Twenty Years Ago

Twenty years ago I took this photo of Leif in his room in the old stone house in Manhattan, Kansas. He had just graduated from Manhattan High School. You can tell he was a big fan of Cindy Crawford. He hung his guitars from the ceiling. The one he's holding is the one he designed and made.

Leif had a black and white decor in his room. The walls were white and the mini blinds and ceiling fan light fixture were black. His choice.

In this photo, his hair is pulled back in a long pony tail and he's that very slender young man he was from about seventh grade until he was in his late twenties. I loved those cute dimples he had.

It's hard to believe, or even imagine, that twenty years have gone by since I took this picture, and even harder to accept that it's been over five years since his death. He is still such a big part of our lives, you'd think he still lived in Tampa. I doubt that he had any idea how much impact he had on us, or on others.

When he told me in a chat about how he had been suicidal at Fort Drum, New York in the army, after his marriage broke up, he said what stopped him was knowing what it would do to me. I guess that didn't figure into his decision on April 9, 2008 . . . or if it did, he probably thought there would be some acute grief and we would get over it. I'm sure he had no idea how it would affect our lives so profoundly, but then, he probably was not in any mental condition to contemplate that and probably thought we'd be better off without him. We are not.

Leif's Sense of Beauty and Aesthetics

Leif would sometimes maintain that he didn't "understand" jewelry, or things that people acquired simply as decor. He insisted that he loved the beauty of well-designed functional things, whether a gorgeous car, a snazzy motorcycle, a beautifully designed computer, a "cool" cell phone, or anything else of that kind. Furniture he could find both comfy and beautiful, and he had a great sense of style in clothing when he was younger and slimmer, and cared. He also could have made a fine art student if he'd had the interest to develop his talent, but it wasn't his burning interest.

However, I used to like to argue with him about his assertions concerning decor, jewelry and the like, because when he found something that truly "spoke" to him, he went for it. For instance, he picked out one of the most beautiful diamond ring sets I've ever seen when he wanted to propose to J. He wore jewelry on occasion; earrings and necklaces when he was young, and still wore the Greek double battle axe necklace I brought him from Greece up until he died. He loved stylish, fancy watches, too. And he decorated his walls with swords and a print he bought that he very much liked.

So, in a way, his assertions were contradicted by his behavior and his taste, but in another, they weren't. He liked to purchase things he could USE, and those he wanted to be the best and not just functional but aesthetically pleasing. His fine taste was one of the things that helped to put him in debt, as he apparently couldn't resist expensive things he could not afford if they fit into his scheme of desire-functionality-design.

These photos were taken when we were living at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, I think, when he was in ninth grade in the spring of 1990, age 15. He was just beginning to let his hair grow longer. His ears weren't pierced yet, but it's surprising to me that he is wearing a cross. He was never religious, never a believer. I wish I knew the story of why he wore it.