Another James Bond Father and Son Photo

Yesterday I wrote about Leif's fascination with guns and James Bond. He shared the James Bond interest with his dad, who took him to the Bond films starting when he was very young. Here's another photo of them posing together in May 1987 when we were living at Fort Sheridan. Leif was twelve years old. He was wearing his dad's white dinner jacket, which was of course too big for him, but not as big as it would have been on most twelve-year-olds.

The guns are toys. We did not own any real guns and never had any in our home when we were raising children.

On the day I took this, I took a series of photos of the two of them posing with these toy guns, together and separately. It seems to run in the family to enjoy posing and pretending.

It was all in good fun then, whether the posing was with guns or something else, often silly, but after Leif's death, the photos with the guns took on another aspect we could never have predicted . . . and how glad I am that we could not.

Leif's Sense of Beauty and Aesthetics

Leif would sometimes maintain that he didn't "understand" jewelry, or things that people acquired simply as decor. He insisted that he loved the beauty of well-designed functional things, whether a gorgeous car, a snazzy motorcycle, a beautifully designed computer, a "cool" cell phone, or anything else of that kind. Furniture he could find both comfy and beautiful, and he had a great sense of style in clothing when he was younger and slimmer, and cared. He also could have made a fine art student if he'd had the interest to develop his talent, but it wasn't his burning interest.

However, I used to like to argue with him about his assertions concerning decor, jewelry and the like, because when he found something that truly "spoke" to him, he went for it. For instance, he picked out one of the most beautiful diamond ring sets I've ever seen when he wanted to propose to J. He wore jewelry on occasion; earrings and necklaces when he was young, and still wore the Greek double battle axe necklace I brought him from Greece up until he died. He loved stylish, fancy watches, too. And he decorated his walls with swords and a print he bought that he very much liked.

So, in a way, his assertions were contradicted by his behavior and his taste, but in another, they weren't. He liked to purchase things he could USE, and those he wanted to be the best and not just functional but aesthetically pleasing. His fine taste was one of the things that helped to put him in debt, as he apparently couldn't resist expensive things he could not afford if they fit into his scheme of desire-functionality-design.

These photos were taken when we were living at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, I think, when he was in ninth grade in the spring of 1990, age 15. He was just beginning to let his hair grow longer. His ears weren't pierced yet, but it's surprising to me that he is wearing a cross. He was never religious, never a believer. I wish I knew the story of why he wore it.

Father's Day

Another women who lost a son to suicide was talking to me a few days before Father's Day and she said, "Why is it that these days like Mother's Day or Easter are so much harder? They're just another day."

The trouble is, they aren't just another day. They are days with significance, a significance we have been taught all our lives. They matter because humans measure time, and they designate certain days as having some kind of importance.

She said they only get "two months off," meaning that every other month has either a holiday or a family date like a birthday in it, so they are always anticipating those occasions when their son won't be with them.

I know how that feels now. We are into our third set of birthdays, Mother's Day and Father's Day without Leif, and soon it will be the Fourth of July (one holiday he really liked), then in the fall, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Each one of them is another day we will realize he won't be coming, something we had an expectation of over the years, because except for such rare instances, he always WAS there. He was an integral part of our joy and celebration of those holidays, and now having to experience them without him seems saddened and partly empty. We have other family members but they haven't been with us for these times over the years, so their absence is not so keenly felt. The expectation isn't there.

I find that my subconscious starts anticipating the holiday without Leif and I become sad. It happens to Peter W., too. We both feel that Mother's Day and Father's Day are diminished, that we have only half our children (for we had only two sons) still there. Does that mean we are half the parents we once were? It's hard to be happy on those days.

It's impossible not to think about Leif's death on those days set aside specifically for mothers and fathers, for that's what we were to him, and those were days he shared with us.

I found myself fighting tears.

I made a card for Peter W. and had a hard time deciding what photo to put on it. It doesn't seem right to put a photo of our family without Leif, though he is no longer here, and that's what I did on the card last year. I chose a photo of our boys in Germany when they were small, beautiful little boys! Those days are gone now, are just fond memories now made all the sweeter because we know they not only will never come again but Leif will never be with us. I had tears in my eyes when I made the card, but I didn't expect Peter to have them in his eyes when he looked at it. He was affected, too, saddened again at the loss, asking why Leif shot himself, how he could do it.

And we will never know.

The thoughts and the feelings go beyond that. I rarely turn on the car radio but I did a day or so ago and there was some sweet and slightly melancholy love song playing, and the words just made me sad, both because, as I've written before, love songs can be interpreted as other than romantic love, and because I was sad that Leif never had the romantic love he so desperately sought and hoped for.

Coming home from a wedding on Friday, we crossed the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, and I think we will never cross it without thinking and talking of Leif. And at the wedding, which was beautiful, I thought why couldn't Leif have found a love like this?

The memories are everywhere. The feelings are still so strong and deep. The sadness comes back in waves. It has burrowed into my heart.
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This photo of Leif, Peter W. and Peter A. was taken in April 1987 in the area of Fort Sheridan, Illinois. Leif was 12 years old, and acting goofy because he didn't really want to be posing for a photo. There were others taken at the same time that were better than this one, but these are my three guys, the ones that mean the world to me.

Leif's Favorite Christmas Cookies

All my life we've had the tradition of baking Norwegian cookies and Norwegian Christmas Bread for Christmas. I don't think I've ever had a Christmas my whole life when I haven't at least had our favorite Berliner Kranser cookies, which, though they are Norwegian and a very old family recipe, are oddly enough named "Berlin Wreaths." The Christmas bread is called "Julekage" which translated would mean Yule Cake, I think.

My son's never took to Julekage because it has raisins in it, but all three of my guys loved Berliner Kranser, the butter cookies with the melted sugar topping and the odd recipe with the 4 hard boiled egg yolks mashed through a sieve. They used to help e make them, and snitch as much of the raw dough as they could get away with. I remember Leif with his mischief eyes coming in and swiping some when he was older and not helping make them any more.

I loved making those cookies for them and loved seeing them enjoy them. I never made them before December 23rd or 24th because they would have been long gone before Christmas. I used to find joy in sending some home with Leif, knowing he'd probably eat them all with a big glass of milk in the middle of the night while he was messing around on the computer or watching television in his apartment.

Last year, Aly made them, with my help, and Peter A. was here to eat them with his dad. The year before that, all three of my guys were still there waiting for them to come out of the oven. This year, with Peter A. far away in India and Leif dead, it's just Peter W. who gets to eat them without competition.

For some reason, these cookies didn't seem to catch on with the grandchildren. When we made several batches of cookies last year, they were more interested in the frosted, decorated cookies or ice cream than our old favorites. But no matter, what will always bring the joy to my heart is that I could bring joy to Peter W., Peter A. and Leif with these glorious old cookies. I just wish Leif were here to enjoy them now.
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The photo of Leif was taken on Christmas Eve 1987 when we were living at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, north of Chicago. He was one month shy of his 13th birthday and was in the seventh grade. By that time he was already six feet tall.

The cookie photo is a handful of Berliner Kranser made here.

Leif at the Soccer Award Banquet - Highland Park, Illinois - November 1989 - Age 14

Leif played fullback on the freshman soccer team at Highland Park High School in Highland Park, Illinois. He could boot the ball all the way down the field. This photo was taken at the soccer awards banquet and he was being given a certificate and award. You can see how tall he was as he towers over the man giving him the award and those around him.

In those days he loved to wear ties and had a small wardrobe of them. I think the narrow ties looked really good on him.

It's hard to believe that this was 20 years ago this very month. How does 20 years go by so fast?

Why counting blessings doesn't really help - and yet how at times, it does.

 



Tuesday evening at my chorus practice, our director gave us an assignment. He asked each of us to write down five things we are thankful for each morning at breakfast time for the next week. There were a lot of groans among the chorus. It sounded like a class of teenagers complaining about homework, though I think the youngest of us is probably my age. He said it was an attitude-changing exercise.

I didn't object. I've tried this before, several times since Leif's death. I am well aware of all I am thankful for, of I have to be grateful for. The trouble is, even enumerating it doesn't make me FEEL truly grateful when I'm feeling sad about Leif's death. I know what I have to be thankful for, but it's hard, very hard find the joy in all the good things in my life when Leif's death hurts so much.

I read about the stages of grief and I wonder when I will pass this point, when I can let go of grief itself. It's not just letting go of Leif, which is hard enough, but letting go of my grief over his death. It's hard to even remember what it was like not to feel like this, though I look at all the pictures and remember all the good times we had.

I AM thankful for so much, and I have been truly blessed in my life, but that doesn't negate the sadness. It doesn't bring Leif back. Does that make me an ungrateful person who doesn't appreciate what she has? I don't think so. I think it makes me a hurt person who has to take time to heal.

I was working in the yard last week and an neighbor who also lost a son to suicide several years ago said that it's never the same, "You can have good times, but you want to share them and you can't. The loss always comes back."

I fear that. I don't want my life to be like that forever. Somehow, I want to regain that sense of joy I once had, not only for myself, but for Peter W., Peter Anthony and my grandchildren. There are glimpses of it sometimes. I savor them, but I wonder how long it will be before they are more than glimpses, before the tears are not so close to the surface.

Sometimes I wonder how terrible a burden Leif's life was, that he would take his life, how hopeless it must have seemed to him, and I know how much better my life is . . . but that doesn't lessen my sadness. If anything, in multiplies it. It hurts deeply, so very deeply, to know my son suffered like that and we didn't know and couldn't help him.

No, counting my blessings doesn't really help . . . not if it means taking away the pain today, but it does help in another way, which is why I continue to do it. It helps me keep perspective and not succumb to the downward spiral of negative thinking. It helps me to hang on to those blesssings and hope that someday the pain will lessen and shrink away to a smaller corner of my being so that all that's good in my life can shine forth again.
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These photos of Leif, Peter W. and me were taken by my sister, Lannay, when we were visiting her and her family in Greenbelt, Maryland in June 1990. We were in the Charlottesville, Virginia - Washington DC area so that Peter could attend the Judge Advocate General's School course for Staff Judge Advocates, and we were in the middle of our move from Fort Sheridan, Illinois (Chicago) to Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico.

Leif's Seventh Home - Fort Sheridan, Illinois - August 1986 to July 1990

We wanted to stay in Hawaii, but the army wasn't going for it. Instead, they sent Peter W. to MEPCOM, the U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command at Great Lakes, Illinois, north of Chicago. After checking out all the school systems on the north side of Chicago, we decided the best one for our sons was in Highland Park. We could send them there if we chose to live at Fort Sheridan instead of one of the Great Lakes housing areas, though Peter would have a 20-30 minute commute (which he did not enjoy). That meant that Leif could go do Northwood Junior High School for three years and then his freshman year in high school at Highland Park High School, where Peter Anthony would compete his senior year before heading off to the Air Force Academy. Leif did some of the best academic work of his entire school career there.

We lived at 419-D Nicholson Road on Fort Sheridan. Behind the house was a part of the golf course and just a couple blocks walk brought us to the shore of Lake Michigan. Leif picked out a cute kitten, Scamp, who was our favorite cat. I've written about him before and posted photos of him with Leif.

Leif played soccer all four years. It was there that he got enamored of radio controlled cars and built at least three of them from kits, modifying them to make them even faster, and using them in science fair experiments.

His best friends there were Robert and Chris, and they spent a lot of time at our house. We also had visits from my family, and Leif's cousin Holly spent time with us a couple of summers. We were fortunate to see a lot of my sister Sherie and her family, as they lived in Michigan about two hours drive from us.

During our time in the Chicago area, we also did a lot of things in the city, from seeing a big car show (Leif loved that!), to the time Leif and I went to the top of the Sears tower. We went to the museums and aquarium, and flew NINE times on military aircraft space available, free, back to Hawaii for long weekends. We also flew military space-A to Germany in 1988, the last time we were there, and visited Peter W's relatives, as well as taking a long trip through the eastern half of Canada. Leif was with us on all those trips and enjoyed each one. Of course, we also went to visit Peter Anthony at the Air Force Academy and looked forward to him coming home to see us for a short time each summer and at Christmas.

By the time Leif was in seventh grade, he was also living in his seventh home.

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The photos above are:
1. Leif's school portrait, probably fall 1989.
2. Leif's school portrait, probably fall 1988.
3. 419-D Nicholson Road, Fort Sheridan, Illinois, a townhouse, where we lived for four years.
4. The living room at 419-D Nicholson Road when we lived there.