Little Leif in Wolframs-Eschenbach

I love this whimsical photo of Leif. He was rarely coquettish like this. He had a great smile, and liked to act silly, but was often serious. This is an unusual. It wasn't windy, so his hair just flew that way when he quickly put his head on the side. I was lucky to catch it.

The picture was taken in the town of Wolframs-Eschenbach, near Ansbach, in August 1977. Leif was two-and-a-half years old. At the time, we had just moved to Germany and were living in Fuerth, next to Nurnberg, and this was a day trip. However, a year later we lived closer to this down when we lived in Sachsen bei Ansbach. It's a quaint town with a lot of medieval architecture still in existence.

The boys enjoyed our outings, as we surely did. 

A Lotus Leif Would Have Loved

When we were in Germany in June, we saw this gorgeous Lotus. Leif would have loved this car. We all remarked on that. It also brought memories of the James Bond car, the model that Leif has such a fit over because we wouldn't buy it in Innsbruck (I've told that story on the blog before), but I think this car is more beautiful.

It's a small vehicle. I wouldn't want to drive it. It would be hard to get into, and I was trying to imagine Leif folding his 6'2" frame down into that low, small car, but I bet he would have done it if he ever had the chance. About the only thing that would have made it better in his eyes would be a yellow paint job.

Leif's Email to Hillary Clinton in August 2007

Leif cared deeply about our country, HIS country, the country he served as an infantryman. He liked taking political science and history courses, something he had in common with his dad.

During the 2007 political season, when it looked as though Hillary Clinton would probably get the Democratic nomination for the presidency, he wrote the email below to her, thinking the winning ticket would be a Clinton-Obama ticket.

He found both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to be exciting political contenders, for different reasons. I think it's interesting that he felt Obama wasn't ready for the Presidency at that time.

He didn't live long enough to see what actually happened, either with the nomination or the election. I wonder what he would have thought about it and the government that came to pass.

Strangely enough, Leif was among the victims of the recession of 2007 (as well as his own poor budget and spending choices), though he didn't live to find out the depth of the economic downturn. He would have had a great deal to say about it, as well as the situation in which the newly elected Obama would find himself in January 2008.

Now his letter to Hillary is an interesting piece of history.

The photo is one Leif took of himself with his iPhone, in his motorcycle gear. I think it was in the parking lot of the building where he worked, in October or November 2007.

-----------------------

August 2, 2007

Dear Mrs. Clinton,

I am writing to you to express some observations for the Democrat's failures in the last election and hope to see you rise above them. In past elections I have seen both parties compete for their nominations based on who was the most Democratic of Republicans. Largely the most electable candidate in the last election, General Clark, was defeated. He wasn't liberal enough for Democrats so we  chose Kerry who was too liberal to win the swing vote. A mistake, as  Clark would certainly have been preferable to another four years of Bush, but he wasn't  left wing enough to win the nomination. 

The republicans are not making this same mistake, as they are likely to nominate Mr Giuliani, who is the most  moderate of the Republicans. Were they to follow the folly of the 2004 Democratic nomination, they would have an ultra conservative as a frontrunner. But I digress.

The point I really want to make is that I sincerely hope that while competing with Senator Obama that you do not become too adversarial, so that you could not consider him an ally and a possible running mate.

One cannot deny the power and broad appeal of a Hillary/Obama ticket with a woman and a black man. That alone would be a powerful force at the polls. But beyond the superficial appeal of such demographics, let us look at the merits of such a pairing.   

Recently the news has been full of stories of the squabble between yourself and Sen. Obama over your description of his ideas as naive and his criticism of you as being too similar to the failed policies of Bush. To be honest, I think you are both right. Obama is a bit naive and you are a bit too indoctrinated into the broken system of  Washington. 

What I as a voter and a citizen say is that instead of having an adversarial relationship with each other, which claims one or the other is right, would we all not be better served by a combination of such views.? If there is one thing that America is sick of it's is a cabinet full of Bush "yes men." 

As a citizen, I hate our president for firing or  ousting or forcing the retirement of every cabinet member or senior general that did not share his vision of the new world order. The President is the boss and as the boss he, or hopefully SHE, will be secure in knowing that she can be the boss regardless of whether everyone  agrees with her or not. You could select a weak yes man of a running mate or you could reinforce the strength of character for which you are known by selecting Senator Obama as your running mate.

Why? You have said that his ideas and policies are naive and that he lacks experience. You are surely the most qualified for the job of President and you may very well be correct about him. However, his idealism might be a valuable voice in your cabinet, and while Senator Obama might not be ready to be president in 2008, imagine the president he could be in 2016 after serving 8 years as Vice President to a woman that shared the White House for 8 years with her husband.

So, Mrs. Clinton, I ask you to consider the long view and the short. In the short term, no ticket could be more powerful than Clinton/Obama. He will bring idealism to balance your more cynical image. You wik carry him to the White House and to 8 years of preparation for the day that he will be the first Black President.

So chose your words and battles wisely Mrs. Clinton. And never forget that most profound of truths that says no matter your differences, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," as should be Senator Obama.

Best of luck,

Leif Garretson.

Missing Him So

I wonder what it is that triggers sadness and missing Leif again so much, as I have been in the last week. Next Sunday it will be four years and five months since he died. There are days when I'm busy and life is full and it doesn't hurt so much, but the sadness rolls back.

I think perhaps it's because of the election season. The last time around, before the actual nominating conventions, we had such lively discussions about the candidates and policies. He was writing email letters Hillary Clinton (as he had to General Wesley Clark in 2003). I probably miss him a lot right now because I know if he were here we'd be hearing a lot from him about the election and issues. It makes the hole in our lives so much more evident.

I know it's not my fault he isn't here, but I will always feel that I failed him, failed to help him, failed to keep him alive.

I look at this darling picture, taken by my sister, Sherie, in July 1976 when he was a year-and-a-half old, and he seems to happy, so carefree. I wish I had some scrap of hope that his adult life held any happiness for him.

I've thought a thousand times about why a death like Leif's, a suicide, is so very very hard, and I think that on top of the loss and grief we would have over the death of a child, our son, there are the dual burdens of knowing how unhappy he was and that we couldn't help him, that he died alone and uncomforted, cut off even from our love in that moment of death when he didn't reach out to anyone for help.

I can't have this beautiful little boy back. I can't have the handsome young man back. I can't even have the sad and depressed man back for a second chance to help make it right.

Where do they come from . . . and why?

I'm amazed that each day there are visitors to RememberingLeif, from all over the world, even though I post only a couple of times a month now. I wonder about these visitors. How do they come upon this blog?
They didn't know Leif, or me, yet they arrive here. It must be through the keywords on the blog, and probably often they are looking for "Leif Garrett," the singer, not my son.

But what do they think when they click on this site? Do they stay? Do they read about him? Some do, as I've found from comments, but I wonder about all the others. Like so many questions having do do with Leif's life and death, we will never know, but it's still incredible how many people have seen the blog.

Just looking at the visits from the past 24 hours and seeing four foreign countries and four US states is fascinating, but the larger statistics show that there have been visitors from all fifty states and the District of Colombia, and 120 foreign countries. Well over 30,000 visits have been logged by Blogger since April 10, 2008.

I like coming to the blog page, and to Leif's Facebook page, to remember, to reflect, and to know he is remembered in the world.

I wonder how Leif would have viewed this presidential campaign. I would have liked to have one of our lively, rip-roaring discussions about it. He would have had strong feelings and expressed them well. I can't imagine him being wholeheartedly for either candidate, but he would take his right to vote seriously.

Family Ties - Memories and the Name "Alex"

Family Ties - Clip from Episode "Smoke Alarm"

Tonight Peter discovered Family Ties playing on the Clue Channel. That brought back so many happy memories.

We were living in Japan in 1982 when Family Ties made its debut. We saw it on AFN, the Armed Forces Network, and it quickly became a huge family favorite. We all enjoyed it, but especially the boys, and they were quite the fans of Michael J. Fox as Alex.

In fact, when we were going to move from Japan to Hawaii in the summer of 1983, Peter A. convinced Leif that it was the perfect time to change his name....to Alex, and that is why, for the next 15 years, Leif went by "Alex" and why some of his friends from those years will always call him and know him as Alex. It was even hard for us to switch to "Leif."

I wonder how Leif would see the show now, if he were alive to watch it again. Would he still laugh at the situations? What would he think of Alex's conservative politics? Or would he just switch to a more intense sci-fi drama?

I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for this show that my boys loved, and that brought me an "Alex" into our house....though our Alex was not much like the one on the show.

There was a time he wanted to legally change his name to Lance Alexander, but he never did.

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.

So Long Ago

Peter asked me today whether I ever posted this photo, and I don't think I have. It's a sweet one of Leif with his niece Madeleine, when she was only about 17 months old, long ago in 1997. She was quite fascinated with Leif. He still had hair then and was so slim. She wanted to touch his moustache. I don't know if she had ever seen one before.

Leif enjoyed his nieces and nephew on the rare occasions when he got to see them, and they liked to climb all over him until they got to big to do so. He was a great "tree."

I'll always wonder what Leif might have been like as a father, whether he had the patience. I know he would have had love.

Was it his destiny?

Someone asked me, a few months ago, whether I thought perhaps Leif's life and death were his destiny. I thought a long time about that. What does destiny mean?

The Free Dictionary by Farlex defines destiny as:
destiny [ˈdɛstɪnɪ]

n pl -nies

1. the future destined for a person or thing; fate; fortune; lot

2. the predetermined or inevitable course of events

3. (Philosophy) the ultimate power or agency that predetermines the course of events

How can we really apply that to a life? Because something DOES happen, can we automatically assume it was "destiny" and MUST happen?

If there is such a thing as destiny, can we change or avoid it?

Is destiny the same as "fate"?

fate [feɪt]

n

1. the ultimate agency that predetermines the course of events

2. the inevitable fortune that befalls a person or thing; destiny

3. the end or final result

4. a calamitous or unfavourable outcome or result; death, destruction, or downfall

It seems to me that the definitions rather beg the question. If the end result IS fate or destiny, then of course it was fate or destiny, but if we define it as "inevitable" and basically preprogrammed to happen, that's a different thing all together.

Or, is there a force called destiny or fate that DOES determine our lives?

I don't believe that, at least not in the usual colloquial sense. For instance, I don't think there was some guiding hand of fate that "made" me and Peter go to the Manhattan swimming pool one August day just so we could meet. I think that was a more or less random piece of luck that could easily have happened entirely differently.

However, I DO Think there are factors that determine things in our lives, some of the biological or genetic. I think that genes not only determine or heavily influence much of our appearance, they also determine many other things about us, from talents and likes and dislikes (some of them) to propensities to diseases or risky behavior or some forms of mental illness.

It's hard for me as a mother to contemplate that I, and perhaps Peter, passed on to Leif some genetic tendency toward severe depression, but with the family history on my side, and my father's suicide, and Peter's mother's severe depression, it know it is possible, and indeed probable, that he inherited the gene for depression and that it was activated during his miserable time in the army and he fought it the rest of his life. Perhaps he WAS doomed by destiny, the destiny of that inheritance, and perhaps it was only a matter of time for him, as it seemed to have been for my father.

My dad lived 13 years longer than Leif did, but he had much to anchor him to this life that Leif never had, a wife, four children, a career, a home. Even with those things, life became empty and he said he felt "dead inside." Leif listened to Johnny Cash's sad song "Hurt," which seemed to speak of what Leif was going through.

I don't know whether Leif had an exact predetermined fate, one that would end on that day, that exact day, with him taking his life, in that exact place, with that gun. I doubt it. What I do think is that he may have had a destiny to become depressed and eventually end his life, but the how, why, when and where would have been shaped by the events of his life. Perhaps if he hadn't joined the army, perhaps if his marriage had lasted, perhaps if he'd found a career he could get his mind into, perhaps if he'd felt he had worth in this life and that he mattered, he would have lived . . . but for how long?

In the end, would he have still terminated his life as my father did? I will never know the answer to that, never know exactly why did shot himself in the wee hours of April 9, 2008, never know whether he could have been saved . . . or if he was, for how long.

I have come to believe that we all face some destiny in our lives, but that it isn't all just predetermined, that it influences our lives but doesn't just determine it. We, and events, and the people in our lives, shape the outcomes every day with each and every action and decision. Yes, many of THOSE are in some sense "determined," too, but not every detail, just the broad outlines. We paint in the strokes.

Leif suffered, but there are others who suffered worse than he did who did not and will not take their lives. What could be the difference? I believe it was inheritance, the genetic disposition to depression and suicide, and I regret that I passed that on to him.

Could things have been different? I believe they could have, but his life would have to have been different, too. He would have to have made different decisions, found a path that wouldn't have taken him down the path of depression, or found a way out of it for a second or third time. But much of that was not of his choosing . . . the things that happened to him were the RESULTS of his choices, but all of us make choices without knowing the outcomes we will face, and he was no different.

Was suicide my father's fate? Yes, because it happened. Perhaps yes because of his genetic inheritance. Yes because of the damaging depression he developed.

Can we know our fate? I'm glad we can't, though sometimes we can see some possibilities or the broad outlines we face in life. I'd rather not know if terrible times are ahead. Nor do I want the happy times lessened by knowing about them in advance.

All we can do is make the best choices we know how, forgive ourselves for the ones that turn out to be foolish or unwise, and appreciate, as much as we can, the life and loved ones we have.

I will always be glad that Leif was my son, no matter how hard it is to know he is dead, no matter how much I miss him, no matter how much I disagreed with some of the choices he made. He was my son, my handsome, brilliant, anguished son, and he brought much to my life I would never want to wish away.
-------

The photo was taken of Leif by my sister, Sherie, in the living room of our old stone house in Manhattan, Kansas, in November 1975. Leif was 10 months old, and must about that time he started walking.

Are you over it yet?

Peter asked me on our bike ride yesterday whether I was "over" Leif's death after four years. I told him no, that I still felt like the man we sat with at a German American Club Christmas Party a couple of years ago whose 17-year-old daughter had committed suicide some fifteen years ago . . . that it still hurt just as much, just not as often.

We didn't continue to discuss it then, but today I asked him whether HE was "over it," and he said he thought he was. But then it occurred to me that so often we use words in different ways. What did "over it" mean to him? So I asked.

He said he still thinks of Leif "all the time" and misses him, but that life must go on and that he was able to enjoy our trip to Germany.

I guess my definition is different. I knew all along that life had to go on, and since Leif died I've helped take care of my mother through a broken back and a broken hip, and now am helping her with another move. We've traveled to Egypt, South America, Alaska, Germany, India and Russia since Leif's death, and I've enjoyed the trips. Most of each day I'm busy and functioning well. I don't dwell on his death the way I did for the first three years after he died. I cry more rarely, but I still do get tears in my eyes, and once in awhile grief still comes back for a pity party.

If being "over it" means being able to function and enjoy life most of the time, I guess I am . . . but if being "over it" means it no longer hurts or affects me, or that I no longer miss him, or that I no longer question and wonder why, no, I am not "over it," and I don't think I ever will be.

There is something so integral to one's life about being a parent, about loving someone so completely, that even if we can eventually let go of the daily depths of grief, we can never really let go of the person we love and miss so much.

I was thinking just today, again, of all Leif's things I still have and what to do with them when there he had no family to give them to, no children to wonder about their father, no grandchildren who would like having his things.

I was thinking of all the memories that we cherish, how glad I am to have them, and yet how hard it sometimes is to remember and know what we have lost.

There are so many days I'd like to write on this blog but find no time. The demands of life have closed in and taken away the time I used to spend each day here with "Remembering Leif," and it may seem to the casual reader of the blog as though I am no longer remembering as often or as deeply, but that would be untrue.

I'm glad I had the time in the first two years after Leif's death to write more often, even daily, to be with him in my mind's eye and share those moments in some inner way with him. Now those moments are fewer, but not because I think of him any less.

I think Peter, too, wishes for more of that time. He checks the blog every day and waits to see whether I've written anything new, tells me I should write something, even if it is short. He may be "over it," but he's not over wanting to see the photos and read about our son.

This photo of Peter and Leif was taken in the back yard of our old stone house in Manhattan, Kansas, in June 1976 when Leif was a year-and-a-half old. He had been playing in the little wading pool and gotten tuckered out, so he climbed up on daddy and fell asleep in the sun, all cuddled up, safe and warm. He must have felt so snuggled up and loved . . . and he was. It's a precious moment, to have a little boy asleep on you like that. They both were so young then.