I dreamed about him this morning.

We don't remember many of our dreams, so I don't know how many times I've dreamed about Leif. I only remember two or three. This morning, just before I was awakened, I was dreaming of him, and I remember the dream clearly. I was walking somewhere in a craggy landscape and looked up on some rocks above me and there he was. He wasn't in his SCA armor, like in this photo, but it was the same tall, powerful, imposing presence, with that intelligent, engaging look. I was surprised to see him and asked, "What are you doing here?" 

About that moment, my foot slipped and I started to fall over a long drop-off. He reached down and grabbed my hand and pulled me a long way back up. He rescued me. I said something like, "You came," and he just hugged me. 

Most of the time, my sadness about Leif's death and the fact that he is no longer with us is locked behind the door we learn to close on grief, but it gets loose in the days approaching Christmas, New Years, his birthday, the Fourth of July (which he loved), and I realize all over again he won't be with us. It certainly hit me today after this dream, or maybe because of it. Once again, he won't be here. 2007 was the last time we saw him for Christmas. He was sad and depressed then, though he perked up a little when he got to play with his nieces. Little did we know it would be the last Christmas together. 

I have been tearing up all day, thinking about this dream and about him. What does it mean, him appearing to rescue me from falling over a precipice? I don't feel like my life is on the brink. The mind is a mysterious thing. 

Merry Christmas, Leif. I will always wish you would be home for Christmas.
 

He wanted to SEE everything

I miss my little boys but I realize how lucky I was to have them, two beautiful, curious, intelligent creatures that kept me challenged. Leif always wanted to be UP where he could see everything that was going on around him. I found I could do just about anything around the house if I carried him around in a baby backpack, but if I put him down, he would wail. If he could crawl and get to something interesting, that was okay, but otherwise, he wanted to be carried in some fashion until he could pull himself up and walk. 

I made many a meal with that heavy little fellow jouncing up and down on my back. He was strong, and he would hook his little toes in the support that ran across my lower back and "jump" up and down with glee.

This photo was taken by my mother. It hadn't seen the light of day because it was so badly exposed and color shifted that she had never printed it or showed it to anyone. I'm surprised she didn't just throw the slide away. As hard as I worked with PhotoShop, I couldn't get the color and exposure right. For instance, the cabinet walls were a supposed to be a lovely shade of blue. The shirt I'm wearing actually had a brown background color. Our faces in the original slide were a lurid magenta-red. So, this will have to do, but I love it because he looks joyful and brings back the memories of those days in that kitchen, in a house no longer standing. It was taken early in 1976 when he was just over a year old.

 

We were at sea on the 16th anniversary of his death

 

Leif died sixteen years ago on April 9, 2008. Not a day goes by when we don't talk about him and miss him. This year, we were at sea on a transatlantic cruise and I couldn't help but remember how much he loved the sea. He would have gloried in the waves and wind. How I wish we could have given him that pleasure.

I am always happy when I discover photos of Leif I didn't know existed. This one was taken by my mother in November 1975 when Leif was ten months old, in the old stone house in Manhattan, Kansas. What a joyful moment.  

April 9 it will be 16 years

The last photo taken of Leif was this selfie. We don't know why he took it on March 11, 2008, unless maybe he wanted to send it to a woman he hoped to date (there was someone he had met). He didn't send it to us. I found it on his phone after he died. 

We saw him on Easter, which was on March 23rd, and had a good time with him at our Easter dinner. I wish I had taken a photo of him then, or of the three of us, but I had no idea it would be the last time we would see him alive. Seventeen days later, he was dead. 

At Easter, he seemed full of hope and plans, very interested in a woman he had met, hoping to move to Orlando and date her. How could it all collapse so fast? No matter how many times I go over it in my mind, I still think some necessary piece of information is missing. He had survived so much, but something made him snap. He had spent the evening with friends, and texting with several of us about music and technology. No hint of any planning for suicide. He was even talking about ordering the music of a German band he had discovered. So, what happened? We will never know.

We miss him ever day. 

 

He would have been 49 years old today

 

He was a beautiful child, so beautiful that sometimes strangers stopped us on the street to say so. He was eager and bright and always curious and investigating. He was born fast and loved speed. He learned to walk early. He was introspective and observed the life around him. 

We miss him every day of our lives, and most especially on his birthday. This photo was taken in the fall of 1975 when he was not yet one year old.