Eleven Months Since Leif's Death. Remembering Leif - Oahu, Hawaii - August 1987 - Age 12

How can the months go by so fast. Today it is eleven months since we drove to Tampa and found Leif dead on his kitchen floor. It seems like yesterday and yet it seems like an eternity without him. I still ask why. I still wonder what I could have done differently, or if it would have made any difference. I still remember his life, the whole of it. I still talk to him as though he can hear me and see me, even though I don't believe he can.

I remember times we had together, like this trip to a lookout above Honolulu, Oahu on one of the trips we took back to Hawaii from Chicago, this on in August 1987 when he was 12 years old. I wonder if that was the trip when he was so engrossed in "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card that he didn't even care about the beach at our favorite Bellows Beach, where we were staying in a cottage. He could talk for hours about that book and it's sequels. He read them all, through last year.

I wish he were here for a scintillating discussion, a hug, dinner.

I started reading "Outliers" tonight, The first chapter, about a town in Pennsylvania settled by Italian immigrants who nearly all came from the same village in Italy, a town where there was virtually no heart disease, no ulcers, no suicide, no crime, made me wonder where our society has gone so wrong, and how it fails men like Leif. The researchers concluded that this town is so healthy not because of a special diet, or exercise, or even genetics. These people are healthy because of their community and the way it functions, the social aspects of it.

Suicides are often detached and feel alone in our society. I wonder, would Leif have been happier in another milieu? What about the rest of us?

The book talks about neighbors stopping to talk with each other, spending time together, three generations living together, family meals, social organizations. Leif didn't know his neighbors, didn't have real friends in Tampa, lived alone, didn't join organizations. The only family meals he had were with us about once a month. The loneliness wasn't only the lack of a wife, it was a lack of human companionship, and I think that although he craved it, he didn't know how to make it work and eventually shut himself off from all but seeking the love he needed.

What happens to shy people, lonely people in our society? Do they just fade into the background, unseen and ignored by those around them?

I don't think Leif had a clue how many people were impressed by him, looked up to him, found him interesting. He may have intimidated them with his size and his mind. What a pity he didn't know how many people cared.

Leif & Jerri - Honolulu, Hawaii - July 1983 - Age 8

We arrived in Hawaii from Japan in July 1983, exhausted from the overnight flight. We were met by people from Peter W's new office at Camp Smith with traditional plumeria leis. I think I posted an earlier photo of Leif and me with leis that really wasn't from that morning arrival but another occasion. This one was the first morning. It was the beginning of three good years for us, though they were exhausting ones for me as I went back to school to finally complete my master's degree.

Until we got quarters at Red Hill, we stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village on the 11th floor and enjoyed the environs of Waikiki. It was fun except for the lack of electricity during the great "Oahu Blackout" on "Black Wednesday," July 13, 1983. As I recall, it was caused by a fire in some sugar cane field. The entire island with without electricity for up to three days.

We found out that life on the eleventh floor wasn't nearly so pleasant without electricity! No elevator. No lights. No water (it has to be pumped up to that height), no flushing toilets (same thing). Since the blackout was island-wide, that also meant that most places couldn't prepare food, cash registers and gas pumps didn't work, and it was hard to even get something to eat. Grocery stores were closed and food that wasn't protected by emergency generators was a loss. People were out in the streets because there wasn't much to do. No TV. No video games. No video game parlors.

It didn't take the entrepreneurs long to capitalize on the situation and begin selling t-shirts saying "I survived the great July 13th Blackout" and other such things.

There was a talking parrot at the hotel that fascinated the boys, and we enjoyed the beach. Soon enough we got our quarters and had to settle in to real life instead of living at a resort.

Leif - Hawaiian Dancer - Honolulu, Hawaii - May 1, 1985 - Age 10

When we lived in Honolulu, Leif attended Red Hill Elementary School for grades 3-5. They had some Hawaiian cultural units and in the spring of 1985 when he was 10 years old, they put on a big spring pageant with hula dances. This was the only time Leif danced any hula that I know of, and I never saw him practice it at home. It was a group performance with the rest of his class.

Male hula dancing is quite different in motions from the female dances and is much more powerful and masculine. There was such a crowd there, both the school kids and the audience, that I couldn't get a good photo of him actually performing, so this one I snapped while he was with his class watching other dancers was the best I could do.

Japan and Hawaii had profound effects on both our sons, and Puerto Rico had profound effects on Leif, on all of us. We were so fortunate to have experienced so many cultures and places in the world.

Dimensions of Sadness - Missing Leif

It's been a hard week and I've been posting simple posts of happier times, reflecting the way I wish life still were, not the way it is right now.

My sisters were coming to visit and I got the bright idea to take each of them on a cruise, with my mother. None of them had ever been on a cruise before and my sisters had always wanted to go. Mom is a world traveler that hasn't been on a trip outside the USA since November 2007, so I found a couple of inexpensive (great deals this time of year) short cruises to the Bahamas and booked them. I told everyone my one worry about it was the step up (or down when you come out) to the bathrooms in the staterooms.

We started the cruise with Mom and Lannay with very chilly weather, not at all like you'd expect for a cruise to the Bahamas, and we got to Nassau two hours late because right after we left Cape Canaveral, the ship had to return to port to disembark a passenger who had a life-threatening health crisis. We had a good time in Nassau, and at Coco Cay the next day, but Mom's back was bothering her and she seemed to have trouble walking at Cocoa Cay. I thought it was because she had stepped down a large step onto a water taxi too hard.

That night, the last night of the cruise, she got up in the night to use the bathroom and lost her balance. She fell into the bathroom hard and injured her back, but she didn't tell anyone. My sister Lannay, who was sharing the cabin, heard a noise but didn't find anything when she checked and Mom didn't tell her. She later said she didn't want me to know because I'd "have a hemorrhage."

We returned to Cape Canaveral the next morning, Monday the 23rd, and Mom was still having some back pain but not admitting she had fallen. We went to see the Bodies exhibit at MOSI, the Tampa Museum of Science and Industry, and had her in one of their wheelchairs she she didn't have to walk, but didn't know how bad off she was.

The next day, without our knowledge, she went to her doctor and told him about the fall, and had her back x-rayed. It wasn't until the next morning, Wednesday the 25th, that she told Lannay about her fall and by then she was in severe pain. I got another appointment with the doctor that afternoon and we found out she had another compression fracture in her spine. The doctor ordered her to lie flat on her back and to be up as little as possible, but she didn't follow orders and by Thursday she couldn't get up on her own and was in excruciating pain.

I had taken care of Mom when she broke her back with two compression fractures in 1992 and remembered how to get her up and walk her, and I got a wheel chair and walker checked out, but even with me staying there and helping her, by Friday evening the 27th, she was in such terrible pain that we had to call the Emergency Squad to transport her to the South Bay Hospital emergency room. She was admitted to the hospital and put on pain medications, given a CT scan, and the next day an MRI.

On Monday, March 2nd, she had a procedure called kyphoplasty to stabilize the fractured vertebra, but she was still in immense pain. By Wednesday they transferred her to the rehab center at Plaza West here in Sun City Center.

My sister Sherie arrived February 28th and has been so helpful in all the things we had to do for mom at the hospital and rehab center and at her house. I don't know how I would have gotten through this time without her. She was terrific.

All through this, I've been sick with a sinus infection, cough, and nasty sore throat. I've been exhausted, but had to keep going with so much to do. I still haven't unpacked from the cruise.

Today, I took Sherie to the airport. I was so sad to see her go. I really appreciated having her here, not only for all the help, but for the moral and emotional support. She had taken vacation to come here to go on the second cruise, and instead she helped rearrange and clean up at Mom's, visited rehab centers with me, made her own breakfasts and lunches, did dishes, and so much more. I knew I'd miss her when she left, but I wasn't prepared for how all the emotion of the past week and a half would hit me then.

Not only did all my worries about Mom, which had been buried under the work that had to be done, surface, but as it always does when I'm driving alone, the bottomless sadness about missing Leif came pummeling through. I cried all the way home, especially when I passed the exit that would take me to Bay Pines National Cemetery. I've been crying on and off all evening. I just can't shake it. I miss Leif so much! How could nearly 11 months have passed since he died? He helped me out so many times. Who will be there, now that he is not?

We will manage. We have family. We have friends. We are so much more fortunate in so many ways than many in this world, and we know that, but that knowledge doesn't take away the loss.

And I'm so worried about Mom living alone when she gets out of rehab and whether she's going to be able to manage, whether they can get her pain under control, what her future holds. I miss my sisters and having them here to buoy me up. I am so tired, emotionally and physically, still sick.

It will pass. I'll get well. Life will go on.

But so will loss.

I go along, busy, and being busy keeps my mind off things for awhile, but it always floods back. There are two times that it happens most often, when I am driving alone, and when I go outside at night, like taking out the garbage, or going somewhere, and I can see the sky. The night sky and the stars always remind me of Leif and I miss him terribly then.

I miss him terribly now.

-------------------------
The photo above is of Leif and my mother on December 25, 2005 when he was showing her the cell phone we got her for Christmas . . . his idea.

A New Life - A New Leif

Two days ago, on March 4th, Leif's friends Jason and Melissa became the parents of a new little boy. I was touched to tears because they gave him the middle name Leif. My Leif is gone and left no children, but now there is a new little boy that carries his name into the future. It is a very sweet honor and means a lot to me, more than I can say.

I wish little Braydon Leif a life in a loving family, a future of health and hope, the warmth of friendship, the joy of accomplishment. I hope that only the good and fine things of his middle namesake will be remembered and carried on, the strength and intelligence, and that none of the sadness will touch his days.

I will watch his development with interest, as I watch the development of my grandchildren and great nieces and nephews. It is good that new life brings hope and joy, gentle smiles, laughter, and yes, even tears.

Leif & His Dad - Sachsen bei Ansbach, Germany - Summer 1978 - Age 3

Here's another picture of Peter W. reading to Leif. This one was taken on the patio at the house we rented at Am Roemer 1, Sachsen bei Ansbach. It's such a good symbol of all the good times we had together, and how close Peter W. was to his sons.

When kids grow up and leave home, they naturally seem to leave behind their memories of that childhood closeness. It's replaced by an adult distance, but I think in our parental minds, there is always the memory of that closeness, the cuddles, the stories shared.

Leif was three-and-a-half years old in this photo.

Peter W. reading to Leif - Ishiuchi, Japan - March 1983 - Age 8

Some time ago I posted photos of Leif in the snow at Ishiuchi, Japan, but this was the cozy afterglow. Peter W. and Peter A. had come in from the slopes, and Leif and I had come in from sledding and Leif cuddled up with his dad for a story. I have several photos of Peter W. reading to Leif, snugggled together. It was such a good time.

We always read to our boys, from the very beginning. I did most of the reading, but Peter W. often read stories to them. He liked to embellish them with his own versions and sometimes they protested that, saying, "That's not how the story goes, Daddy." But I suspected that not only did he enjoy the embellishment, he enjoyed getting them riled up and hearing them insist how the story was supposed to go.

At this age, Leif also loved Richie Rich comic books. He could read them himself, but he loved to be read to and sharing the experience. That might be what they are reading in this photo.

Leif at Pattaya Beach in Thailand - December 1981 - Age nearly 7 years old

This photo of Leif on the beach was labeled December 1981. We were living in Japan at the time, but I can't imagine that it was warm enough to be at the beach in December so it has to be Thailand. We went to visit my Thai sister, Lek, and her family in Thailand that December. We got to see a lot of the country and really enjoyed it. She and her family took us to stay at the Royal Cliff Hotel in Pattaya, where Peter W. and Peter A. tried parasailing and Leif and I watched.

It was also on this beach that Leif noticed a woman from France sunning herself on a beach lounge without the benefit of a bathing suit top. He was quite surprised and made some comment to his dad asking where her top was.

We also saw a big black snake slither into the water.

Leif, along with the rest of us, enjoyed beaches in the USA (Hawaii, Virginia, South Carolina, Florida), Italy, Thailand, Japan, and Puerto Rico.

We all loved the relaxation, the waves, and the sun.

Leif at the beach - Rimini, Italy - September 1979 - Age 4

Leif enjoyed the beach nearly all his life. One of the trips we made to the beach when we lived in Germany was the one to Rimini, Italy. We drove over the Alps and the Dolomites in our secondhand Opel Diplomat (car), an act of faith, as it was old and not in the best condition. On top of that, we chose a very scenic and interesting route through the mountains in Italy that turned out to have roads on the edges of cliffs, hairpin turns, no guardrails and steep dropoffs tumbling hundreds, perhaps thousands of feet at the edge of the pavement. We couldn't see around curves, and in some places there wasn't even room to pass. Leif and Peter A. weren't much fazed but it but I was terrified. Peter W. was driving and I was a nervous wreck. It would have been quite beautiful on foot, but I don't think we even got any photos.

We were (at least Peter W. and I were) vastly relieved to come down out of the mountains safely and make it to Rimini. Our hotel was right on the beach, but the beach was strewn with seaweed.

The boys had a good time anyway, and they delighted in digging holes. This photo shows four-year-old Leif in the hole he dug.

Leif & His Dad - Turtle Bay Resort, Oahu, Hawaii - May 29, 1986

I think it was Memorial Day weekend that Peter W. took Leif and me to lunch at the Turtle Bay Resort on the north shore of Oahu. It is a beautiful place. We enjoyed our meal and then the two guys had fun at the beach, renting a paddle boat and swimming. Leif was comfortable with adults and we enjoyed taking him places. He was eleven years old in these photos.