Getting Through the Holidays

We celebrated our fifth Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years without Leif. You'd think it would get easier, but it doesn't. It still hurts. I still cry. It still feels as though there is a big, unfilled hole where he should be.

I'm happy, with our son Peter and our granddaughters with us. I enjoy those moments, but when I don't keep my guard up, the sadness and the tears come back. Why can't he be here to share it all with us? Why couldn't he be here with his own children?

I haven't written anything for a long time, mostly because I've had no time. For two months I spent nearly every extra minute I had taking care of my mother after she fractured another vertebra, and when I did have a few minutes, I had so many other things to do. I couldn't bring myself to write on the blog, didn't want to face my feelings any more than I could help it.

Then, yesterday morning, Peter W. turned on the music. He has all his music on Leif's old iPod, and plays it on a iPod player. He played Queen's "Who Wants to Live Forever?" I completely broke down. I associate that song so deeply with Leif and his death, with his memorial service, with his sadness and demise, that I can't listen to it without the floodgates opening. It is an incredibly beautiful and sad song, one of the most beautiful I've heard, so poignant and full of emotion.

                                                      "Who Wants To Live Forever"
There's no time for us,
There's no place for us,
What is this thing that builds our dreams, yet slips away from us.
Who wants to live forever,
Who wants to live forever.....?

There's no chance for us,
It's all decided for us,
This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us.
Who wants to live forever,
Who dares to love forever,
When love must die. 

But touch my tears with your lips,
Touch my world with your fingertips,
And we can have forever,
And we can love forever,
Forever is our today,
Who wants to live forever,
Who wants to live forever,
Forever is our today,
Who waits forever anyway?

Who Wants to Live Forever (0fficial Queen Video)

Leif loved this song not only for its music but because it was from the movie "Highlander," which was one of his all time favorites. Here's a link to a history of the song, from Wikipedia:

Who Wants to Live Forever (about the song)

I want him back. I will always want him back.

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This photo was taken December 25, 2006. Little did we know we would only have him one more Christmas. He seemed pretty happy that 2006 Christmas. How terribly things went downhill over the following year.