Leif and his stuffed animals

He was a boy who loved cars, planes, ships, any vehicle, especially if it was fast. He loved guns, James Bond, Star Wars, Star Trek, movies, computer games. He liked to go to the beach. And, he loved stuffed animals. He loved to snuggle up with them, an acceptable form of cuddling for him. He wasn't a particularly cuddly or affectionate child, but he hugged and loved up his stuffed animals, especially Fluffy, the big beige bear in the center of this picture, given to him by his Aunt Lannay. Some of these were brought to him by his dad when he returned from TDY trips to Korea. Some were gifts. He treasured them all. This photo was taken in May 1984 in Honolulu, Hawaii, where we were living at the time. He was nine years old and in his pajamas. He was just so cute with his armload of cuddly "pets" I had to take the photo. 
 

Fifteen Years Ago

Fifteen years ago we approached Leif's apartment entrance with great trepidation. We were terrified about what we might find, but it was far worse than we imagined. The day before, we received a call from his work supervisor, who called us as his emergency contacts, because Leif had not shown up for work, or called in. He had tried to contact Leif without success and said that Leif never just skipped out on work. He was concerned.

So were we! But we hoped that maybe he was depressed and hiding out, or had gone to Orlando to see the woman he was dating, or thought he had changed his work schedule, or gotten drunk and was sleeping it off. We tried repeatedly throughout the day to contact him via phone and text messages but got no response. Then I tried calling the hospitals to see if he had been admitted after an accident or something. I did not find him. I tried calling his friend Michael, who said he had been with him the night before, but hadn't heard from him that day, April 9th. He lived an hour and a half away, so he couldn't just go over the Leif's apartment to check on him. We should have. 

But, he was an adult. It seemed intrusive to burst in on him if he didn't want to talk, so we waited. We had no idea he was already dead. 

The next morning, with no contact, we decided we had to go to his apartment and see him. Peter W. was too wrought to drive, so I drove there. We discussed that if both his vehicles, his car and motorcycle, were in the parking lot, it was a bad sign....and they were. 

The apartment door was locked. Calling, knocking, nothing got an answer, so we went to the apartment complex office and asked the manager on duty to let us into his apartment because we were worried something had happened to him. To my surprise, she agreed to do so without an argument. 

We went in, looking into the first rooms, the bedroom and bathroom, and didn't see him. Then we looked in the kitchen and he was there on the floor surrounded by a large and thick pool of blood and tissue, his head and upper back against the refrigerator door, his feet under the edge of the cabinet. A gun was on the counter. At first glance, it looked to me like he had shot himself in they eye, but I quickly saw the gunshot wound in the center of his forehead. I remember the two of us saying, "No, no no!" 

Peter W. was in agony and I told him not to look. I got him out of the kitchen and called the sheriff's office. I knew we could not touch Leif, or anything in that kitchen, because there would be an investigation, when the only think I wanted to do was hold my son. I will always regret that I couldn't, and didn't. 

The detective came. She found the bullet casings. We asked her personnel to be sure all his guns had no ammo in them. He had several more. She said to get everything of value out of there or it would be stolen. We had to get help to get his car and motorcycle to our home, and we packed up the computers, guns, guitars, and anything else of value we could in a neighbor's pickup truck. He and his wife were kind enough to drop what they were doing and drive to Tampa to help us.

I called the insurance company. We drove home. I called family members. All of this sounds so dry and matter-of-fact, but our hearts were broken. There weren't enough tears to every cry it out. 

He had been dead a day, but his death certificate says "Found April 10, 2008." The autopsy says it was a suicide and I talked to the pathologist who did the autopsy and asked how he knew that. He said it was a contact wound, meaning the gun was against his head....the gun he bought the day before.

Fifteen years and I still miss him every day of my life. 

 

I Miss Him So!

On March 11, I wrote about how much I missed Leif, and the recurring sadness has only grown stronger the closer we get to Easter. Why is that? First, the last time we saw him was on Easter in 2008. Easter came early that year, March 23rd. We invited him to come for dinner and he demurred, saying he didn't have extra money for gas, and his Mazda RX8 was kind of a gas guzzler. I told him I'd give him gas money, and I gave him a $20 bill. I wish I'd given him more, though I doubt it would have changed anything in the end. We had a really nice visit. He was positive, upbeat, hoping to move to Orlando, and once again, in love. By April 9, he was dead.

This year, Easter falls on April 9th, the day he shot himself. There is something strangely coincidental about these dates....the date of a resurrection is, this year, the anniversary of Leif's death. And Easter 2008 was the last time we saw him alive. 

I will never stop wondering why, even though I have examined many causes for 15 years. And that's another thing, fifteen YEARS have passed, and yet the grief is fresh. It still seems only yesterday that he drove up our driveway, bass speakers pounding away, and unfolded his 6'2" frame from his snazzy sportscar. It seems only yesterday he was giving me a big bear hug and calling me "silly mommy."

Last August 13, 2022, I posted a photo of his still-intact wallet, with all his cards and $12 cash in it, saying it was time to let go of it....but I didn't. I still couldn't bring myself to do it. But now, I have. I set a deadline to do it before the 15 year anniversary, and I scanned and shredded his cards, his driver's license, his motorcycle license, his concealed carry license, even his laundry card, and his debit and credit cards. The wallet now is empty except for the $12, which I still can't make myself remove. I need to take that out and donate the wallet. I will. I promise. He won't use it any more, and neither will I. But it still feels like I took them away from him. Dismantled his life.

I chose this photo because I am sitting here at the very desk he was helping his dad put together for me in this photo from July 26, 2006. Every day I use this desk. Every day I see his photos and flag case above it. But he is not here, and Easter will not bring him back. Ever.

 

Setting up his Gateway computer for this grandmother

The last couple of days I've been very sad about Leif's death. I don't know for sure why it has hit me so hard already this spring, but I suppose it's because it's getting close to the last date we saw him alive in March 2008, and his death in April, fifteen years ago, Or maybe it's memories that have triggered it, most likely both. 

This memory came up because I was looking at an old hard drive I took out of my mother's computer and saved in an external HD enclosure, just in case there were files on it we might want someday....even though I transferred all her files to her newer Dell computer when the Gateway started acting wonky.

Mom needed a new computer but didn't want to spend much on one, and wanted to be able to use two monitor screens to work on editing her book about bamboo. Leif had an extra computer...he was always buying and trading electronics...and offered to sell it to his grandmother for a bargain price and help her set it up. January 19, 2008, he brought it to her condo and the two of us set it up. This photo shows us doing that. I had forgotten about the photo until I was emailing my brother about some of his files I found on that old hard drive...things he had put then when visiting Mom and using her computer. We were trying to determine the date and I remembered the photo. It's a shock to see Leif having gained so much weight, although of course I saw him that way and have other photos of him at this weight, but what a change from the handsome, slim young man he once was, as he was in the photo I last posted. I wonder, when I see this photo now, whether there was any sign he would be dead in three months. 

The last time we saw him, he seemed happy and relaxed and infatuated with a woman he had met, was trying to find a way to move to Orlando to be near her and hoped to find a better job there. He was exercising and seemed to be trying to lose weight on a keto diet. For his birthday that January, just a few days after this, he just wanted steak and salad. In March, that last time we saw him, he seemed upbeat, but in January, he seemed depressed. I was worried about him, so I was so glad he seemed happier in March. It must have been ephemeral. 

I miss him so much!

He would have been 48 today - on Gasparilla

He would have been 48 years old today, had he lived. I wondered what he would look like. What he would be doing. Whether he would have married and had children. That was not to be, but today, on that birthday, was the Tampa pirate festival called Gasparilla, which he surely would have enjoyed. I don't know whether he ever went to Gasparilla during the years he lived in Florida, but as his dad said today, he could have, should have, marched in the parade.

When he joined the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) long years ago in Manhattan, Kansas, he chose as his persona a pirate of the Viking age, at least for awhile, before he seemed to morph into a knight in shining armor. He was a rather dashing "fashion conscious" pirate, so he acquired the nickname, "the GQ Pirate" after the magazine "Gentleman's Quarterly" (which now publishes monthly) and bills itself as a publication about men's fashion, sport, sex, health and other subjects. For a time, Leif even used an email address with the handle, "thegqpirate." 

It would have been fun to see him in pirate garb at the age of 48, participating in one of the Gasparilla crewes or marching in the parade....or even in the crowd as a handsome GQ pirate! 

Even almost 15 years after his death we daily use things he left behind...a cordless telephone, a computer, weights, and things he taught us. We talk of him daily, so many memories. We miss him every day, but especially on his birthday, remembering our joy at his birth, that big, strong baby, so curious about the world, so intelligent. When did hope become hopeless? Why did he give up on life?

This photo was taken at the Kansas Renaissance Fair in Bonner Springs, Kansas, September 11, 1994. He was looking handsome and assured, at the age of 19. Little did we know what life had in store for him....or that date of 9/11.

It could have been him

Today we went to a "showcase" performance, one where nine professional acts (eight musical and one magic) gave twelve minute performances to be rated by the large audience to give local entertainment directors as sense of what their audiences might like to have booked. In the audience were also entertainment directors from the surrounding area. These acts were all talented and varied, and several had bands that had guitarists. One even had four! Two acoustic, an electric guitar and an electric bass guitar. 

I couldn't help but remember Leif playing his four guitars, starting with a blue one he got in high school when he first got interested and started taking lessons in Highland Park, Illinois. That was his "starter" guitar, a decent instrument which he kept the rest of his life. He added a a green Kramer Floyd Rose guitar, the guitar he designed and made himself, and the blue bass guitar he is playing at left. That was the only one he ever played (briefly) in a band while he was a student at Antilles High School on Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico. This photo was taken when that band was performing at school. 

Leif loved music and had a huge collection of CDs, spent a lot of money to put a top of the line stereo in his car, and loved playing his guitars. He would practice for hours, learning some of the famous riffs and guitar solos, though never to his desired standards. I still hear them played on the radio or in television shows or movies and always remember Leif playing them.

The groups we saw today had some excellent singers. Leif could sing, too, though we didn't even know that until he turned up on the Antilles musical stage acting and singing the part of Kenickie in "Grease."

So,  couldn't help but think, if he'd had the burning desire to be a musician, he could have been on that stage.