Whimsical

Leif was funny. He was whimsical. He was silly. He was a cut-up. At least, he was all of those things when he wasn't morose, withdrawn or depressed. How well I remember the times when he was enjoying himself and having fun acting silly.

These days, I seem to alternate between sadness and missing him, and smiling over memories like this one.

He graduated from Kansas State University in May 2003, ten years after he graduated from high school. It took him that long because he spent a part of those years in the U.S. Army.

He came home from the army in 2001 a depressed and broken man, but by the time he graduated from KSU, he was so much healthier in mind and body. He was looking good, feeling good, felt he had a future. I think he was at his handsomest in that year of 2003, and my favorite photos of him are from that year.

It was also the year in which he met J. and was so very much in love, and I'm sure that also helped account for his happiness and glowing good looks that fall, though in this cute picture, he had not yet met her.

It was taken in the back yard of our old stone house. He was acting silly with the tassel on his graduation cap, blowing on it and letting it settle on and tickle his nose. I love the look on his face, looking at the tassel as he gently blows on it, the ends of it splayed around his nose, and that hint of a smile with the cute dimples just showing. How I WISH he could have continued to be that happy, whimsical, silly man. 

Graduations

This week, our granddaughter, Madeleine, Leif's niece, will graduate from high school. I was thinking today about all the graduations that have taken place in our family, beginning with my parents, and how much hope, pride, gratitude and expectation are part of all that surrounds the event.

When Leif graduated from Manhattan High School in 1993, he was already taking classes at Kansas State University. He was the "cool dude," the one with the RX-7 (used) sports car, the one with a cell phone (very unusual at that time, and he paid the bills himself), the one with the long leather coat and the long luxurious hair that the guys hated and the girls loved.

High school was not an easy time for Leif. He had many ups and downs, as so many teens do. He was shy, but had to adjust to three different high schools. He fell in love, deeply, but it was not reciprocated. He had parts in two musicals and found he could sing and make the girls scream, but he couldn't get and keep the one(s) he wanted. He had his first job and earned his first paychecks, but squandered the money. He managed to get through school with minimal effort but not know what to do with his life.

But that day in 1993 when he graduated from high school, he was happy and we were proud. I think he thought life was going to get better, and be easier, and he would shine. I wish that had happened for him.

Leif Wrestling With His Cousin Tim

Sometimes I think the photos on this blog leaves the impression that Leif had a sort of solitary existence, since I don't post many pictures with other people in them, but it's a false picture. Leif had friends he cared deeply about and an extended family he enjoyed. Like me, he was more of an introvert and never had a crowd of friends, but he enjoyed and was committed to the ones he had, and he had a good time at social and family gatherings. It would have been fun to show more of that on the blog.

This photo I had never seen until the end of March when my sister, Lannay, brought several photos she had taken years ago. It was taken in 1985 when Leif was ten years old. He's on the floor in the red shirt, wrestling with his cousin Tim. Tim's sister, Holly is peeking over Tim's shoulder at the top left. Leif would have loved to do some of the things that Tim, and his dad, Leif's Uncle Donovan, got to do, like race stock cars. Instead, he raced his used RX7 and later RX8 on the highways. (Not a good idea and it scared the daylights out of us.)

I still wonder how many more photos of Leif I've never seen, that someone else took. Maybe more will surface.

Leif at Twenty - Handsome and Hopeful

It was so very long ago, April 4, 1995 when this photo was taken. Leif was twenty years old and at the height of his handsomeness. He was still exuberant and happy. He still had hair. :) He was slender and athletic, and about finishing his sophomore year at Kansas State University.

Just when I don't think I'll see a new photo of Leif (or Alex as he was still called when this photo was taken), someone brings me new ones. My sister, Leif's beloved Aunt Lannay, brought several photos to me in March that I had never seen before. I was so glad to get them.

This photo was taken at my mother's house on Pottawatomie Street in Manhattan, Kansas. We were there for the "April birthday dinner." Mom would make a big dinner for as many of the family as could come, sometimes as many as sixteen, to celebrate all the birthdays in that month. In April, the birthday "boys" were Peter W. (Leif's dad) and his cousin Tim. The original of this photo has Tim and his sister Holly in it.

Those were good times. Leif really enjoyed those family togethers, all the conversation, bantering, and Mom's excellent cooking . . . and I think he and Tim liked the peach fritters with foamy sauce the best of all.

I love seeing a photo of Leif that looks like this, happy, healthy and optimistic, joyful, even. It's so much better than the withdrawn and depressed person he became. He had hope then. You can see it in his eyes.

Five Years

Five years. I still miss him. I still ask why. It still hurts that he is gone.

This is a photo Leif took of himself with his computer camera in November 2007.

Sailing With His Friends in the Caribbean

This is a mystery photo for me. I found it among Leif's photos after he died. Leif is sitting on the very top right of this catamaran named The East Wind, and it was clearly taken somewhere in the Caribbean during the years we were living in Puerto Rico, but I know nothing more about it. 

I've asked some of his friends from Antilles High School if they can tell me but they don't know either.

It's possible it was taken in the British Virgin Islands when he was there on ActionQuest, but it seems unlikely they would have gotten off their sailboat and onto a catamaran. Maybe this boat belonged to the family of one of his friends in Puerto Rico that I no longer have contact with. 

I hoped to find out the story behind the photo and who took it before I posted it on this blog, but since it appears I can't do that, I'm posting it now. Maybe someone who knows will see it.

Leif would have been in his element here. He loved boats and the Caribbean. I'm glad he got to do this, however it happened. He would have been about 16 years old. I think this was taken in 1991.

We thought a lot about Leif on our cruise in New Zealand and Australia last month. 
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Update April 21st: After I posted this, I found out I should have asked Peter W. about this picture. I thought it was Leif off with his friends, and it still looks like that to me, but Peter says that this was a SCUBA dive trip to the smaller island of Palominito, off the northeast coast of Puerto Rico, and they took this boat to get over there. Now I still wonder who took the picture. I went along on some dive trips but I know I didn't take this one, and I found it among Leif's things, not ours.

Five Years Since We Saw Him

Five years ago on Easter Sunday, which was March 23rd, was the last time we saw Leif alive. He was here for dinner, and how I wish I had taken pictures that evening. I've written about it before. It was a good visit, relaxed and seemingly happy. He was in love. There was no hint that he would be dead two weeks later.

Of all the Easter Sundays in my children's lives, it seems I took photos only a few times. I can't find many pictures of Easter egg dying or hunting and I've already posted those I have. Our Easter traditions were special and fun, but no longer practiced without children to make them fun and special. No more painting Easter eggs. No more hanging them on the Easter tree. No more setting out the little wooden Easter bunny figures from Germany or making the Easter nest cake for breakfast. No more hiding Easter baskets. No more cute little boys hunting for them. They are good memories. Easter will bring them back every year.

It's hard to believe it's been five years since we saw Leif. He is still so much a part of our lives, our thoughts. We still miss him every day. We still talk about him every day. So much still reminds us of him.

I love the look of wonder in his eyes in this picture. Leif was such a curious little "discoverer." The photo was taken in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1977. He was two years old.

Thinking of Leif

Next month it will be five years since Leif died, but he seems to be as much a part of our thoughts as ever. We still talk about him, still are reminded of him daily, still feel his loss, still smile over his humor.

We were at Bay Pines National Cemetery on March 3rd, with cousins Wolfgang and Cordula visiting from Germany. It still brings tears to see his niche and know that is all that is left of my handsome, brilliant son, all that is earthly remains, at any rate.

Oddly, a couple of days later, the beautiful Hawaiian lei which has hung over his portrait ever since the day of his memorial service, now dried and still lovely, fell off of it for the first time in all these years.

It's amazing the number of things that can remind me of Leif. I was driving to my friend Chris's house a couple of times in the past week or two and saw many feral black and white cats. That reminded me of how much Leif loved cats, and how he had tried to get close to and tame the feral kittens that lived under our townhouse in Hawaii.

This picture was one that Leif's ex wife Nikko sent to me, taken by her, one of those precious photos I hadn't seen before, and is one of a series she took of him with one of their cats. I've posted some of the others before. I still wonder who else has photos of Leif I have never seen. This one was taken while he was in the army at Fort Drum, New York on August 20, 1999. This was shortly after we had visited them there and shortly before he went to Bosnia.

So much in our lives has changed since he left us, but our love for him has not.

Leif's 38th Birthday

It would have been Leif's 38th birthday today, had he lived. We would have had him come for dinner because he liked to have me make his favorite foods. I think he would have had peach fritters with foamy sauce for sure. He wasn't a big cake lover. Like all the men in our family, he preferred pie, but pie after peach fritters could be a bit much.

Every birthday with him was precious and special. We didn't miss many in his life, only the ones when he was in the army. A long time ago in this blog I posted a photo of each of his birthdays for which we had pictures, but of course not all the pictures. How I wish we had better ones!

This photo was taken the day before his second birthday, at Rocking Horse Country Day School in Charlottesville, Virginia. The kids baked cupcakes and had them with their lunch. Leif, ever the little experimenter, was quite interested in the texture of the cupcake and had to stick his finger in it.

He was still a little blondie at that point. I wonder why it is that many children are blond when they are small and their hair darkens as they get older. By the time Leif was in junior high school, his hair was very dark brown.

In the background you can see the "art wall." Rocking Horse Country Day School had a wall that the kids could draw and color on, post their art projects on, and in general do all the things kids would LIKE to do to walls but aren't supposed to. I thought it was a brilliant idea. They were very good about doing their drawing and scribbling only on THAT wall and not the others. I know it would be hard to give kids a wall like that at home, but maybe hanging a whiteboard or something where they could draw and scribble on the "wall" to their hearts content would help keep them from doing it elsewhere.

Leif hadn't been going to this school for long when this was taken. It was unusual for a day school to take a child that young, but there were several two-year-olds there, probably because their parents needed to find a place they could thrive, too. It was a Montessori school, and it was wonderful for Leif. He was so bright that no matter how much attention and enrichment I gave him at home, it wasn't enough. He was frustrated. When we found the school, he took to it as though he had been searching for it. I will always be grateful to Linda J. for accepting him there.

Today I wish my son a happy birthday. He's not here to celebrate it, but I will remember his birthday, this year and every year.

Cars He Would Have Loved

Yesterday we were in Sarasota. The weather was gorgeous, and it seemed to be the day for unusual sports cars to be out. Leif would have loved the neon green McLaren, the yellow Lamborghini (his favorite car color), the green Porsche, and the red Astin Martin we saw. I can never see a beautiful sports car without thinking of him and how much he loved them.

This photo of a Ferrari is one he took at the Chicago Auto Show in February 1987 when he was twelve years old. He loved that car, and so many others he photographed at that show.

There are so many reminders of Leif and the things he loved. We also went to the new James Bond movie, Skyfall, yesterday. He wouldn't have missed it. I wish we could talk with him about it. I miss those lively conversations.