Leif With Rowboats in Japan - Circa 1980-1981 - Age Six

It's important to label photos. After years, it becomes hard to remember just where and when photos were taken, and as the generations pass, who is in them, but if you take a lot of pictures, finding time to do that is a real challenge. I've tried to label my photos, for the most part, or at least keep the ones from the pre-digital age in envelopes that are labeled with date and place.

These two photos of Leif were taken in Japan by his dad, probably in 1980 or early 1981, when he was five or six years old. He was such a sweet and vulnerable-looking child then, but we saw only how beautiful he was, not that he was in some way fragile inside. He always put up such a brave and stalwart front, always.

I know these pictures were taken on one of our Saturday trips to see some area within driving distance of Camp Zama, Japan, and I think this is on a lake, not an ocean inlet or the sea, but beyond that, I just don't remember. Obviously, it was cold. I think there's even a tiny bit of snow on the ground by the boat.

Leif loved boats and loved water and the sea. Of course, he loved just about anything that would "go," any kind of vehicle, the faster the better.

I heard someone say on a television program tonight that speed is the only modern feeling that man has, that all the others have been with us for centuries, and it is a major thrill. I know Leif loved that thrill from the time he was very young and it only grew as he matured.

I don't think we actually went out on the water in either of these boats. I think we were just walking along the shoreline and Leif found them irresistible.

I wonder now, if it was in some way hard for him to live in Florida and not have access to boats and getting out on the water. So many of the things he loved were barred to him due to finances, but even if he'd been able to do them, I wonder if he would have unless he had found a companion, a love, to enjoy it with him.

Tonight on 60 Minutes they were reporting on people whose unemployment benefits are running out after 99 weeks, and I thought that in a real sense, Leif was on the first wave of people affected by the economic downturn, not that he lost his job, but that he was caught in a spiral of debts he could not pay. How terrifying that must be. He never admitted to us either that he was in debt again, or that it bothered him. He remained stalwart, steadfastly insisting that he was all right, that he could handle it.

I think about that when I read reports of how the military wants to try to reduce the number of active duty and veteran suicides and I wonder how they are going to help these people if they are like Leif and will not admit they have such problems.

I miss Leif every day. I miss the boy and I miss the man. I see him in every motorcyclist that passes me going way too fast. There can never be any real resolution to our feelings about his death, but I can both smile and feel sad when I look at these photos or my beautiful little kindergarten age boy.

Forever Changed

It is proving far harder than I thought it would be to give up writing this blog regularly. I knew I had a lot of emotion invested in it, and I thought I was ready to let it go, but now that I am at that point, I am finding it to be heart wrenching. I know I am not forgetting Leif or really letting him go, but in some deep emotional way it feels as though I am abandoning him, and that makes me terribly sad. It feels like the day of his memorial service, like when it was over and we all walked away from his niche at the cemetery leaving him behind in the place of no life or future. I know that I will never forget him, will think of him every day of my life, but who else will?

Of the 630 posts I've written in the past two years, this is one of the hardest to write, and certainly the hardest one to publish, to click that little "button" that says, "Publish," because it marks an end to an emotional journey that really has no end, and so is hard to give up. It has meant a lot to me to be able to tell Leif's story and to write about my feelings.

Memory is fleeting. Life goes on. I know that's as it should be, but it is also sad. And yet, I will be able to come back here to visit, just as I can go to the cemetery, though as Peter always points out, Leif is not there. It's not really visiting HIM. It's visiting memory and love. It's a kind of symbolic pilgrimage. Although we are often sad at cemeteries, I don't see them as frightening or sad places. They are monuments to love and memory just as this blog is.

I think of my father and I wonder who remembers him and how often they think of him. Like Leif, he lived. He had a life and contributed to the world. At least he left four children behind who, though some were too young to remember much, were a part of him that lived on. There is no blog about his life, no book, and no burial place. There is no place of pilgrimage except in my mind.

Leif had no children. What survives but memory? And how long will that survive? Not long for most people, I suspect, except if some reminder evokes a thought of him. This blog was my way to keep that memory alive, though of course I had no idea who would read it or if anyone but Peter and I would. That didn't matter so much as the preservation and the continuance, and now that I am ending it, it feels like I am again walking away and leaving him behind in that place of no life or future, which of course is what death is, and what we don't want to face.

I have always felt emotions deeply and strongly, and Leif's death has brought me torrents of tears and sadness, and I can say, like the Tin Woodman in the "Wizard of Oz," "Now I know I have a heart because it is breaking."

Yesterday I saw another reference to that saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Like many sayings and platitudes, it has a valuable message, but some lemons are beyond the possibility of lemonade. Some things life dishes out you just have to endure and survive. How does one "make lemonade" out of the suicide death of a cherished son?

When Leif died, he not only erased his future and his pain, but he changed our lives forever, not only our lives, but the lives of his family and friends, and all who knew him. For some of them, the changes were likely temporary without live-changing consequences, but for those who loved him, the changes are not only enormous and emotionally wrenching, they are quite literally life changing.

There are so many things we will not do with Leif or because of Leif now. We will never have grandchildren from him. He will not be there to help us or see us through our old age. We will not have the joy of his company. Our focus and identity is changed forever. Our emotions will never be the same, and there will always be the undercurrent of sadness, loss and grief no matter what else our future holds. This is not the retirement and old age we envisioned for ourselves, but what it now is has in part been created by Leif's act.

We must not forget, though, all the wonderful ways in which our lives were changed by having him as our son, the years we did enjoy his company, his help, his laughter, his intellect, his love.

We must not forget all the things we did with him, all the experiences of the thirty-three years of his life.

I have chosen the last images of the main blog to be all of Leif on beaches. Somehow, even though he seldom actually went to the beach once he moved to Florida (because even the beach isn't as attractive when you go alone), I will always associate Leif with beaches.

Partly this is because as our sons were growing up, we planned a beach vacation every year. Leif had wonderful times on beaches in so many places; Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, California, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Japan, Hawaii, Thailand, Italy, France, England, Texas and more places I can't think of to name right now. I remember him glorying in the waves when he was just a tiny tot, and how he loved sailing in the British Virgin Islands and SCUBA diving in Puerto Rico. Somehow for me, beaches will always be associated with Leif's happiness, the places he felt alive and free . . . beaches and motorcycles and cars.

I wish I could have a picture in my mind of Leif walking on a sunset beach with someone he truly loved who was the guardian of his heart that he so deeply desired. That would be the photo I would like to cherish for the rest of my life, but that does not exist and is a big part of the reason he is no longer here.

So, I will have to keep in my mind a picture of my tall lonely son alone on a sunset beach, as though the sun of his life was setting, and remember the beauty that once was.

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The photo was taken by Peter W. Garretson in Puerto Rico in 1992. Leif was 17 years old. Who would have thought, seeing that tall, handsome young man, that half his life was already over?

At this time, the blog has 630 posts, 977 photos, and has been visited 10,127 times since May 15, 2008.

Leif's Nineteeth and Twentieth Homes - Manhattan, Kansas - August 2001 to March 2005

When Leif moved out of the old stone house for the third time in his life, in August 2001, he moved into the first floor of a small house on 11th Street in Manhattan, Kansas, where he shared the place with a college student named Bonnie. It was the first time he'd had a female "roommate" and he said she was "perfect" for him because while they got along great and she was a good companion, he had no interest in her romantically. Leif lived better with someone, and although they lived like messy students, the two of them would set aside time to clean up the place together. Leif wasn't much on cleaning alone, but if someone else was there working with him, he would get busy and get things done. Companionship meant a lot to him.

It was a small place and he had moved back to Kansas with an apartment load of stuff he'd had during his marriage (though at this time he and Nikko were still legally married, she had left him a year earlier). Other than what Nikko came and picked up, a lot of his things were stored in the garage.

He had the place with Bonnie during the 2001-2002 school year and then she developed a brain tumor and wasn't coming back. He decided he couldn't afford the apartment by himself on his GI Bill and small salary as a school crossing guard employed by the Riley County Police Department, but the basement apartment, which was really tiny and crowded, was available, so he signed a lease on that and moved himself downstairs.

It was about that time when Peter W.'s mother, Ellen, fell and crushed her femur. By July 2002, it was clear that she was dying of complications due to years of undiagnosed and untreated diabetes which made healing of her leg impossible. She had been living for five years in a house we bought for her at 710 N. 9th Street in Manhattan, on the same city block as our old stone house, and because all of her things were in the house and we didn't want it to stand empty, we asked Leif to break his lease and move into the 9th Street house. We paid the fee for the broken lease. The house was a far nicer place to live than the cramped basement apartment but since we owned it and it was just around the corner from us on the same block, he also had to put up with our complaints about how he took care of it and mow the lawn. I had all my stock of books over there in the large basement, and had to go there to get books to sell, so I was in the house frequently (but always well announced). It also made it easy and convenient for Leif to walk over to our house for dinner at least on Sunday nights, and sometimes during the week, or for help with his Spanish, German or algebra homework.

Ellen died on September 22, 2002, just over two months after Leif moved into the house. It took me the better part of a year to sell and give away her belongings and he was very tolerant about me coming over there to work on that and have garage sales.

It was a great place for him to live, with a large living room-dining room area, nice kitchen, two bedrooms and bath upstairs and a full basement. Here he could spread out all his things, work on projects such as the fifty-pound chain mail shirt he made, the wooden guns he designed, cut out and sanded, and much more.

It was also where he lived for a few happy months with J. and her daughter, probably the happiest months of his life.

The 9th Street house was where Leif lived until we moved him to Florida with his dad. We started taking trips to Florida to see where we might like to settle. I think the first one we took was to the Tampa area and up the northwestern coast to the panhandle in March 2002. It was there that Leif rented the white Mustang convertible for a day and fell in love with the Tampa Bay area, especially St. Petersburg and Clearwater. He was just beginning to recover from his depression, as I think you can see in the photos of him above, taken in February 2002. He hadn't yet graduated from KSU or met J. yet, and he was beginning to have hope for his future again.

We continued to make trips to Florida during spring break when he was out of classes at KSU and Peter W. wasn't teaching German at the high school or middle school, looking for the right community for us. Once Leif had gone through the elation and heartbreak of his relationship with J., and found he was miserable in Manhattan where job prospects for a college grad (a dime a dozen in Manhattan) were dim, he was anxious to leave, needed to get out of there to survive. He and Peter W. had nothing holding them in Manhattan, once Peter W.,'s German teaching job was eliminated and Ellen was no longer living, and both of them wanted to move south for their health. Both of them suffered from SAD, seasonal affective disorder, and Leif suffered from cold weather asthma. Peter was miserable with allergies to Kansas plants. They wanted warmer climes and needed them.

The fall of 2004, we planned a Thanksgiving trip to Florida, and although Leif was going with us, I think he had given up on moving there with us because he wasn't willing to wait until we did it. At that time, we were planning to wait another four years to make the move. There was a variety of reasons, but some of them were my job, my publishing adventures, my mother, who I refused to leave alone in Kansas, and all that we had to do to get ready for such a move . . . plus we hadn't found the right place to move to yet. Leif felt he couldn't wait another four years and he couldn't afford to move that far on his own. At that time his friend Michael was living in Tulsa and he had visited him there. He decided if he couldn't move to Florida he could at least rent a truck and move to Tulsa, so he put a deposit on an apartment there that fall. I think that was in late Otober.

To our surprise, during our Thanksgiving trip, when we revisited the Melbourne and Sun City Center areas to try to decide between them, we made a decision and found a house. We all liked it, and it seemed like the right decision to go ahead and buy the house. One of the considerations Peter W. and I took into account was Leif. We felt it was critical to give him a chance at a new life in the place he really wanted to be. The town we were moving to wasn't his ideal place, a retirement community with no young people, but it was near many places that were full of them, particularly Tampa and Brandon, near his beloved St. Petersburg, and in a growing job market. We bought the house in December 2005. Leif canceled the apartment in Tulsa and lost his deposit, but gained the opportunity to move to warmer, sunnier climes.
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The photo are:
1 & 2. Leif in Manhattan, Kansas, February 2002, with and without glasses, which he wore for distance vision only.
3. Leif on Bellaire Beach, Florida in March 2002.
4. Leif on a beach in Florida, March 2002.
5. 720 N. 9th Street house in Manhattan, Kansas where Leif lived twice, once briefly with Nikko from about March to July 1997, and then again from July 2002 to March 2005, a few months of which he lived there with J. and her daughter.
6. The house on 11th Street in Manhattan, Kansas, where Leif lived on the first floor with Bonnie for about nine months and alone in the basement apartment for about a month from August 2001 to June 2002.

Thank you for friends and family

We are touched and pleased that so many of our friends and family remembered the first anniversary of Leif's death and sent cards, called, or emailed. My sweet sister, Lannay, and her husband, Doug, sent flowers. We really appreciated the love and support.

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In November 2004 we made the last of our "research" trips to Florida and stayed part of the time at a model home in Sun City Center, which is where I took this photo of Leif. He was relaxed and enjoying being in Florida on vacation, and he was amused at something on television. It was on that trip we found our house and made an offer on it. The following March (2005), Leif moved to Florida to stay with his dad while I still had to be in Kansas for a time.

Leif & His Mom & Dad - Miami, Florida - March 20, 2002 - Age 27

Today we went to the spring FunFest in our community. It was a gloriously beautiful day with things to see and performances to enjoy (including me performing as part of the German American Chorus). It should have been fun, and sometimes it was, but sometimes I was sad. I couldn't help remembering that last year when we were at FunFest, Leif was alive, and he and I were sending each other text messages. I sent him cell phone photos of silly vehicles. It was hard to go through the day remembering that he is no longer there.

And last year at this time, he was newly in love, seemed so happy. I was happy for him. I created that "Find Joy" t-shirt because I was really happy. And then, less than three weeks later, he was dead. How could that be? How could he go from being so lonely and depressed the previous November (2007) to happy and in love March 15, 2008 to suicide on April 9th? My mind still can't really make sense of it, even though I can go through and list all the factors.

The next few weeks will be hard, are hard, coming up on the anniversary of Leif's death. I have to come to grips with the realization that he has really been gone a whole year. It seems impossible. He smiles out at me from my computer screen, those deep brown eyes so full of intelligence, mischief, fun . . . or melancholy.

This photo was taken in March 2002, almost exactly seven years ago, during one of our first trips to Florida to look for a place to settle. We were having dinner at a Thai restaurant in Miami. Leif loved South Beach, and he happened upon a group of RX8 owners who invited him to come to a club with them. He was taken with the Miami Beach nightlife and I think he would gladly have moved to Miami, though we were less enamored of it. He was so alive, wanted so much to move to Florida, yet in six years he would be dead.

I wish I could send him silly photos. I wish we could share a dinner out again. I wish I could give back his possessions and see him using them. I wish I could take time back a year and find a way to help him live.

Leif's 31st Christmas 2005 - Sun City Center, Florida - Almost 31 years old

After Leif's love affair in 2003 and early 2004, when he was so happy, ended, he was miserable in Manhattan and desperate to leave and get out of there. Not only was there little job opportunity for a real career, there were limited opportunities to meet unattached women near his age, and he hated the winters. We were already planning to move to Florida within a few years, and had begun taking him with us on trips to select a location, but we decided to move sooner when we found a place and house we liked, and thought it would help him to get out of Kansas and start a new life.

We moved him to Florida in March 2005, to live with his dad until I could move there permanently once I'd finished my work contract, sold our houses, and moved my mother there, too. He initially seemed to delight in his new surroundings, bought himself a new super fast Suzuki motorcycle, and got a job at Amscot. Things did not work out well for him, though, and by fall he was working at Alltel, which was better for him because he had worked for Western Wireless in Kansas, and Alltel bought them. It gave him some longevity with the company then.

And working for a cell phone company, he thought his grandmother needed a cell phone. He got her the first nice one she had. (I had gotten her a prepaid one in Kansas earlier.) She was flabbergasted. In the photo of the two of them he is showing her how it works.

The other photo of the three of us was taken by my mother. Both were on our lanai, and this was our first Christmas in Florida.

Leif was still depressed and lonely, but much more upbeat and optimistic at that time than he had been in Kansas, and hopeful that a career would work out for him. Peter W. appreciated having him living here.

Leif's First Visit to Tampa - The White Mustang

Our first visit to Tampa was in March 2002, during Spring Break. Leif was in college at Kansas State University at that time, and we took him with us to explore Florida and where we might like to live.

Leif was so happy to escape the gray skies and cold weather in Kansas, and he rented a white Mustang convertible for a day to drive around without us (nice to be a young man in a hot car without parents along). He and his father were anxious to move to Florida and gave me many talks about how we should do it as soon as possible, but we didn't make it until the spring of 2005 for Leif. March 2005, three years later he was here, but only lasted another three years before his death.

We remember how thrilled he was at the city, the views, the sunshine, the beaches, and how he thought the Sunshine Skyway Bridge was "awesome."

How we wish he had been able to keep that joy and find the new life we had hoped for, and that we had hoped for for him.