Was It An Accident?

Today I was talking to a friend whose son also committed suicide by shooting himself with a gun. Unlike Leif, this young man had grown up with real guns and liked to go shooting with his dad. He told me that he was glad his son hadn't used a gun he had given to him. I understand how he feels.

He asked me, "Do you ever think it could have been an accident?"

The answer is no . . . and yet, there is always the tiniest hint of a question.

When we first told Leif's brother about his death, he could not accept it as a suicide. He thought it had to be a murder. When we and the law enforcement officials believed there was no chance of that, he wanted to know if it was an accident. I remember asking him whether he would feel better if he lost his brother to a stupid and preventable accident because he was mishandling or playing with a gun under the influence of alcohol, or to a the deliberate and chosen act of suicide. How can one answer that?

We tend to want people to be logical, to follow a pattern we can discern and figure out, but life is seldom neat a tidy in that way. Human beings aren't always, or even mostly, logical. There are many contradictions at the end of Leif's life. He had been depressed for a long time. He hadn't been successful i finding a job he liked better. He was suffering from pain caused by the motorcycle accident, broken collarbone and surgery. He had been dealt a financial blow when his GI Bill was discontinued due to a misunderstanding, and he couldn't keep up with his bills. His asthma was worse.

And yet, just three weeks before his death he had a wonderful date with a woman he had been corresponding and texting with, and with whom he'd had many long phone conversations. He was falling in love again. He was hoping to see her on his day off, the day before he died. He was talking to me about taking it slow and getting the relationship right.

A few days before he died, he paid his rent. The day before, he filled his car with gas, bought a new pair of shoes, a new computer game and a new gun he had ordered and been waiting for, the gun he used to kill himself. The night he died, he went out with friends, brought them back to his apartment, drank, and got out and displayed all of his weapons. He was participating in an online discussion about the most perfect watch and a German band whose music he wanted to get. He did not sound like a man planning to kill himself that night. He did not act like it.

But how does such a man sound? How does he act? Do we know? Does he hide it? Even from himself? The night my father died, he acted normal, yet he had planned it.

Was Leif planning it? Was it a sudden decision? Or could it have been a horrible accident? Not according to the coroner. Even under the influence of alcohol, it's hard to imagine that Leif would have pressed a gun barrel to his head (pointed it at it, yes; he'd done that before in jest, foolish as it was) and pulled a heavy trigger hard enough to shoot it. Not only would it have been difficult to accidentally shoot that gun, Leif was so well trained in weaponry that it's hard to imagine him doing that without intent.

But you see, today was another one of those days when the questions don't go away, not for me, not for my friend who lost his son two years before we lost ours.

Today I could discuss it quite calmly with him. Today was so different than the days leading up to Thanksgiving when I felt so sad that Leif would not be with us. I couldn't have done it then. The anticipation of holidays is always hard, for me, harder than the holiday itself.

I wish he'd been here to have some of his beloved pie.

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The photo above was taken at the City of Refuge on the Big Island of Hawaii, probably in 1985 when Leif was ten years old.

Another Movie Leif Would Have Loved

One of the things Leif and his dad had in common was a love of movies, and their tastes were generally quite similar, and also quite eclectic. Since Peter continues to watch a lot of movies, it's frequently a way that we are reminded of Leif, particularly when it's a movie we know he would really have enjoyed.

Leif also had a great sense of humor and loved whacky stuff. One of the things he and I had in common was an odd sense of humor and one of his compliments for me was, "Mom, you're weird.:

A few days ago, Peter W. said he thought I needed to take a break and watch a good comedy. So often, movies he checks out that purport to be comedies aren't the least bit funny to me, so I was dubious. He said we were going to watch "The Ugly Truth." When I asked him what it was about, he couldn't tell me. He requests movies by the popularity lists for moves that are new on DVD and often doesn't really know what they are.

So, I sat down in the living room without high expectations . . . and soon found myself laughing out loud and saying how much Leif would have enjoyed this movie.

If you've been reading this blog all along, and you saw this movie, you would know why that's so without me having to say another word. Mike Chadway (played by Gerard Butler) has a television show telling women how to understand and date men, and he does so in very graphic, crude and somewhat cynical terms . . . and yet he's right on in a number of ways that Leif wrote about. Of course, it's fairly one-dimensional, which Leif would have agreed with, too, saying that men have to learn about intimacy.

The female lead, Abby (played by Katherine Heigl) is a tv producer and control freak who can't stand what Mike is dishing out but in the end agrees to try his advice to land a date with a "dreamboat." It works, but in the end, somewhat predictably, Mike and Abby fall for each other.

It's cute, funny, and spouts a lot of things guys will recognize, and it's quite entertaining. Leif would have been laughing uproariously and making a lot of comments. He wouldn't in the least have minded the graphic language.

I know that there will always be these moments when Peter and I look at each other and say, "Leif would have loved that," and wished we could share it with him as we did in the past.
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This photo of Leif was taken at the City of Refuge on the Big Island of Hawaii in the summeer of 1983. He was eight years old and we were just moving to Hawaii.

Leif - City of Refuge, Hawaii - July 1980 - Age 5

It still amazes me, and probably will for the rest of my life, how most of the time I can talk about Leif and his life easily and then something unexpected will trigger a bout of sadness and tears. Today, Peter W. had a Transformers movie on television. I was busy and wasn't watching it, but then I heard the words "Optimus Prime." I said, "Leif had an Optimus Prime transformer toy when we were in Japan, and had kept it. It was with all Leif's Japanese toys that he gave to his nephew, Marcus. I had saved them in case Leif had a little boy to give them to someday."

It was that last sentence that brought the sadness and tears. I was never one of those mothers who would pressure her children into having kids so I could have grandchildren. I firmly believe that people should only have children if they really want them, not for someone else. However, until this moment I never realized how much I had, in my heart, wanted those grandchildren, and counted on them. Now I feel the loss of the grandchildren I never had, Leif's children who will never live. I realize all the things I collected or saved for them, the photos, Leif's toys, the things from his childhood, his school records and achievements, the books I bought for them. I even have his baby teeth. Somewhere in my mind I was counting on him having at least one child, even though he had protested nearly all his adult life that he didn't want children. I was preparing for them just as I had with Peter Anthony.

It was hard to imagine Leif as a parent for most of his adult life. Not only were his lifestyle and spending habits unlikely to mesh well with responsible fatherhood, but he hadn't shown a real affinity for kids until the last years of his life, when he clearly enjoyed being with his nieces and nephew and some of his friends' children, and came to love J's little girl when he was with her. It wasn't until he was over 30 when he wistfully said one evening at dinner at our house that he used to think he didn't want children but now he felt he did and might not ever have them. In one of his online dating profiles, he said he was interested in a relationship with a woman young enough to have children, so I know that was something he was looking forward to. I wonder still whether having a child depending upon him might have given him the purpose he so badly needed, and some of the love he sought.

And for my part, today I realized that I had far more invested in the children I hoped he would have than I had ever thought. I realized how sad I am that I will never hold them, play with them, read to them, teach them, take them on trips or to Disney World, all the wonderful things I am fortunate to be able to do with Peter Anthony's beautiful children. I am so grateful for them, but I would so have loved to have a grandchild from Leif, not only for the relationship with me, with us, but someone to carry on Leif's name, to remember him, to value him, to have someone to give all the memories of his life, his special things like his high school class ring, his swords, his bokken, his military uniforms and boots.

He would have had beautiful children, beautiful and brilliant, like he was. They would have enjoyed their cousins.

Who will remember him when I am gone? Half of my children are gone. Half of my grandchildren will never be.

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This photo of Leif was taken at the City of Refuge on the Big Island of Hawaii in July 1980 when Leif was five-and-a-half years old.