It would have been his 46th birthday

 

This is the thirteenth of Leif's birthdays we have spent without him. Not a day goes by that we do not think of him and talk about him, or even talk to him, though there is no answer. Our lives are still full of memories and things that remind us of him. 

As I scan more and more old slides and negatives of ours and my mother's, I find photos of him I have never seen before, or that maybe, I saw when a roll of slides was first developed and not since then, as we had only a select few developed and haven't projected slides in many years. These "new" photos are special surprises. This is one of them. I've posted photos of his birthdays, but never one of his first birthday. 

It was a small birthday party, with the four of us and the boys beloved babysitter, Rhonda. The cake was an almond cake with green frosting, and it sure did look homemade. It had a big thick candle in the middle (it had been backed in an angel food cake pan) and Leif was a little scared of it. Once the candle was blown out and removed, he enjoyed his cake and did pretty well with a spoon for a one-year-old.

We were happy that his hand was no longer bandaged that day. The poor little guy had gotten horrible third degree burns on his left hand at the old Occupational Therapy Department at Fort Riley when he grabbed an unprotected live steam pipe that fed the heating system. He had a lot of painful medical treatment and physical therapy but luckily his hand healed with no permanent injury, and the bandages were off for his birthday.

I look at those bright little eyes and know how he took in the world, figuring things out, testing them, how his mind was always working. I wish I could have made him a cake today.

Taken January 28, 1976 in the old stone house on Moro Street, Manhattan, Kansas. With him are his dad and his brother. 

Star Wars - Missing Leif at the Movie

Yesterday we went to see Star Wars Episode VII - The Force Awakens. We saw it in IMAX 3D, and it was magnificent. It was gripping all the way through, and it had all the classic elements of the tale of freedom against tyranny. It brought back the original stars, and scattered throughout were so many visual and plot references to the earlier films. The special effects were spectacular, and seeing it that large in 3D made it far more so. I enjoyed every minute of it, but at several points throughout the movie I had tears in my eyes or even rolling down my cheeks because I thought how much Leif would have loved it and he wasn't there to share it with.

Originally, we had hoped to go see it with Peter Anthony and Darren, which would have been great full for old times sake, though I would still have missed sharing with with Leif, too, and would have cried for that. I wish we had been able to see it with them.

As it was, I told myself I wasn't only seeing it for me, I was seeing it for Leif, but of course, that's only a nice thought; not in any way realistic.

I grieve for all he has missed, and all he will miss, the movies, the technology, but also what I had hoped for him in life, love, a family, a job that made use of his amazing mind.

If he had persevered, had lived, I don't know whether his life would have gotten better, or just been more misery for him. I don't know whether his health would have continued to deteriorate.

It's nice to think that if he had lived, things would have gotten better, but there's no real evidence that would have been true.

But whatever might have been a different outcome, I know what this one is. This one is missing him. This one is missing sharing something I know he would have loved. This one is missing talking with him about it, his enthusiasm, his insights.

There are so many things inextricably bound to him in my mind. They will always remind me of him and what we have lost.

And so, I completely enjoyed this movie, and completely surrender to the grief of not being able to share at least the discussion of it with him.

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The photo of Peter Anthony and Leif playing with some of their Star Wars toys was taken in October 1979 in Sachsen bei Ansbach, Germany. Leif was four-and-a-half years old.

Coincidences

Saturday evening we went to the 50th wedding anniversary of a couple who are neighbors and friends. It was a large gathering, about 300 people, including a few others from our neighborhood, a happy occasion with good food and music.

During the entertainment, Peter Anthony sent me a text message asking what kind of motorcycle Leif had. Peter A. really liked it and wishes he had it. It was Leif's third motorcycle. He sold the first one, a yellow and magenta Yamaha crotch rocket, and the second one, a yellow Suzuki super-fast crotch rocket was stolen. By that time, he was thinking maybe a more comfortable ride would be nice and purchased this used Honda MC 1800cc. It was a beautiful bike and he kept it in pristine condition.

But why did Peter A. ask me that tonight . . . just about the same time that Peter W. said to me that he didn't want to make me sad, but the picture of finding Leif dead in his apartment had come into his mind. Of course, it did make me sad, but I was already thinking of Leif before he said anything. What I was thinking was, "Leif will never have a 50th anniversary party. He will never have ANY anniversary party, never have any children or grandchildren."

On the way home, we were talking about Leif and about what we might do for our 50th anniversary. Peter wants to go on a cruise. I always talked about renewing our vows at the Heidelberg Castle. But the truth is, I'm not sure I want to be with anyone but Peter W. The thing I want most for that anniversary can never be . . . my family intact and whole, and all there with us. We will never have that kind of reunion.

We talked about Leif's sadness and loneliness, the way he would withdraw, the children we wish he had, how we wished he and Nikko had had a successful marriage. They clearly loved each other, but love is not enough to make a marriage work. The "love conquers all" belief just isn't true.

So, it was a pleasant and happy evening, but at the same time, a sad and poignant one, and I still wonder why all three of us thought about Leif at the same time, but in different ways.

As I told Peter W. during the drive home, it has been nearly five years since he died, and I miss him just as much.

The MIssing Stone

On November 9, 2008, I posted a picture of this ring intact, with Leif's birthstone on the left, and November 29, 2008, I wrote about how I had lost the garnet stone that was Leif's birthstone on the left side of the ring. I found it and replaced it in the ring but oddly, it fell out again. I had it repaired again but had to have the stone replaced that time, since I couldn't find it.

Now, it has disappeared again. Last Monday, December 10, I noticed it was missing. I couldn't find the stone.

It seems so strange to me, that only Leif's stone falls out. It's as if it's trying to prove that he is gone and won't stay here. I am not a superstitious person, but it is a very odd coincidence. Even the jewelry company that made the ring from Peter Anthony's design, and has fixed the ring twice, can't seem to make it stay in.

It's sad. I can't wear the ring like this, and I don't know whether it makes sense to replace the stone yet again. I wonder if it would stay. Somehow I doubt it.

I fell doubly sad about it because I haven't been able to take time to write anything on Leif's blog for a month, and not much before that. I've been completely involved with my mother's affairs, since she suffered another fractured vertebra and has been in the hospital and rehab. I've spent a lot of time with her and taking care of her affairs, and been most grateful to my two sisters for coming, each of them for ten days, to help and be with her, too.

I've thought of Leif every day, many times a day. I've missed him at Thanksgiving, our fifth Thanksgiving without him. I still want to see him driving up the driveway, fell his warm bear hug, hear his laugh.

The holidays will always be bittersweet, sweet with the family we have and the memories we've kept, bitter without Leif there to share them with us. It's so hard to realize he will not be here for the fifth Christmas. We will miss him so.

“Youth offers the promise of happiness, but life offers the realities of grief.”  ― Nicholas Sparks

How true that is. We have to be glad for the years of happiness, though even those memories are now bittersweet.

Halloween, a favorite of Leif's

I suppose Leif and Peter Anthony were like most brothers. Sometimes they were good companions, and sometimes they competed. Sometimes Peter teased Leif and Leif got mad and went on the attack. I used to tell Peter that he was lucky Leif was six years younger than he was, because he was to big for his age. I think that in the years after Peter left home, when Leif was twelve, they grew apart and forgot all the good times they had together when they were younger.  This photo is an example. It was Halloween and Peter, who was nearly nine years old and in third grade, was a classy vampire with a ruffled shirt. He was already in costume way early, as we were having a party at our house for him and his friends. His dad dressed up as a sort of swami fortune teller. I looked ridiculous in a true 1970s tie-dyed dress, leopard print hat, and fish net stockings, or at least that's what I think I wore.

Look at the expression of pure delight on Leif's face, the cute body language as the vampire leans over to bite and Leif expects it will tickle. Yes, Peter did bite, and yes, it did tickle. There was a lot of laughter.

Leif was only two-and-a-half years old then and not really old enough to understand much about Halloween except that he got to go beg for candy at a few doorways in the stairwell, but he certainly understood the idea of having fun with his brother.

When Leif was grown, Halloween was one of his favorite times. He loved to have parties and was devilish and cute. I wish he was here this Halloween with us.

Memories on the Neckar River

When we were in Heidelberg in June, we had a lovely walk along the Neckar River and we passed this big ring fastened into the wall along the river path. There are several of them, used to tie up boats and barges, but this particular one stands straight out and I recognized it at once, though I hadn't seen it in over thirty years.

I remembered the beautiful April day in 1978 when we were visiting Heidelberg. It might have been Easter weekend or even Easter Sunday. It was a bit chilly and spring wasn't a little late, but it was still a beautiful time for a walk along the river. Our boys saw that ring and they just HAD to hang on it. Peter Anthony could just barely grasp it and then walk his feet up along the wall, but Leif was way too short for that, so his Dad had to hold him up.

On his head, Leif has a red visor with built-in flip-down sunglasses that he just loved. I think I have another photo or two of him wearing it, and I'd forgotten all about it until I saw this picture again.

In the spring of 1978 we were living in Nurnberg, or actually Furth, and it was about a two-and-a-half hour drive to get to Heidelberg so we didn't go often to visit Peter W.'s aunts, uncles and cousins there, but every visit was a joy.

Leif was three years old and Peter Anthony was nine in these photos. Hard to believe that was 34 years ago.

I'm glad I took these photos, so that I have more than just the memory of that place and time. And I'm glad I found them and scanned them. Time is not being good to many of our older color photos. They are fading or discoloring and there's only so much I can do with PhotoShop to improve them.

Four Years Have Passed

This morning at 7:30 a.m., Peter Anthony called to express love and the wish that we would remember today all the good and positive things that Leif brought into our lives. We are grateful for them, and for all that Peter has brought into our lives!

How different this morning is, four years past the day we found Leif's body in his apartment. At 7:30 that morning, Michael called, we got up full of dread at what the day might bring. I wrote all about that day on the one-year anniversary, April 10, 2009. (This is a link to that post.)

The journey through grief is a long one, and it is full of ebb and flow. Change comes gradually, so gradually it is hard to see the progress unless you are far enough along the road to look way back and see how far you have come.

This morning, these past days, have shown me how far we have come. I have been happy! Not happy because these are the anniversary days of Leif's last day of life and communications with me, the day of his death, the day we found him, not happy because of the remembered dread, shock, and misery, but happy because the depths of grief have mostly passed. Yes, the questions remain. Yes, we miss him, but this year, for the first time, I could wake up each of those days and appreciate the sunshine, the mockingbird singing, the wonder of Peter's arms around me, and look forward to the day. This time, I am finally experiencing a renewal of my interest in writing something besides this blog, to turn my energies to some creative writing of another kind.

I know there will be days or moments of sadness ahead, perhaps even today there will be moments when I acutely feel the loss of my son and the misery we felt four years ago, but in these three days I have been, as Peter Anthony put it, glad to remember how much he brought to our lives. I have been motivated to continue making writing notes.

This morning I put on my "Find Joy" t-shirt, and I do find joy in my day.

Because it IS this anniversary, I also find myself wondering, once again, about all those unanswered questions. When Leif's ex-wife, Nikko, was here visiting us in February, she asked me whether I thought his death could have been an accident. I still don't think so, but the question will always be open. I've examined that question in depth since she asked it, though I've done so many times before. I've been thinking of this topic for about two months and decided to save it for today.

The thing is, we somehow expect to be able to analyze people's actions logically, and that doesn't work, or at least normal logic doesn't work, when you are dealing with the state of mind of someone who is either taking their own life or playing with guns. You can't get into that mindset with logic, though a mind in pain or under the influence of alcohol can have a very different logic of its own.

When I look at Leif's life, and his actions leading up to April 9th, I don't see any evidence of planning to kill himself. I see the opposite. He was in love. He was planning to move. He was looking for music. He put gas in his car and motorcycle. He wouldn't have needed that if he weren't going anywhere. He paid his rent. He bought a new computer game, which was still in his laptop CD drive when he died. He bought a new gun he had ordered some months before and showed off proudly.

He bought expensive new shoes, which he was wearing when he died. He wasn't dressed up. He was wearing jeans and a nondescript shirt. No one buys expensive shoes to wear in death along with those clothes. He was out with friends and with them at his apartment until 3:00 a.m. None of those things point to a man considering suicide.

However, Leif had been suicidal before, and he had recently had several huge blows. He had lost his GI Bill funding, which was keeping him relatively afloat financially. He hadn't gotten jobs or promotions he had applied for. He hadn't gotten a personal loan for which he had applied because of his high debt, and he was probably counting on that to help him out of his financial woes. The woman he had fallen in love with had virtually disappeared from his life due to family needs of her own. Until he met her, he had been despondent, discouraged, depressed, and admitted to me that he had more pain than pleasure in his life and nothing to live for. So, perhaps he felt that way again.

The detective who investigated his death on the morning of April 10, 2008 said she felt the scene had all the earmarks of an accident. She did not think it was a suicide. We did. The doctor who did the autopsy ruled it a suicide because he said it was a "contact wound," meaning that the gun barrel was against Leif's forehead.

Leif was an expert on guns, an trained military armorer. He knew guns well enough to write a dissertation on them. He would certainly have known the danger of putting a loaded gun to his head. At least two people have told me that they had seen him do it in jest several times, or even scratch his head with the gun barrel. Yet that wee morning of April 9, 2008, when Michael and Jaime were with him and they had all the guns out examining them and Jaime pointed one at one of them, Leif had a fit and told him never to do that, that he always had loaded guns in his house and you should never point a gun at anyone unless you intended it for protection. So, even under the influence of alcohol that night, he was aware of the danger.

However, all that doesn't mean that he didn't at some point decide to play with a gun himself and maybe go just a little too far. I can't persuade myself to believe that, but it's possible. Alcohol impairs judgement. He could have been "experimenting" with the idea of what it would be like to actually pull that trigger and gone too far . . . . but even if that happened, would that really have been an accident?

I don't know what Leif did after Michael and Jaime left, but I think he must have taken out the trash since there was only one beer bottle in the place. Knowing Leif, even though he had to get up and go to work in the morning, he probably either watched something on television or played a computer game, even though it was past 3:00 a.m. I doubt that he ever even went to bed.

I still come back to my original hypothesis. At some point the effects of alcohol and exhaustion set in and he hated the idea of having to show up for work or call in sick. He felt he was just working to pay his debts and had nothing else in his life. I think he set up the philosophy essay and photo on his laptop as a message to us. I can't see any other reason why he would have had those two things there.

But what happened then, I don't know. Why the kitchen? He wasn't going to go out and drive somewhere in that state. That would have risked getting arrested for drunken driving. The living room and bedroom were carpeted. That left the bathroom and kitchen. I have no idea whether he thought about that logically, or if he just walked around into the kitchen with the gun and a bottle of beer, ate some carrots, and thought, "What the sh___t. What the point? I might was well get it over with," and put the gun to his head. We will never know what he thought.

I hope, if he looked back over his life before he did it, that he remembered some happy times, that he knew he was loved.

I am glad I have so many other, better, happier memories of him. I am glad for every photo I have of him. I am glad I even have the sound of his laugh on a silly little video he made of Aly on his cell phone. I am glad he was our son.

And I am glad that after four years, this day is no longer as sad as it was in the past three years. I am glad I have Peter Walter and Peter Anthony. I am glad I have my sisters and brother, my mother, my grandchildren, my friends. I am glad I feel purpose and worth in my life. I am glad I can find joy again.
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The photo is one Leif took of himself with the built-in camera on his computer, and the solarization effect was one he chose to apply. It's a thoughtful shot, and he was an introspective man given to much thought. It was taken during that bleak period in November 2007. I never understood why someone as smart and potentially creative as Leif could have the power of a computer and not use it to be creative. Perhaps he would have had he not been depressed.

A Happy Family Photo for Valentine's Day

When the boys were little, we made Valentines, and we had Valentine's candy. Once they were grown, we didn't normally do much about Valentine's Day between us, figuring that was more between them and their girlfriends or wives, but I used to send them cards, sometimes with a little cash just for fun. In later years, I didn't do that any longer, either. Now I just send little remembrances and cards to my grandchildren.

This photo was taken at a happy time. Both my sisters and their husbands were visiting us in Charlottesville, Virginia. We enjoyed having them there and showing them around the area. This photo was taken by my sister, Sherie. We look full of life and love, and Leif looks joyful. He was always happy when Lannay or Sherie was around, when he was a little boy. 

Two Brothers on an Airplane

On October 6, 2008, when I had been writing this blog for only six months, and Leif had been dead that long, I wrote about an incident that took place on an airplane. I was surprised, the other day, to find a photo I took at that time. When I originally wrote about it, I had the date wrong. It actually happened April 24, 1977, and we must have been flying to Kansas, not Germany.

Leif was a little over two years old, and Peter A. was eight. I was flying alone with them, and they were quite a handful, just normal slightly rambunctious boys. They actually entertained each other for quite awhile but then they began to get on each other's nerves and began to fight. It was annoying to all of us, and although they weren't loud, it probably wasn't all that pleasant for those around us, either. It was primarily boredom and being stuck in those seats, just running out of interesting things to do.

Peter A. said to me, in a rather snotty tone of voice, "Why does HE have to be here?" and added some comment about why we didn't just leave Leif behind.

I remember telling him that he wouldn't appreciate it if someone had that attitude about him, either when he was two or now, but he wasn't buying it.

Not long after that, Leif fell asleep. I thought Peter A. would be glad, because then he didn't have to put up with his little brother, but no, in just a few minutes he was asking me, "When is he going to wake up?"

I told him I thought he wanted to be rid of his little brother and would be glad now that he was asleep and he didn't have to put up with him.

I had a hard time not laughing at his reply. He wanted to wake Leif up!

I asked him why, and he said, "I'm bored. There's no one to fight with."

Such is the way of brothers . . . and perhaps sisters, too, I guess.

Leif looks so sweet and cuddly in this picture. He's wearing the little plastic set of "pilot" wings the airline gave him. I wonder, sometimes, if those and that flight began his love of flying, a love that was destined for disappointment when he found out in high school that he couldn't pass the flight physical.

Peter A. looking over that pillow, the one he put between them to keep Leif from touching him. So cute, the two of them. It's easy to say that now, looking at the photo. At the time, I was doing all I could to keep them settled down. It wasn't a relaxing flight for me, though Leif eventually relaxed plenty. :)

At Bedtime They Were Mine

I loved bedtime for my boys, and not because they'd soon be in bed and I'd have time for myself and Peter W., though I enjoyed that, too, but because it was a special time together. During the day, I had "competition" from friends, play, television, and school on their part, and household chores, cooking, work, shopping, and more on my part. Bedtime was just us, no distractions, a time apart. After they were bathed and in their pajamas, I'd cuddle up and read to them, and after that, cuddle in the dark and talk. That was always the time when they'd talk about things that really mattered, the things that were on their minds, things that happened to them, what hurt their feelings, what scared them, what they had questions about, their dreams, the future. It was magic and sweet.

After that, I'd sing to them. Sometimes each one separately, but more often, once Leif was about two years old, I'd sit on the floor in the hallway between their rooms and sing to them.

It astonishes me that with the literally thousands of photos we have of our boys and our family, there is not one single photo I can find of me singing to them, or cuddling in bed with them, or singing with my guitar. I can picture those times in my mind, but no one else will ever see them now.

This photo of Leif asleep on a train in Europe the summer of 1977 is something I took. He was so little and sweet, though very tall for his age at two-and-a-half. We took a long train trip that summer, from Germany to Norway, back south to Paris and the Riviera. The boys slept on trains and in hotels, and it was a great time for us. I posted a photo of the two boys cuddled up in a hostel bed in Norway. But no photos of me with them.

I think so many of today's children don't have a "bedtime," not in the sense of a time to go to bed, or in the sense of a comforting and loving ritual they can count on. So many are allowed to stay up way too late and are tired the next morning. Even with a regular bedtime I had a hard time getting my boys up to go to school. They slept soundly and didn't want to wake up!

I wish I had a list of all the books I read to them and all the songs I sang to them. I'm trying to make a list of the songs. I'll probably be able to remember a few of the books. I'll have to post those lists when I think I've exhausted my memory of things to add to them.

Most of the time the boys were cooperative about going to bed, and I think that the pleasant ritual and the affection and cuddling made it something enjoyable instead of something to fight against. However, it wasn't universally that way. When Peter A. was about four he would go to bed just fine, but then in a few minutes start calling that he needed a drink of water, or had to go to the bathroom, or saw a monster outside his window.

Leif went through a period where after we'd gone through the bedtime cuddling and I hugged and kissed him good night and went downstairs, he would wait about five minutes and then sneak down the stairs after me. I'd put him back in bed and down he would come again. This would go on repeatedly until I had to be very stern with him or put in in his Zip-a-Babe harness so he couldn't get out of bed. Oddly, as I've written before, he didn't seem to mind that, seemed to find it a relief that he couldn't get out of bed. The "getting out of bed" period didn't last long, just a month or so.

I missed those bedtime routines when the boys got into high school and I think they did, too.

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Four years ago tonight we were having dinner here with Leif, his last birthday dinner, a day before his birthday because he had to work on his birthday, the evening shift. Little did we know it would be the last birthday dinner we would share with him

Singing To My Sons

This morning as we were listening to Roger Whittaker singing "Both Sides Now," Peter W. said it reminded him of me singing to our boys at bed time. I said I never sang that song to them, but I guess the kind of song it was made him think that. I thought I had written about singing to my boys on the blog already, but I couldn't find a post about it.

I don't know if my sons remembered all the songs I sang to them once they were grown, but it was a special bed time ritual for many years. I started it when Peter A. was little and continued it for many years, long after Leif was born. I remember how, when I had two of them to sing to, I used to sit on the floor between their two bedroom doors, facing them, and sing in the dark hallway.

I think I particularly remember that place and time because of sitting on that floor. The boys were eight and two years old then.

I started singing when I was in college, accompanying myself on an acoustic guitar. For a short time I sang with a quartet. After college, for many, many years the only singing I did was at home with my guitar or singing to the boys at night. I have no photos of me singing with my guitar or singing to them. I wish I did. 

I sang mostly folk songs, oldies, and a few Broadway numbers. One of the songs the boys loved was "When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob Bobbin' Along," an old song I learned in college. Since I have no photos of me singing to them, I found this video of the melody. There are a lot of videos online with a wide variety of singers, famous and amateur, singing this song but their renditions were so different from mine that I am posting a piano version.

I also loved to sing "Try To Remember" from The Fantasticks, "Inchworm" (originally from the film Hans Christian Anderson), children's favorites like "The Ants Go Marching" and "Found a Peanut," and many folk songs.

Both boys had good voices. Peter A. began singing with the Kinderchor (childen's choir) in Sachsen bei Ansbach when he was in fourth grade and sang all the way through school and the Air Force Academy in choruses and musicals. 

Leif had a wonderful voice, but he never sang until he tried out for high school musicals and won the coveted part of Kenicke in "Grease," when his rendition of "Greased Lightning" made the girls scream like he was a rock star. I've written about that on this blog before.

When my grandchildren were tiny, I thought of recording a CD of the songs I sang to my sons for the grandkids, but I never did it. 

Singing to my sons is a special, warm memory. Bed time was good, with cuddles, stories, and songs, our time.

A Christmas "Visit"

I'm sitting here listening to Vangelis, a composer Leif loved, beginning with the end titles from Blade Runner, one of his favorite movies, and thinking of him. It's hard to believe I haven't posted on this blog since December 16th. Each of the days since then we have thought of him, talked of him, missed him, remembered good times with him. We were blessed with family around us, Peter Anthony, our granddaughters, my mother, friends, who kept us busy, happy except for moments when a longing broke through, kept us focused on life and the present so much better than we would have been if we had been alone. 

Even this fourth Christmas without Leif doesn't feel right, though. He should have been with us, enjoying all the fun, the foods he loved. He would have participated in the lively political and historical discussions with fervor, laughed at the Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert shows, talked about all the latest technology, and eaten too much potato lefse and Berliner Kranse. He would have loved the movies, played the games.

He could not be with us, but we went to the cemetery, which was decked out in wreaths and flowers, on December 28. It's a beautiful place, but a place full of both peace and sadness.

I cried, as I always do, and was glad for the long, tight hugs from Peter and Peter Anthony, so thankful they were with me. It still hurts to look at that marble slab with his name on it and know that all that's left of his earthly remains are behind it, yet I want to go there, to acknowledge him in that small symbolic way.

On New Years Eve, I watched the ball drop in Times Square and looked up at the stars in the night sky and thought of him.

I thought again how passionate he would be about the political campaign, wondered as I always do what we might have done to keep him with us.

But this year, more than the past, I was able to embrace the good memories and cherish them without always dissolving into sadness . . . though missing him will always be there. I missed buying him gifts, too. I thought about it when I was wrapping all the others. It still doesn't seem right not to have them for him.

It will be like that when his birthday comes at the end of this month, too.

Our Fourth Thanksgiving Without Leif

I am grateful today for my family and friends, for the life I have, for my home and my country, and to be fortunate to have enough to live well. I am thankful for my husband and best friend, my sons and my grandchildren, especially.

Today is our fourth Thanksgiving without Leif, a holiday he shared with us most of the years of his life. It will never seen right or complete without him, and even with the gratitude I feel there will always be sadness that he is not with us.

I am thankful he was our son, is our son, that we had him for 33 years. It's hard to say that and not add, "but it was not enough." I can't do it. It wasn't enough. I miss him.

Like all parents who have lived through the death of a beloved child, that longing never goes away. After a time, for many hours, many days, the pain subsides. Life seems normal, until something opens the door and lets the longing and sadness out.

Holidays are such a mixed blessing. They are still a time to celebrate, to be thankful, to enjoy our families and friends. They are still a time for traditions and love. They are still a time to treasure.

But they will always be bittersweet, tinged with loss.

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This photo of Leif was taken when we lived in Japan, probably in 1981 when he was six years old. The USA patch on his blazer is so appropriate. He grew up to be passionate about his country, served it in the army, studied its Constitution at the university. The thoughtful pose is appropriate, too. When Leif was young, he wasn't a talker like his brother. He was a quiet one, a thinker, and we usually didn't know what was going on in his bright mind. Later, once Peter A. left home, the floodgates opened and he began to talk and talk and talk, as though he had stored it up for the opportunity when he didn't have to "compete" for the "floor," but I also think during those years, when he was close to his brother, he spent a lot of time carefully listening, learning and absorbing what his brother (and the rest of us) were saying.

Leif had an incredible memory for just about everything he heard, and a special talent for being able to multitask, even as a very small child, where he appeared to be absorbed in doing something on his own but was very intently also listening to everything that was going on around him. Later, after he had thought about it and formed his own ideas, he could not only "parrot" back just about word for word what he had heard, even imitating the inflection of the speaker, but explain it accurately and add his own conclusions or further thoughts.

This photo must have been taken around or on Thanksgiving, I think, because I don't have Christmas photos of him wearing this blazer. We always took Christmas photos, but for some reason, rarely or if ever took photos at Thanksgiving. Peter W. says he took this picture. Perhaps he did, but it looks like a professional print to me, and I don't think he ever posed any of us when he took photos. Leif's elbow is resting on what appears to be an upholstered stool, and that curled fist under the chin, while beautiful in this photo, is not a typical pose for Leif. We both love this picture, and it's one of few we have framed and displayed in our house.

While I was writing this, Peter W. came into my office and said he wished we could go back to that time, the time of the photo, but that he didn't know what we could have done differently to help Leif find a better outcome in his life.

That's the trouble. No matter how often we go over it all in our minds, there's no resolution. We can't go back, and if we did, how would we do things differently? We will never know. That's one of the things that continues to eat away at people like us, even on this day of celebration.

Yet we will celebrate, and we will be thankful, just not with unalloyed joy.

The Magic of Mass Effect

Ever since Leif died, we had his Mass Effect game here but no one played it. Our great niece Kimberly tried it once, and our grandson Marcus as well, but both were too young to play it and lost interest. Mass Effect is the game that Leif bought about three months before he died. He was absolutely captivated by it and he played it for days, once even 24 hours straight until he solved the game more than once. He created both a male and a female character to play with.

Our granddaughters are now interested in strategy games and Aly in particular likes first person shooter games, so I wondered if she would like Mass Effect. To our amazement, as soon as she tried it, she was as captivated as Leif and she has played it every waking minute that she's been allowed to use the television, up to 8 hours a day. She even set her alarm clock to get up early just to have more time before others were up.

The game has proven fascinating to Madeleine and Peter Anthony as well, and even Peter W. has enjoyed watching them play. How I wish Leif were here to enjoy the game with them. He would be giving Aly tips, chuckling at her intensity and helping her along. I can see the two of them together playing. How he would have enjoyed that, a kindred soul to share one of his passions.

It seems a little bit amazing to me that over three years after Leif's death, the game he loved has brought such pleasure to the family.
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The photo is a screen shot of Aly's character in the game.

Father's Day

I've posted this photo of Leif on his dad's chest when he was three months old in April 1975 before, but somehow it seemed right to re-post it on Father's Day.

Mother's Day and Father's Day always seem to have a sad component for parents who have lost a child. The day isn't whole and complete without all one's children.

I am thankful we have Peter Anthony, our first born, to be a part of our lives this day.

And sad that Leif is not here to be a part of it, too.

Leif and the Zip-a-Babe harness

Leif was a little escape artist, and boy, could he run fast! He never worried about getting lost. He would just take off as fast as his little legs would go, which was remarkably fast, ironic, since when he was in the infantry, although he could pass the army fitness tests, he couldn't run fast enough for his sergeant because of his asthma.

This is another one of those ordinary but serendipitous photos. My sister, Lannay, took it in a Chinese restaurant in Alexandria, Virginia in November 1976, when Leif was 22 months old. He is wearing the Zip-a-Babe harness. It was a lifesaver, literally. Although I got disapproving looks for using it, it allowed me to let Leif walk without him being in danger of escaping or running out in front of a car. People said leashes were for dogs, not kids, but those people never had a kid like Leif, I bet. he didn't mind it at all. I think he was actually rather relieved at being curbed a bit.

I don't remember the dinner we had at this restaurant, but it wasn't unusual for my boys to end up in retaurant kitchens being treated to things like cookies or bananas. They were such cute kids they attracted that kind of attention wherever we were. I remember Peter A. being whisked off the kitchens in restaurants in Spain, for instance.

Leif is holding a cookie in cellophane wrap. I think it's a Chinese almond cookie. He was a little charmer.

Douglas Adams Quote on the Afterlife

Leif was a huge fan of Douglas Adams, as I've posted before. Today I saw a Douglas Adams quote that Leif would have found profoundly amusing, at least in the time before he decided to kill himself, and knowing Leif, probably even then. He had a wonderful sense of humor and irony.

"He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife."

About this quote, Leif would have probably speculated about why the person quoted hoped there wasn't an afterlife . . . but more likely he would have known just what book it came from and why. Leif himself was an agnostic. Sometimes he said he was an atheist, but then would say he really was an agnostic. He said he liked to hope that there was a benevolent deity, but that he saw no evidence for it. There were quite a few women he dated who tried to convert him to fundamentalist Christianity and he did not appreciate their efforts to "save" him. He felt that if there was such a deity, he would not condemn people to eternal misery. Another one of his favorite quotes, which I've written about before, one that he used as a sig line on Zaon, was, "Maybe this planet is another planet's hell." by Aldous Huxley. I think Leif had some tiny hope that there was an afterlife, but not a belief.

I chose this photo of the family because it was taken about the time Leif became enamored of Douglas Adams, when he was in junior high school. Peter Anthony was a cadet at the Air Force Academy and took a science fiction literature class, where he was introduced to Douglas Adams. He was so taken with Adams work that he insisted the whole family had to read at least "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," and we all did. All of us except Peter W. read the entire series and we had a lot of fun talking about all the absurdity in the books.

The photo was taken in September 1987, right after Peter Anthony's first cadet summer, at the home of his Air Force sponsor, virtually the first time he was allowed off the Academy grounds to have a "normal" meal without all the cadet constraints. It was actually a little before he took the sci fi course, but the only photo I have of all of us together around that time. It was a good visit.

Remembering the Little Moments of Life

There are so many ordinary moments of life that we don't think to document or even remember, moments that in their own way make up the cement of family time and bind us together, moments that slip past us without a second thought.

My sister, Lannay, captured some of those moments when we lived in Charlottesville, Virginia and she came to visit often. The boys were so young then, Peter Anthony in second grade, Leif two years old.

This photo of Peter W. giving Leif a drink of milk, their eyes meeting over the glass, is such a moment, not the kind of moment someone normally photographs, but so precious, such a sweet intimacy between father and son, such innocence and trust.

This photo was taken in April 1977. It has begun to yellow and it's not in sharp focus, but the sweetness comes through for all time.

Thank you, Lannay.

Time to Stay Very Busy as Leif's 36th Birthday Approaches

Anyone who has lost someone they deeply love can tell you that certain days are harder than others. Sometimes it's a day with a special significance due to a personal event, but it's always holidays like Christmas, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Thanksgiving and the loved one's birthday and death day that bring an especially poignant and painful sense of loss.

If find that the days leading up to those days are often harder for me than the actual day itself. I suppose it has to do with anticipating the day and how much I'll miss him. Christmas and Thanksgiving can be made better by time with family, busy time full of the things we do on holidays to keep my from thinking as much about Leif and missing him. Of course, he isn't gone from my mind, but the less time there is to be sad and reminisce, the better, at least for the celebrations.

It's much harder on Mother's Day or Father's Day, dates when we focus on parenthood and our children, and it's acutely clear that Leif isn't there, especially since he WAS with us from every one of them except while he was in the army for three years, plus there aren't any busy celebrations to be a distraction. We can, however, try to focus on Peter Anthony and be grateful for him and our continuing relationship with him, and all the years we have shared.

But Leif's birthday and death day have no other celebration, no other focus, and are impossible to ignore or forget, and I am finding it hard to anticipate his birthday on January 28th, wondering what I will say, what I will do, what he would have been like at thirty-six. I'm sure it will be so every year I live.

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This photo of Leif was taken in Charlottesville, Virginia in the spring of 1977 when he was two years old.

Tron: Legacy

Yesterday we went to see Tron: Legacy with Peter Anthony's family. I remember so well how much Leif loved the original Tron movie. It was made in 1982. Peter A. loved it, too, and said he couldn't believe they made him wait over 25 years for a sequel. I thought we had seen while we were living in Hawaii, and that might be so, but since we didn't move there until the summer of 1982 and I have a vague memory of the boysnplaying with their red and yellow light cycles in Japan. Although the movie was ahead of it's time and not popular then, it really sparked our imaginations and we never forgot it. How I wished we could have had Leif with us to experience this new movie. He would have so enjoyed it!

See the trailer for Tron: Legacy by clicking the title at left.