Leif's Email to General Wesley Clark - September 10, 2003

On September 10, 2003, Leif sent this email to most if not all of his email contacts. He spoke very highly of Gen. Clark and very much wanted him to be president.

I signed the petition to get General Wesley Clark to run for President today. They provided a box to fill in a message to him so I decided to use it. Here is what I wrote. I hope you all will think about what I have said when the election comes in a year no matter which candidate you support.

In the wake of 9/11 I am greatly concerned, NOT with the physical safety of America but rather with the safety of American freedom and civil liberty. As a veteran and army brat I have had many opportunities to experience life outside the USA and appreciate what we have and what it is worth. Unfortunately many Americans do not have this insight and have been willing to put the freedom that they have taken for granted at risk to ensure the safety they have also taken for granted.

Benjamin Franklin once said that a man that trades a piece of his liberty for safety deserves neither. I agree with this statement. As a citizen and a veteran I place a high priority on the defense of America but that defense must stop when it itself becomes a danger to American freedom. Specifically the Bill of Rights must not be put in jeopardy. The current administration scares me in this regard, and in particular the so-called "Patriot Act," which I personally see as un-American and in opposition to everything this country is supposed to stand for. There are no parts of the Bill of rights that are expendable.

I have previoulsy had difficulty aligning with the Democratic Party over the issue of gun control. Still a part of the Bill of Rights, this should not be infringed upon on at the federal level. If California thinks they need strict gun bans, that is up to California. I won't live in California. But how do the problems in Los Angeles affect me here in Kansas?  This is a local issue, not a federal one.

So, General Clark, I sincerely hope that you choose to take on this burden and continue to defend American freedom in your retirement. Remember the Army oath of office both you and I swore to, "I will defend the constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign or domestic." I consider the current administration to be enemies of the constitution and they must be contested on the political battlefield just as surely as Al Qaeda must be fought on the physical battlefield.

As a veteran I salute you, sir, and hope you will rise to this challenge.

SPC Leif Garretson
US ARMY (medically retired)

Forever Changed

It is proving far harder than I thought it would be to give up writing this blog regularly. I knew I had a lot of emotion invested in it, and I thought I was ready to let it go, but now that I am at that point, I am finding it to be heart wrenching. I know I am not forgetting Leif or really letting him go, but in some deep emotional way it feels as though I am abandoning him, and that makes me terribly sad. It feels like the day of his memorial service, like when it was over and we all walked away from his niche at the cemetery leaving him behind in the place of no life or future. I know that I will never forget him, will think of him every day of my life, but who else will?

Of the 630 posts I've written in the past two years, this is one of the hardest to write, and certainly the hardest one to publish, to click that little "button" that says, "Publish," because it marks an end to an emotional journey that really has no end, and so is hard to give up. It has meant a lot to me to be able to tell Leif's story and to write about my feelings.

Memory is fleeting. Life goes on. I know that's as it should be, but it is also sad. And yet, I will be able to come back here to visit, just as I can go to the cemetery, though as Peter always points out, Leif is not there. It's not really visiting HIM. It's visiting memory and love. It's a kind of symbolic pilgrimage. Although we are often sad at cemeteries, I don't see them as frightening or sad places. They are monuments to love and memory just as this blog is.

I think of my father and I wonder who remembers him and how often they think of him. Like Leif, he lived. He had a life and contributed to the world. At least he left four children behind who, though some were too young to remember much, were a part of him that lived on. There is no blog about his life, no book, and no burial place. There is no place of pilgrimage except in my mind.

Leif had no children. What survives but memory? And how long will that survive? Not long for most people, I suspect, except if some reminder evokes a thought of him. This blog was my way to keep that memory alive, though of course I had no idea who would read it or if anyone but Peter and I would. That didn't matter so much as the preservation and the continuance, and now that I am ending it, it feels like I am again walking away and leaving him behind in that place of no life or future, which of course is what death is, and what we don't want to face.

I have always felt emotions deeply and strongly, and Leif's death has brought me torrents of tears and sadness, and I can say, like the Tin Woodman in the "Wizard of Oz," "Now I know I have a heart because it is breaking."

Yesterday I saw another reference to that saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Like many sayings and platitudes, it has a valuable message, but some lemons are beyond the possibility of lemonade. Some things life dishes out you just have to endure and survive. How does one "make lemonade" out of the suicide death of a cherished son?

When Leif died, he not only erased his future and his pain, but he changed our lives forever, not only our lives, but the lives of his family and friends, and all who knew him. For some of them, the changes were likely temporary without live-changing consequences, but for those who loved him, the changes are not only enormous and emotionally wrenching, they are quite literally life changing.

There are so many things we will not do with Leif or because of Leif now. We will never have grandchildren from him. He will not be there to help us or see us through our old age. We will not have the joy of his company. Our focus and identity is changed forever. Our emotions will never be the same, and there will always be the undercurrent of sadness, loss and grief no matter what else our future holds. This is not the retirement and old age we envisioned for ourselves, but what it now is has in part been created by Leif's act.

We must not forget, though, all the wonderful ways in which our lives were changed by having him as our son, the years we did enjoy his company, his help, his laughter, his intellect, his love.

We must not forget all the things we did with him, all the experiences of the thirty-three years of his life.

I have chosen the last images of the main blog to be all of Leif on beaches. Somehow, even though he seldom actually went to the beach once he moved to Florida (because even the beach isn't as attractive when you go alone), I will always associate Leif with beaches.

Partly this is because as our sons were growing up, we planned a beach vacation every year. Leif had wonderful times on beaches in so many places; Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, California, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Japan, Hawaii, Thailand, Italy, France, England, Texas and more places I can't think of to name right now. I remember him glorying in the waves when he was just a tiny tot, and how he loved sailing in the British Virgin Islands and SCUBA diving in Puerto Rico. Somehow for me, beaches will always be associated with Leif's happiness, the places he felt alive and free . . . beaches and motorcycles and cars.

I wish I could have a picture in my mind of Leif walking on a sunset beach with someone he truly loved who was the guardian of his heart that he so deeply desired. That would be the photo I would like to cherish for the rest of my life, but that does not exist and is a big part of the reason he is no longer here.

So, I will have to keep in my mind a picture of my tall lonely son alone on a sunset beach, as though the sun of his life was setting, and remember the beauty that once was.

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The photo was taken by Peter W. Garretson in Puerto Rico in 1992. Leif was 17 years old. Who would have thought, seeing that tall, handsome young man, that half his life was already over?

At this time, the blog has 630 posts, 977 photos, and has been visited 10,127 times since May 15, 2008.

To My Readers, With Thanks

For those of you who have been with me on this two-year journey of grief and memories, thank you for coming along. I don't know who you are, but I hope it has been meaningful to you in some way. Thank you for reading and thank you for caring about my son. He didn't know how many people cared.

Tomorrow will be the closing post to this two-year journal. After that, I will write only occasionally, only when something new touches my memories of Leif or some new feeling or association arises. I have no idea how often that will be. If you are a regular reader and want to see those posts, probably the best way to achieve that would be to subscribe to the blog because otherwise you will be coming here just to see if I've written something new. There is a "subscribe" link on the right column under the slide show. If you subscribe, posts will be sent to your email address.

Don't for get Leif, and don't forget the thousands of other veterans who have and are serving our country, and the heartache and injuries many of them suffer.

And remember that while love doesn't conquer all, it is critical to our lives. Appreciate those who love you and always show your love to them.

18 Veterans Commit Suicide Each Day - Article from Navy Times

18+veterans+commit+suicide+each+day
This is heartbreaking news and my son was one of them. So many do not reach out, get treatment, or call a suicide hotline. They just do it.

I Will Remember Him Always

What will I remember about my Leif? Everything.

I will remember the beautiful child that none of us realized was as vulnerable as he was. I will remember the tall, strong boy and his wonderful smile. I will remember how frustrated he could get when he wasn't able to make his hands do what his mind envisioned.

I will remember the brilliant mind and incredible memory my son had, and how we recognized it when he was so young.

I will remember the soccer player who could boot the ball three-fourths of the way down the field.

I will remember the teen who was tall and slim, a black belt in judo, a guitar player, a singer. I will remember his as Kenicke in "Grease," with all the girls screaming for him. I will remember him graduating from high school.

I will remember the handsome young man who married when he was only twenty years old and the devastated man who nearly took his life when his marriage failed.

I will remember the proud, tall soldier who graduated from infantry basic training and who was proud of his ability with a machine gun, and the broken soldier who was medically retired from the army when he was only twenty-six years old.

I will remember the recovering man who graduated from college and was proud of his new car.

I remember how happy he was when he fell in love again, and how utterly devastated he was when she left him, how I was worried he would not survive.

I remember him on his motorcycles, the three different ones he owned in his lifetime, the ones he drove far too fast, and I remember him in the hospital after the accident he had.

I remember how he loved cars and his RX-7s and RX-8, especially the RX-8, how he drove like a race car driver, what he really always wanted to be.

I remember him helping us with the house and yard, helping us move. I remember him helping my mother with her computer.

I remember him playing chess with Madeleine and being silly with Aly.

I remember him being in debt and spending money foolishly.

I remember him being in dark moods and fearing for him.

I remember his guns, his music collection, his passion for technology and science fiction.

I remember his hugs, his smiles.

I remember how desperately he needed and searched for love.

I remember how Leif wanted to be the hero, that he was the gentle giant who would fight to defend his family, his friends, his country. I remember his personal code was to never show weakness, and how he kept his deep and towering emotions inside. I remember how he wanted to be needed, to be respected and loved.

I remember bringing him into the world full of hope for him. It is hard to accept that our dreams for Leif will never be realized, that he will never find his purpose and defeat his demons, that he will never have a family, that he will never be there for a birthday or a Christmas, never be there to teach us about the latest technology and set things up for us, never again tease me about driving like an old lady.

it will always be hard to know and remember that our love was not enough to save him, that no matter what I tried, I could not help him be happy, or take away his pain.

I remember that in many ways, he lived a life rich in experience, and we tried hard to provide some of those riches of experience, but I also remember that his life was drowned in depression and loneliness.In the end, he was overwhelmed.

I remember how he wanted to be a hero, wanted to be needed, wanted to be strong. I rememberhow, through so many disappointments and crises, he held his head high and did not let others see his pain and frustration. Finally, it was too much. I will remember how he bore that burden until the end.

Most of all, I remember how much I loved him. I love him still. I will always love him.
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This photo was taken of Leif on Bellows Beach on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, one of his favorite places. It was in August 1989 when he was fourteen-and-a-half. It was then he was reading Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" with such deep and avid interest.

There Never Is a Real Farewell

For the two years I've been writing this blog it's always been spontaneous and immediate in the sense that I never wrote the posts offline and edited and polished them. I just sat down at the computer and composed them online in the Blogger window. Sometimes they were long and sometimes just a photo with a short caption or memory. A writer friend says I should call it a journal, not a blog, though the term isn't really important.

The blog evolved from something I started to remember happy times into an honest chronicle of our grief, but it also became something more. It became the story of our lives through memories of Leif. It became a memorial to him. It became a way for me to continue to show my love for him, a place to express feelings I could not say to others except through writing.

At Leif's memorial service I gave a talk I titled "Farewell to My Gentle Giant," but in the two years since then I have learned that I have not said farewell, and I probably never will. Does any mother who loses a child? How can we let them go? I thought when I reached the end of this blog I would be ready, but I am not. I am not ready to let Leif go.

What does that mean? I know he is dead. I know he is not coming back to me no matter how hard I wish for that. I know I can't live my life pining away for him or wallowing in grief. What it means to me is that I hold him in my heart. I remember him, think of him, talk about him, and yes, talk to him. That I look at his picture, my favorite one of him, and all the others, too, and remember that he LIVED. My son lived.

There will be tears. I cry less often now and the tears are less of a torrent, but they come, and I think there will always be moments of this sadness throughout my life.

But I have also learned to go on, to keep living, and to find hours of peace and even joy.

The human heart is a versatile thing, able to love and yearn, feel sadness and joy, grief, pain, and happiness all in the space of minutes, sometimes simultaneously.

I've gone over and over our photo albums, scanned and posted hundreds of pictures of Leif, thought of hundreds of memories, written about them and my feelings, but though I am running out of things to write and pictures to
post, I am not ready to let go of either Leif or the blog. The blog has become a habit, something I look forward to writing, a creative outlet for my feelings about my son and his death. It will be hard to let it go, but it is time.

A mother should not have to write such a blog. She should not have to plan her son's memorial service. She should not have to find her son's dead, cold body. She should not have to clean up his blood and brains. She should not have to look at the gun that killed him. She should not have to call the sheriff to report his death and wait outside while they investigate. She should not have to tell his brother, his grandmother, his extended family, that he is dead. She should not have to give away his clothes and sell his motorcycle. She should not have to arrange to have his car repossessed. She should not have to say goodbye forever.

All those things I did, but I will not give him up. I will not say goodbye.

I am not alone and yet grief is always solitary. There are thousands of parents who have been forced to deal with the death of a child, but even if people try to comfort them, even if they communicate their grief, it is always lonely, always set apart.

It seems as though I should say something profound at the end of this blog, but what is there to say but that I loved my son and I always will? What else really matters at the end of a chronicle like this?

Perhaps what really matters to others, to the readers, is that they remember Leif, too, and somehow deeply take in the message that when they feel they are losing hope, to must find help. Do not take your life; it is too final. It is too damaging to those you love and who love you. Your troubles will end but there will be no possibility of a new beginning. Your loved one's misery will go on for years.

So next time I write, the last few regular posts in the next few days, it will be about my son, and then I will not let HIM go, but I will stop writing here so frequently. I don't want to just repeat myself and post the same photos again, though I know the same thoughts and memories will continue to come to me. I will miss writing here. This journal has become like a friend, and although I know it doesn't really put me in contact with Leif, sometimes it feels that way. I will miss the focus on him, a time to be "with" him, even if only in my mind.
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This photo of Leif was taken at Waikiki Beach wit Diamond Head in the background, in Honolulu, Hawaii, July 1980, on our stop in Hawaii during our long move from Germany to Japan. Leif was five-and-a-half years old.

Leif - Palominito Island, Puerto Rico - July 1991 - Age 16

In July 1991, we were invited to go on a day trip by private boat to the island called Palominito off the eastern coast of Puerto Rico. It was a lovely yacht and we had a beautiful day swimming and picnicking. This yacht even had a hand-held shower the you could wash the salt water off with before you got back into the boat, and a nice set of steps to make it easier to get back aboard. The water was the gorgeous Caribbean turquoise, and quite warm.

Leif was at his physical best, slender, muscular, and tanned. This photo is of him using the shower before getting aboard. I wish I had better photos of that day.

We made other trips to Palominito; Peter W. and Leif went SCUBA diving there. We also went to the islands of Culebra and Vieques in the same general area off the northeastern coast of Puerto Rico.

There was one trip we took with an army captain when we rented a sailboat and sailed out to Vieques. It was a lovely day, but unfortunately, no one was a really good sailor, and coming back into port we managed to run the keel aground on a reef. How embarrassing!

Leif enjoyed being around the water, the beach, boats, and diving. That same summer when he was 16, we sent him on a teen sail adventure in the British Virgin Islands, ActionQuest, which he loved. I wrote about that some time ago.

I think it was memories of how much he had enjoyed Puerto Rico that were part of the reason Leif wanted to move to Florida so much. Unfortunately, he didn't have the companionship he needed here to make going to the beach enjoyable, and didn't have the money to go out on boats or SCUBA diving, so he made little use of the wonderful beaches here.

Leif With Yabusame Equipment - Tokyo, Japan - January 10, 1982 - Age 7

We had so many fascinating experiences in Japan, went to so many unusual festivals, visited national parks, hiked in the mountains, went to the beach. Some of them I have no photos of with Leif in them, though he was there.

One of the things we enjoyed doing as a family once in awhile was taking the train to Tokyo to the Harajuku area, where we went to the pizza buffet at Shakey's Pizza. The boys stuck pretty much to pepperoni, but if you wanted to be adventurous, you could try pineapple and corn pizza, or go really exotic and have octopus pizza. It was fun walking around that bustling business area, and then to go to the huge Yoyogi Park nearby. I just posted a photo of Leif riding a bike there not long ago.

What really was fun to watch there, though, were the rock-a-billy clubs and the other young people dressed in a variety of unusual garb, there with boom boxes, dancing and hanging out. The rockers were dressed like 1950s American kids, James Dean, leather motorcycle jackets and pants, jeans, poodle skirts and the like. The guys liked to dress like a young Elvis Presley, and slick up their hair in imitation of his hair or the "ducktails" of the time.

There were also sort of "fantasy" costumes, clowns and what today would be called Punk. There was a lot of dancing going on, and it made for great photo opportunities.

The Meiji Shrine was nearby, and Shibuya wasn't far away. Harajuku had a kind of crepe you could buy that was fun, too.

On January 10, 1982, just 18 days short of Leif's seventh birthday, we went to the Meiji Shrine-Yoyogi Park area for a demonstration or festival of yabusame, a formal style of Japanese archery on horseback. Leif was quite taken with this. The archers wear medieval Japanese costumes and race down a long course, shoot at three targets as they speed by. It's a very impressive and colorful performance, not called a sport but rather a ritual because of it's formal style and prescibed movements as well as Zen religious aspects.

Leif wanted to see the bows, arrows, horses and the men in their costumes up close and he examined them carefully, as was characteristic of anything that interested him. For years after that he was interested in archery. He made toy bows and arrows, bought toy bows and arrows, and when we were in Hawaii, we had a real bow and arrows and I have a photo of him posing with them, wearing some "cool" sunglasses and his "trademark" black leather Members Only jacket. We still had that bow and arrows in Chicago, but somewhere after that they disappeared.

Life in Japan was a very broadening and important period of development for my sons and I think it in many ways influenced the rest of their lives. I know Leif was caught up in the warrior code, the fascination with weaponry, and most of all, the dreams, excitement and social commentary of science fiction.

Guns.N.Roses-Sweet Child O'Mine

This was a song Leif loved when he was in junior high and first began to play the electric guitar. He worked very hard to learn the song and I well remember him playing it. I wish I had a video of him playing it. He could have sung it, too, but I never heard him do that.

A Step Forward

Yesterday evening we had our first real social event here since Leif died. The day of his memorial service, our neighbors organized a wonderful potluck supper for us, and we held the family reunion in July 2008, a event planned long before Leif's death. We enjoyed it, but it was colored with sadness at his absence.

Since then, we have gone to parties and attended social events, sometimes when we didn't feel like going but knew we should, but hadn't felt like hosting any ourselves.

While I will always miss Leif and have a deep underlying sadness about his death, I think that crossing the two year mark has finally brought me out of the depth of grief and into a time when I can enjoy life with less of that burden. I had thought for some time about having the neighbors over for dessert and finally felt like I really WANTED to do it, looked forward to it. It was fun making the invitations and making pies (pecan and lemon meringue, which Leif would have liked). Peter made a Black Forest Cherry Cake. It was even more or less fun to clean and straighten up the house for the party.

We had a good time with our wonderful neighbors and I felt good about all of it. Leif would have enjoyed it. He always liked our social gatherings. I was glad I could think that without feeling sad that he wasn't there.

Cultures have (or did) "prescribed" periods of grief, which used to be more or less enforced. In one way, those traditions were good, in that they gave a bereaved person a period when it was not only all right but expected to be in mourning, though in another way they were straight jackets that prevented people who were ready from moving forward with their lives. In our culture, that period used to be a year. That's enough for some people, not enough for others. I don't think one ever really completely gets over the loss of a child (or another loved one), but I think things are better after two years than one. One year is too short. Grief is too fresh, the loss too close.

At two years, I can see we've come a long way and realize that we have still further to go . . . and that we will continue on this path.

Today I can be glad for good friends and neighbors, and for coming far enough to want to enjoy the evening with them.
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This photo of my two beloved sons, Peter A. and Leif, was taken in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in December 1981. Peter A. would have his thirteenth birthday just days later, and Leif would be seven a month later. He has on his "tough guy" look.