterday. She surprised me with how much she’d absorbed from her third grade class. I can’t remember when I first encountered Galileo, but it was long after third grade. Illiana spoke authoritatively about his greatest achievement: observations with a telescope confirming that the earth revolves around the sun, not the sun around the earth. She’d also learned about the Florentine astronomer’s persecution by the church.
Her confident statements gave me confidence. Addressing me in my angst and despair, this wise young girl brought me back down to earth; or rather, took me far above it for a broader perspective. Unwittingly, she led me to see a connection between Galileo’s persecution over the truth and Trump’s retribution against the truth as exposed by volumes of real-time videographic evidence—confirmed by judges, juries and confessions to be beyond reasonable doubt. Galileo’s “truth” ultimately won against the pope’s fear of science. The truth of what happened on January 6, 2021 will prevail against the president’s contempt for the Constitution.
This evening on the 15-minute drive to her home (after legos, painting, dinner and movie night (Luck and episodes of Frog and Toad) at our house), Illiana asked me a series of questions touching on science, politics, philosophy, and theology. The first was lobbed before I’d backed out of the garage: “How many cells are in the body?” Having no clue, I shifted into park and googled the question. While I waited for the “AI generated” response, I asked Illiana to guess. She said “A gazillion,” which is also my favorite way of expressing an enormous quantity.
“That’s as good a guess as any,” I said. A few seconds later the answer appeared. “Wow! You were very close, Illiana,” I said, turning around and showing her my iPhone screen. The answer was “47 trillion,” which made her eyebrows jump high as her eyeglasses slipped lower down her nose.
Having fielded her first question, I continued backing out of the garage, down the driveway and into the alley. Before we reached the street, I was in the hot seat again. “Grandpa, if you got 25 cents for every wrong you’ve committed, how much money would you have?”
“Hmmm—a very embarrassing question,” I said. “Lord knows I’ve committed a lot of wrongs. Add ’em all up and multiply by 25 cents and I’d have several million bucks, I’m sure.”
“Really?” she said. For a split second I worried that perhaps I’d compromised my standing with her. But in that instant I recalled what a banker client of mine years ago had often said to financially stressed debtors: “The truth will set you free.”
Illiana, meanwhile, had moved on to the next subject on her mind: theology. “Grandpa, when was God created?” It was a question very close to one her dad Cory had posed to me when he was about her age. The setting was a fourth-grade Sunday school class of which I was the squirrel-herder and Cory was among the herded. The lesson that Sunday was about the Creation Story, and I adhered closely to the teacher’s manual. At one point Cory’s hand went up—tentatively at first, then more confidently.
“Yes, Cory,” I said.
“I have a question.”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
“Who created God?”
“That’s a great question, Cory,” I said, formulating my response on the fly. “I don’t have the answer to that, but hang in there. I think they cover that in seventh grade.”
This evening in the car—three decades later—I responded to Illiana’s similar question by explaining the Big Bang. I did so more as a diversion than as a direct response to her question. It worked. From her brief foray into theology, Illiana reverted to science and gave me a brief explanation of how the moon was formed—something else she’d learned in school recently.
Next up was politics. “I don’t think Trump is a very nice person,” she said.
“I don’t think so either,” I said, resisting the impulse to say more. Moreover, I thought it was my grandparental obligation to counter a very big negative with some measure of positive.
“But you know, Illiana . . . as much as I dislike Trump and disapprove of him, I think the most important thing we can do to counter him and the people around him is to work really hard at being good and doing good.”
From there our conversation turned to the fundamentals of good citizenship—an expansion of our exchange whenever I drive her to school: as she alights from the car, I say, “You know the drill . . .” and she says, “Smile, be kind and pay attention.” I told Illiana what a good citizen she’s turned out to be and how certain I was that when she’s an adult, everyone who knows her will respect her for her “exemplary citizenship.”
“Does that mean example?” she asked.
“Yes it does—good example.”
We then rounded the final curve to her parents’ apartment. I phoned Cory to alert him, and a minute later came the hand-off. From the curbside, I lowered the car window and watched as Cory escorted his daughter from the vehicle toward the building. A few paces away, Illiana turned her head and called out back me, “I love you Grandpa!”
In that moment I knew that however bad a turn our country has taken, there’s good reason to maintain faith in our resilience. I drove away with a much improved attitude. Our clan’s bright cheerful caring curious nine-year-old citizen had pulled me out of a weeklong slump and restored my faith in the future. To her—and through her, to my country—I owe a duty to maintain that faith.
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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
