Twelve Years

You would think twelve years would diminish the pain, dim the grief. It doesn't. In some ways, yes. It is not the constant terrifying companion it was in the first years. We get better at closing the door on it and keeping it at a distance. We go on with our lives, and learn to live without him. We learn that we can be happy. We learn that we can keep grief under wraps most of the time.

But the there are those days that memories flood back. Mostly, they are cause for joy, amusement, delight. We love remembering Leif and his life. We think of him every day. But sometimes memories bring back the pain.

There is no way I can ever forget the details of April 9 and 10, 2008. I manage to keep them at bay most of the time, but when the date rolls around on the calendar, I can't do it. It all comes crashing back.

I am supposed to be strong. I was always supposed to be the strong one, beginning when I was a child. And I try. People think I am. But sometimes, it's too hard.

Twelve years is a long time. And yet, it seems like yesterday. And yet, it seems like forever.

I miss him.

His 45th Birthday

Hard to believe Leif would be 45 years old today, if he were still alive. Hard to believe the last birthday he spent with us was his 33rd. Hard to believe that in April he will be gone from us twelve years. He's with us in our hearts every day.

This photo was another one I hadn't seen, probably since it was taken in January 1976. We printed so few of the slides we took. There's a teeny bit of snow on the ground in the bottom right corner, and it was a sunny but cold January day. We went for an outing to State Lake in Pottawatomie County, east of Manhattan.

I miss him with all my heart. Happy Birthday, son.

Leif in the Leaves

Once upon a time, he was a joyful baby relishing the leaves in the fall. He was our little explorer, toddling around in the silly striped overalls I sewed for him, typical 1970s garb, I guess. Once upon a time, we looked forward to his future. Little did we know that 32 years later, he would no longer be with us.

Once upon a time, I listened to the music he loved, and to him playing the guitar solos from those rock songs, and they were just songs. Now, I go to the neighborhood pool where the radio on the loudspeaker blares out classic rock that reminds me so of him it makes me sad.

Once upon a time, this little boy had a future.

I dreamed about him last night, not as a baby, but as a man, and I called him "Alex," and then asked him if it was still okay to call him that instead of Leif. He laughed and called me, "silly mommy." Just what he would have done in real life.

I miss him.

This photo was taken in October 1975 in the back yard of our old stone house. It no longer exists, either.

Leif on a Sailboat

I'm always hoping to find a photo of Leif I've never seen, that someone will have taken one, or more, that was never shared with me before. It's a rare delight, but it happened today. Peter was scanning negatives of photos he took during our years on Puerto Rico and this was on one roll, along with many others I HAD seen before. We were out sailing in the waters on the northeast side of the island. In most of the photos, Leif has on his Oakley sunglasses (here around his neck) and a blue shirt, but here, only his sailor's gloves. It surprises me to see him wearing a cross, because he was not religious, and I have no idea whose tiny ring he has on a chain around his neck. They will stay mysteries. The lighting in the late afternoon sun makes his hair look red instead of dark brown, and it looks this reddish color in all the photos taken that day.

Leif inherited my love of being out on the water and sailing. I think he missed his calling and should have gone into the Coast Guard. But, the requirements were stiff and he wasn't driven enough to pursue it, though if he had, he might well have had the same physical problems he had with the Air Force and the Army. I think he would have been good in the merchant marine, but he didn't want a career that would keep him away from a family for months at a time. We sent him on a teen sail summer program when we lived in Puerto Rico and he loved it. He went on two cruises with us. I wish we could have taken him on more.

Finding photos like this is bittersweet. I love seeing them, seeing something new of him, but it also makes me sad that he is no longer with us. It still hurts every day, even after more than eleven years.

Eleven Years

Forty-two years ago, on April 10, 1977, it was Easter. We were living in Charlottesville, Virginia, and  two-year-old Leif was excited to be looking for his Easter basket.

Today, it is eleven years since we found his lifeless body on April 10, 2008.

We can look back on this beautiful child with love and longing, and gratitude for the years we had him.

We went to the cemetery today. In all these eleven years, this is the first time I have gone there without tears. They could have come, if I had let them, but I had my tears yesterday, and was glad that today, a beautiful sunny spring day, we could visit the cemetery without such wrenching grief, and talk about him with both sadness and happiness.

I am grateful for every picture I have of him. There is a Facebook meme going around today saying that you should make sure you are in photos because someday that's all your children will have of you. For us, except for a very few of his possessions, photos and memories are all we have of Leif. They are treasures.

Eleven Years

He would want us to remember him like this, or on his motorcycle, or in his SCA garb, or in his RX-8. He would want us to remember his intelligence, his sense of humor, his love of speed and weaponry. He would want us to remember the good times. So, on this day, when he departed from us eleven years ago, I chose a photo of him with that rascally smile and a stein of celebratory beer, taken at a happy family gathering on July 29, 2004.

As I searched for a photo for this post, this one seemed to best represent the adult Leif, but it also struck me that this shirt is the same one he wore in death, when we found him April 10, 2008. From a happy occasion to the depths of despair.

Eleven years, one third of the years he lived. Yet he is a part of our lives every day. He always will be.

Today Would Have Been His 44th Birthday

Look at this beautiful child. Hopeful, innocent, happy, vulnerable. Today would have been his 44th birthday, if he were still with us, but his last birthday was 11 years ago. He was here, at our house, for a steak dinner. I see a photo of him taken that night every day in my office. I miss that man. I miss this little boy.

This photo was taken in Hawaii on his 9th birthday. We lived there then. He was in third grade. He loved video games and going to the arcade in Honolulu with us on a Friday or Saturday night after a dinner and a movie. It was always a family activity, in Japan, in Hawaii. We'd all play. He loved Pac Man. For this birthday, he wanted a Super Pac Man cake, so he and I made one. The photo makes me cry, though I have been crying on and off all day. But i also makes me smile at the utterly homemade look of this cake, but he loved it, and I loved making it with him, even the unorthodox positioning of the candles. His idea.

I don't know why this day is so hard, or why it is still so hard after he's been dead almost eleven years. I guess the only way to understand it is that the greater the love, the greater the grief. I guess I should be glad that not every day is like this. Most days I can live a pretty normal existence. We can talk about Leif and our memories of him, usually without crying or tearing up. But not today. Today has been rough. It IS rough.

What I really wanted to do today was light his candle and look at photos of him, just "be with him" even if only in my mind. But real life with responsibilities and appointments crowds that out, and all I have are the moments of tears, a few minutes to find a photo to post, and write a few words.

I miss the boy. I miss the man. I miss my son. If he were here, I could wish him a happy birthday. Now, I can say it, I can write it, but where is he? No longer with us. 

A Photo of Baby Leif from Long Ago

He was so bright-eyed, so curious, so eager. He was so small here, and yet, for his age, so big. This was taken in the spring of 1975 when he was only about four or five months old. I don't think I've seen this photo since it was taken. I scanned it from an old slide that's been in a box for all those years. It's both a joy and a sorrow to see photos of him I didn't remember existed. So many memories. So hard to know he's been gone for over ten years.

Babies work so hard, trying to learn to control their muscles, raise the heads, roll over, crawl, walk, get things into their mouths. What ambition it takes. What makes them do it?

Leif did it all early. He walked at ten months. He talked early, especially for a boy. He grew fast. He took in his environment and figured things out at amazing speed.

Right now, I just want to look into those baby eyes and say, "I love you. How I wish I could tell you that again in person."

Leif's Political Views in 2004 Fit Today

From: "Leif Garretson"

Date: Wed Aug 18, 2004

My main concern with Bush, other than the fact that he is alienating our allies, [is that he] has made us even less secure by making even more of the world  hate us than already did. I considered myself a Republican previously because I am against big government and as a libertarian basically believe that the government that governs  least governs best. In past years I had a much greater fear that the Democrats would rob my freedom than the Republicans. But in the wake of the Patriot act I am far more concerned by the Republicans, which have become so radically right wing that it is beginning to resemble the beginnings of Fascism. If the Democrats  are allowed to get too much power we slip closer to becoming Soviet Russia. We have now tilted the other way and are leaning in the direction of Fascist Germany. Granted, we are not there yet, but the price of Liberty is eternal vigilance and if you wait till it gets 'too bad' it will be too late. It must be stopped now while it can still be done without a more dramatic measure.

I also find the war in Iraq unconscionable.  The idea that  we are protecting our selves by sending over a thousand Americans to die and 5 times that many to be wounded  along with 50,000 Iraqis at the expense of 4 billion with a B dollars a month to me is nothing short of criminal. Those man and woman, and those dollars, should be here at home improving the problems we have within our own borders. The war has accomplished nothing other than to make lot of Bush and Cheney cronies very rich and to get lot of far more deserving men killed.

This pattern is extremely disturbing, with our civil rights and privacy eroding to make way for a Government that more closely resembles the Mafia than a democracy. Combine that with laws that are nothing short of a prelude to Big Brother, a Republican media that tells us that to dissent is unAmerican and we should all just shut up and hail  the flag no matter how wrong those waving it are, and I am forced to conclude that the greatest enemy of American Freedom and Prosperity is not Al'Qaeda it is the Bush administration.

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I was looking for another file on my computer this evening and came across this email he wrote in August 2018. He wrote it to his brother and me in response to questions from a BBC journalist about why some Republicans were leaving the party. I hadn't read it in the intervening 14 years, but I think he would have a lot to say about the current government and state of affairs. He was a PASSIONATE defender of civil rights, freedom of speech, and the Constitution. At this point, he had only been out of the Army for a little over a year, where he was a machine gunner in the infantry. He was a gun owner who thought the NRA had gone way too far. I think his comments are so apropos to our country today. He would have a lot to say, an IMPASSIONED lot to say, if he were still with us, and he would be defending Colin Kaepernick. I frequently find myself wishing he were here to talk with.

The photo was taken about two months after he wrote the email, in Kansas.

A little More Alex Silliness

I continue to find old photos I'd never seen before as I scan my mother's slides, and even ours, which I must have seen at least once years ago. This one was one my mother took at her house on Christmas Eve 1997. Leif took her fuzzy black winter hat and put it on and was acting silly, as he loved to do. That thing he is holding is one end of a Norwegian cookie called a "Krumkake" that we traditionally had for Christmas.

A month later, he enlisted in the army. Although we continued to share Christmases together, this was the last one before he was gone for several years. He had been married for a couple of years at this time, and is wearing his wedding ring. He is also wearing the silver double-sided ax necklace we brought him from Greece. It was a favorite of his, and I still have it.

I miss his silliness, his laugh, his smile, his jokes.