Always Chasing Rainbows?

Another song we sang at the concert on Sunday was "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows."

This one wasn't one we rehearsed to perform, but a sing-along with the audience. I didn't even know we were going to sing it until three days before because I'd been gone to South America for three weeks. Here again, the words tripped me up.

I'm always chasing rainbows,
Watching clouds drifting by,
My dreams are just like all my schemes,
Ending in the sky.

Some fellows look and find the sunshine,
I always look and find the rain.
Some fellows make a winning sometime,
I never even make a gain, believe me,
I'm always chasing rainbows,
I'm watching for a little bluebird in vain.

Was Leif always chasing rainbows? In a way, I guess you could say that. He was chasing love and I know he had other dreams, at least until the end. He had schemes, and the always hoped things would work out, until the end. When did he stop hoping? I'll never know. When did he believe that "I never even make a gain"? It must have seemed that way to him the way his adult life seemed to go.

The photo was his kindergarten school portrait. To me he looks kind of scared and sad in this picture. It was never one I liked. Now I see the vulnerability there, the uncertainty. He may have always had it and learned to hide it well with his bravado and size.

Tonight there was a beautiful full moon. I thought of him again, about his love of the stars and science fiction, and his love of technology and gadgets, of his need for real love . . .

of the rainbows he chased, of the gains that never came his way.

Why does fortune favor some and not others?
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Photo of Leif was taken in the fall of 1980 at Camp Zama, Japan when he was 5 years old.

No Matter How Your Heart Is Grieving

Sunday I sang in the Women's Chorus Spring Concert. I had been rehearsing the songs since January and although I had thought about the lyrics of some of them with a bit of sadness, I didn't expect any emotional reactions during the concert even though I often have strong emotional reactions to music. I was unprepared.

The first song we sang was a medley of "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes" and "Once Upon a Dream" from Disney's "Sleeping Beauty." I knew the second one would make me think of Peter A. when he was in middle school and chose that as the solo he would sing in their chorus's spring concert, and I knew that would make me nostalgic. I also knew that these words from the first song would be sad ones for me:

"No matter how your heart is grieving,
if you keep on believing
the dream that you wish will come true."

It's a pretty song and a beautiful thought, but hardly true.

We started singing and I immediately got choked up with tears in my eyes and had all I could do to keep from crying. In that setting, with the sound so good and the responsive audience, the words hit me as they had not during rehearsals. I realized what they meant and how my wish would never come true no matter how I wished, and the even believing would not help or bring Leif back to me.

It's like that with grief. You never know when it's going to crawl out of whatever hole you have managed to corner it in. You never know when it's going to take over your emotions and you have to fight to keep it down.

There I was, in front of several hundred people, trying to keep the tears from falling and look like I was singing. I did manage to get control of myself, even though the "Once Upon a Dream" sequence turned out to be far more nostalgic than I had expected, and I found myself sad that I could never get Peter A's childhood back, either, though that, at least, is a normal part of life . . . to have one's son grow up.

Sometimes I think of playing music, but I rarely do. So much of the music I like evokes too much emotion.

In just 12 days it will be two years since we found Leif dead. How can it be? How can that time have passed? It's like yesterday that he was here having dinner with us, two years ago on Easter Sunday.
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The photo of Leif was taken at Kodomo no Kuni, a woods and playground near Camp Zama, Japan, in February 1981. He was six years old.

Leif and Mt. Fuji - Hakone National Park, Japan - January 1981 - Age 6

We were so fortunate to be able to travel so much with our boys. Japan has beautiful national parks and one we visited in January 1981 when Leif was six years old was Hakone. This park is in a volcanic area, and I remember Leif being fascinated with a place where you could hard-boil and egg in a sulfur spring. The practice was so popular that the area was completely littered with peeled-off eggshells. We didn't know about this before we got there and didn't bring any eggs to cook, but Leif enjoyed stepping on the shells and smashing them. :)

We also got this beautiful, clear view of Mt. Fuji, which is often shrouded in clouds, fog, or, if you are trying to see it from Tokyo, smog. It was a lovely but very chilly day in Hakone. We also ate some wonderful hot noodles at a local restaurant. Leif liked Japanese food, especially tonkatsu (deep fried pork cutlet, much like Wiener Schnitzel) and the noodle soup dishes.

Leif Throwing a Fit at Minka-En, Japan - September 6, 1981 - Age 6

Peter W. remarked at one time that Leif looks so happy in his pictures, especially as a child, and I said that it deceptive because most of the time when people take photos, they insist that the people in the picture smile and will do everything they can to get them to smile. I also liked to take photos of my boys when they were thoughtful, pensive, or acting silly, and I've posted some of those of Leif. However, we rarely take photos of our children when they are mad or crying. This photo is one of those few.

I no longer remember why Leif was so upset and "threw a fit," but I certainly do remember him doing it. We had taken Peter W.'s new boss and his wife to the Minka-En, which is an open air folk museum of old style Japanese houses. It's a very interesting place. For some reason, Leif got upset and started arguing and crying. It was very embarrassing, and I had to hold him and try to calm him down. Peter W. took this photo while I was trying to do that. Look how big he is at 6 years. It was not easy to hold him!

Leif did not throw that kind of a fit very often, but when he did, it was a big challenge to know how to handle it as a parent. It usually stemmed from some kind of frustration he was feeling. As he grew older, he learned to keep his emotions more under control and stopped this kind of behavior.

I doubt that he would remember either Minka-En or the incident if he were still alive, but he might. He had a terrific memory and amazed me at times with what he could recall, even being able to practically recite movie scripts or describe a car trip turn by turn when he was only six.

If you'd like to see what Minka-En is, click the name and visit the website.

Leif and Peter A. at at Temple in Thailand - December 1981 - Age 6

I don't remember the name of the temple where these photos were taken, but it was on the trip to Chiang Mai that we took with Ben during our trip to Thailand in December 1981. We saw so many beautiful and fascinating things. The boys enjoyed the trip as much as we did. So much variety, from the beach at Pattaya to the elephants near Chiang Mai, from the lake and dam near the Burmese border to the bridge on the River Kwai, from staying with my Thai sister, Lek, and her family to the Ancient City, from Bangkok and riding in a tuk-tuk to seeing a beauty contest in Chiang Mai. It was a wonderful trip.

Our family was so fortunate to be able to live and travel in so many interesting places. I wonder how it felt to Leif as an adult to be so circumscribed in his ability to travel, due to his financial circumstances (largely of his own making), and in many years, the lack of someone to travel with. So many things are less attractive and interesting when you have no one to share them with. He traveled so much with us as a child and some as an adult. Some people have no real interest in travel but it's hard for me to believe that Leif wouldn't have wanted to do it after all he experienced as a child, despite the fact that he told me that he'd rather spend money on things that would last like computers, other tech gadgets, a car and motorcycle and guns.
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The photos: Leif and Peter A. in Thailand at a temple site, December 1981. Leif was a month shy of his seventh birthday.

Leif in a Life Jacket - Thailand - December 1981 - Age 6

When Leif was a month shy of his seventh birthday, we were in Thailand and traveling with our friend Ben, who took us to one of the lakes created by one of the dams he built as a hydroelectric engineer. The boys were fascinated with the dam and loved going for a ride on the lake. These photos are of Leif enjoying the ride. He always loved vehicles of all kinds and speed was what he craved. I love the photo of him with his hair flying in the wind. He looks so small and vulnerable, hard for me to realize it, since he always seems so big, strong and tough for his age. How different I see things now. This was in December 1981.
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I don't think the blog is going to make it to 10,000 visits by the second anniversary of Leif's death. There would have to be a little over 22 visits per day between now and April 10th for that to happen.

The Falsehoods We Are Taught About Emotions

Stories are wonderful. They entertain us. They teach us. Sometimes they inspire us. And in the aggregate, they seem to program our minds to believe things that we somehow don't manage to learn are not true. Take the "happily ever after" ending, which isn't just attached to fairy tales, but to most stories in some form or another. Things get resolved. The characters go on with their lives, often without feeling the trauma of all they have gone through. It creates unrealistic expectations for all of us. What's wrong with us that WE can't live happily ever after, get past the hurt and trauma. Why doesn't love conquer all for us? Why doesn't something new and wonderful cancel and blot out the sadness or agony of the past? Sometimes it does, for a time, but not forever.

I've learned it's possible to be happy and sad at the same time, to go on with a good life and still feel grief at loss, to love my family and friends and still miss my dead son, to enjoy a beautiful day and still find myself with tears in my eyes when something reminds me of him.

We just returned home from a 23 day trip to South America. It was a fascinating trip, full of new places and things to see, time to relax, time to sightsee, entertainment, learning. We enjoyed it but even there we talked about Leif at least once a day and I found myself with tears in my eyes a few times, but usually not the deep sadness I felt so often before we left. I've learned that the best ways to keep that at bay are work and travel, being involved in something that engages the mind. Travel also takes me away from where Leif lived and all his things that remind me of him, and in South America I didn't see guys driving silver RX-8s, either.

We were ready to come home after such a long trip and looking forward to being here with our home, our own bed, Peter's cooking, and more exercise, seeing my sister and mother, and I was glad to be back. But, I was unprepared for the flood of emotion that hit me the second day. I was terribly sad for most of the day. I came home, driving into the garage, to see Leif's bike hanging up. In the house, all the things he helped put on the walls and into place, his photo on my desk, the memories of him driving up the driveway to come for dinner, the memory of the sound of him playing PlanetSide in his room or his music, the memory of him sitting at my dining room and kitchen tables, the letter from the IRS answering my inquiry about what to do with his economic stimulus check, the knowledge that in just a few days, he will have been dead for two years. How could it go by so fast? I still miss him with all my heart.

The worst of the sadness passed that day, and yesterday was a happy one, full of activities, beautiful Florida sunshine, and fun with Peter W. Today it's raining and something of a mixture.

We go on. We have to. We find some happiness and joy, but they sit side-by-side in our hearts with the sadness at his loss. Peter said on the trip that he thought I might never get over it.

He was right.
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This photo of Leif was taken at a small temple in Thailand in December 1982. He was almost 8 years old. All his life he loved cats. What a terrible irony that as an adult his asthma was worsened by them.

Ten Thousand Visits

The second anniversary of Leif's death will be on April 9th. I began the blog the day we found his body, April 10, 2008, but I didn't start keeping statistics until May 15th. If I had, there might already be 10,000 visits, but as of today, there were just over 9,500 counted visits. I'm hoping to reach 10,000 by April 9th, so if you are a reader, please come back daily and help. Believe it or not, it only takes an average of 13 visits a day to reach 5,000 in a year, but the way the counters work, they only count you once a day on each computer.

I think Leif would be amazed that this blog has had so many visitors. If only he had realized when he was alive how people cared about him.

Treasure What You love

Treasure all those you love and be sure they know and feel your love, for you never know how long you will have them. Life can change in an instant and there is no going back to do it over.
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This photo of Leif was taken in Jaoan when he was six years old in 1981.

Small Accomplishments and Thinking of Leif 23 Months After His Death

I was watching Fabio Zini perform on the guitar, a song he composed for a trio of guitar, sax and piano called "Feel Good," and although the mood of it may have been intended to be happy, it made me sad. It seemed more melancholy than happy to me perhaps because of the soft, rather mournful sax and the gentleness of the guitar and piano.

I wondered why I would feel sad for a moment and then it came to me. I thought about Leif's belief that no one but his parents would care if he died (though there were so many more people who cared about him than he knew) and it made me sad that he felt his life was of so lttle value to the world. His life was of inestimable value to me.

I thought that there are not so many who would care about my death, either. So few people in the world really matter to many others; so few of us have any real impact upon the world. I never expected that I would. As I've written before, I never had big dreams, never wanted or expected fame, never sought popularity or felt I could have it, but I would like to feel that I succeeded in the small goals I had.

But what have I achieved that I did seek, those things that mattered to me? Have I even managed those dreams and goals I set for myself? The ones that ultimately mattered, at least to me?

When I was in high school, I wanted to earn a college scholarship so I could afford to go away to school and I did that. I wanted to graduate Phi Beta Kappa, and I did that. At that age, such things are important, but in the great scheme of things they don't matter much, especially since I never pursued a real carer with my education. And during that time my dreams changed.

I had wanted to be 28 and have a PhD before I got married, but life has a way of changing goals. I met Peter when I was only 17 and a freshman in college, fell in love and married when I was only 18. Although I finished college and went to graduate school, what became most important to me was my marriage and having a family. It came as a surprise to me how badly I wanted children, as I had been focused on education and career.

I did have interesting and rewarding jobs that also fulfilled modest goals, whether working as a librarian or writing books, and I am thankful for those opportunities and the memories I have of those times, but they are not the measure of a life, nor was I well known in either field.

I have been lucky to enjoy an interesting life, living and traveling around the world, certainly rewarding to our whole family and for that we have to thank Peter and his career for making it possible.

I have been blessed with my birth family and a close relationship with my mother, especially, and my sisters, brother, and their families. I treasure my friends, though they are not numerous.

But the greatest meaning and value of my life is my family. I was (and am) so fortunate to have Peter, to have found such a loving and devoted soulmate and friend. I loved being a mother, loved my two sons, and tried my best to raise them well.

That is the real test of my life. Did I succeed? What is the criteria? Their childhood lives? Their adulthood? (How much influence did I have over that?) Is it their material success, their happiness?

If the measure of my success is my family, and if one thinks that the adult lives of one's children are in some way influenced by their childhoods, then I have failed sadly in some ways. Although I think my sons childhoods were good, either I failed I'm some terrible way or I wasn't able to influence their adulthoods in the way I wish I had. What greater failure can mother have than to have her son find life so painful that he takes his own life? I could not keep Leif alive no matter how hard I tried. Was it that I didn't know what I needed to do, or that it couldn't be done? Was it that I didn't provide him with what would have armed him against detachment and depression when he was a child, or that there was nothing I could have done?

I know thar Leif's death is not my "fault," not something I caused, but even so, it will always feel like a great and terrible failure.

I know I cannot measure the value of my life by Leif's death, but what IS the real value? It is still my family, and perhaps my accomplishments, small though they are in the vastness of the world and it's history, are at least meaningful to them. I know Leif knew I loved him, even if my love could not keep him alive. I know Peter Anthony, whose academic and work life have encompassed many milestones, knows I love him and admire his accomplishments, and would and will love him always, no matter what.

I have three beautiful grandchildren I enjoy who like being with me. And most of all I have my soulmate of 45 years whose love makes every day worthwhile.

So, as I thought all this, during the song, "Feel Good," I came around to that feeling after all. My life is meaningless in the great scheme of life, but it is meaningful to me. Ever since Leif died I have been telling myself to keep perspective, not to lose track of all I have in my grief over Leif's loss. I knew I should focus on all the good in my life but I was unable to really do it. My grief was still too strong and fresh until now to feel the appreciation I should.

Maybe it takes two years. Is two years of mourning enough? On March 9th Leif has been dead for 23 months. Thinking of it still makes me inexpressably sad. I still miss him every day. We talk about him every day. I don't think that will ever end, just like the eternal questions about why his life ended so abruptly and violently.

But I think now, for the first time since his death I can truly and deeply feel the overwhelming sense of gratitude for my Peter and my son Peter Anthony, for all of my family, to be thankful that unlike Leif at the end of his life, I have people who need me and a sense of purpose.

And I will be thankful for Leif's life and the purpose it gave me, even though his loss brings so much sadness and sorrow.
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This photo of my two beautiful sons was taken in Thailand in December 1981. They were fascinated by the giant leaves and the cute little puppy they are petting. Leif was a month shy of his seventh birthday and Peter Anthony was just days away from his thirteenth birthday.