Leif and the Trip to Canada - Summer 1989 - Age 14

I found these photos in Leif's album. I don't think I ever saw them before and I don't know who took them, but they were taken with Leif's camera. Perhaps he put it on a picnic table or tree stump for the one of the three of us, and maybe I took the one of him running and acting silly down by the stream. I don't even remember exactly where this place is, but my, how we all changed since 1989. Twenty years, and so much has happened, and Leif is no longer here.

We had a good time with Leif on that trip, visiting Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec, cities, museums, countryside. Leif was fun to travel with and he enjoyed the trip.

I see a picture like this one of the three of us and it is so typical, Peter W. always with his arms around his family, those protective loving arms. In those days, we could still protect Leif from some of the blows of life. How I wish we had been able to protect him from some of the far worse ones that happened to him once he left our care and lived on his own as a grown man.

Since the photo was taken, Leif grew his hair long, then cut it short, then had an army haircut and eventually shaved his head when his receding hairline was making him bald on top at the age of about thirty. And we have grown gray and gone from middle age to being "seniors."

I never thought I would grow old with out one of my sons. That hurts every single day.