Seven Years and Seven Months - and Missing Him on Veteran's Day

I don't know whether it's because of Veteran's Day or some other unconscious reason, but I've been missing Leif terribly the past two days.

Veteran's Day is so significant because Leif always wanted to serve his country. He wanted to be a pilot but that was denied to him by his poor eyesight. His second choice was to be an Air Force Officer, nonpilot. But that was denied to him because of a failed muscle. His third choice was an army career, but that was denied to him by asthma despite his excellence as a machine gunner.

Being in a soldier, defending his country and his beloved Constitution, was an integral part of his identity. It never left him, even when he was forced into medical retirement from the army after three and a half years of service. It will always be his identity.

Veteran's Day comes this year on the heels of seven years and seven months since he died. It is hard to realize it's been that long. It seems only yesterday he was sitting at my kitchen table, long legs stretched out, talking politics. We still miss him every day, and never know what will trigger an attack of sadness or nostalgia. . . something we see in a movie, something on television, a car like his driving past, someone on a motorcycle, the political process he would have loved to discuss, the new James Bond movie he would have loved to see.

It's hard not being able to share those things with him. It's hard not knowing what to do with what I still have of his things. I finally parted with his bass guitar and his Kramer Floyd Rose guitar. It took me over seven years to do it. My conscious mind knows he isn't coming back for them, but the hidden mind does not accept that. Somewhere in my unconscious it feels deeply wrong and disloyal to sell his prized possessions.

I am proud of Leif's service. Proud that he managed to get through tough infantry basic training on a broken foot. Proud of his tall and soldierly bearing. Proud of his skills. Proud that he persevered even when asthma made it hard for him to breath or run. Proud that he cared about his country. Proud that the studied the Constitution and believed in it, protecting it, from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

I miss you, my son!

A Lotus Leif Would Have Loved

When we were in Germany in June, we saw this gorgeous Lotus. Leif would have loved this car. We all remarked on that. It also brought memories of the James Bond car, the model that Leif has such a fit over because we wouldn't buy it in Innsbruck (I've told that story on the blog before), but I think this car is more beautiful.

It's a small vehicle. I wouldn't want to drive it. It would be hard to get into, and I was trying to imagine Leif folding his 6'2" frame down into that low, small car, but I bet he would have done it if he ever had the chance. About the only thing that would have made it better in his eyes would be a yellow paint job.

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.

His Lifelong Love of Guns

As I've written before, Leif displayed an amazingly consistent set of interests throughout his life. So many kids go through fads of interest and drop them. He didn't. From a very early age he was captivated by vehicles and speed, all kinds of vehicles. He always loved them. He collected toy cars, boats, planes, rockets. He built models of them. He drew them. And, when he was older, he test drove them and photographed them.

As he got a little older as a child, he became interested in science fiction moves, James Bond movies, and the weaponry that both used. Most little boys who are allowed to have toy guns play with them, and those that aren't allowed to have them often pretend with a "hand" gun or improvised toy guns made of sticks and other materials. Leif had toy guns, but by the time he was in the primary grades he was also making his own, and that's another thing he continued off and on throughout his life. He drew them, and then constructed them out of wood. Sometimes, when he was a kid, his dad helped him.

When we lived in Japan, they sold very realistic "toy" pellet guns. Our boys each had one or two, and they enjoyed pretending they were action heroes. Sometimes they'd get dressed up and pose, and even their dad enjoyed doing that with them. This was much more a pastime of Leif's than his brother's, though.

I think Leif loved both the design and mechanical beauty of guns, not just the power and glamor he saw in them (the glamor coming from the James Bond movies, of course). He must have had fantasies of being the gun-toting hero.

This photo is one of a series that Peter W. took of Leif posing on the lanai of our townhouse in Hawaii. I think it was probably taken in 1984 or 1985. He's holding two "guns." The larger one in his right hand is one of the guns he and his dad made, and the one in his left hand looks like it might have been a pellet gun. He's wearing his beloved black Members Only jacket, black pants, black gloves, and his cool sunglasses.

Leif started wearing "cool" sunglasses at an early age, here about 9 or 10, and graduated to Gargoyles and then Oakleys, which he saved up for and paid for himself. I would never have spent that kind of money on sunglasses! But the cool factor was always important to him, and he would gladly pay for it.

I like his hair the way it is in this picture, but it was combed over and styled like this just for the picture. On a daily basis, he wasn't interested in bothering with that.

It's hard for me to know how to think about Leif's lifelong love affair with guns because he used one to shoot himself, but I know he was passionate about them, enjoyed them, loved shooting them, and was incredibly knowledgeable about them. If I had known what would happen to him, would I have prevented him from having toy guns as a child? I don't know. I doubt that it would have done much good. We never had real guns in our home, and he was brought up with a very strong anti-violence ethic. He never had real guns until he was grown and had left home, and he wasn't irresponsible with them. So many millions of American own guns and don't misuse them. He was passionate about the Second Amendment, too. There was no way to know or predict that he would turn one on himself. Even though we worried so much about him, even though we knew the possibility of suicide with a gun existed, we worried far more about the possibility of a terrible car or motorcycle accident.

I wondered, when he died, whether I would be able to look at these photos and enjoy them, knowing what eventually happened, but I have come to the point where I can remember his posing like this and be glad he enjoyed himself and that he never turned a gun on anyone else.

More Bond Father & Son

Here's another photo that was taken at the same time as the last one, May 23, 1987, with Peter W. and Leif posing with the "toy" guns from Japan. That was a fun time for them, and I had a good time taking the pictures. I can see how how much Leif wanted to be the hero. In recent times here in Florida, he had a concealed carry license and told us many times how if someone like him had been in various situations, criminals could be stopped.

I remember the night last year he sent me a text message saying he had just called the cops on a shoplifter at Walgreens and said it was "interesting" being questioned by the officer while "carrying." We communicated a lot by text messaging, which he started me on a couple of years earlier by sending me one and challenging me to figure out how to answer it. I wasn't about to fail that test. :) Anyway, I sent him one back saying I was glad he hadn't tried to apprehend the shoplifter or use his weapon and he said something to the effect of, "Hell, no, not over shoplifting!"

I wish he had had the chance to be the hero he wanted to be, and was capable of being. Chance did not favor him in his adult life.

The name is Bond, Leif Bond

From the time he was tiny, Leif loved cars. He was particularly fascinated with the Lotus Esprit he saw in the James Bond movie, Moonraker,in 1979 when he was four-and-a-half years old.

We were in Innsbruck, Austria, and decided to take the boys to the movie as a treat. We all enjoyed it! Then we made the mistake of going into a department store and heading for the toy department, which was up on the third or fourth floor. He spotted a toy version of the famous car that went underwater, and he wanted it! The toy was one we could have gotten for less than half the price back at the army base where we lived. It was really an exorbitant amount, and Leif had no money he had saved for things he wanted on the trip, so we refused to get it for him.

Well, he wasn't going without it, even if it did cost $13 for the small metal car. Leif was usually a fairly even tempered child, but he did have a temper that raised it's ugly head now and then. He threw the biggest screaming fit I had ever seen him throw, and it was mighty embarrassing! Since we were the only Americans around, and the only people speaking English, it was even worse.

We tried to get him calmed down, and thought we had, but as we walked toward the stairway, he saw a big round column, about the size of a telephone pole, and wrapped himself around it. Leif was always strong, and he was amazingly strong for a kid who wasn't even five years old yet! It took both Peter and I to peel him off that pillar, and even then it was a big struggle. We were sure people must have thought we were terrible parents, with a child fighting that hard to stay there and not come with us, but at last we thought we had him calmed down and started down the stairs.

The stairs weren't such a big problem. There wasn't anything interesting on them, and we got down a floor. Then he ran for another round pillar! Back to square one.

By a series of grab-the-pillar and drag the feet maneuvers, Leif managed to make it very difficult to move him out of and away from the store! I was mortified. Eventually, though, he gave up and we finally made it to the car. It's tough being a "mean" mom who sticks by what she says!

Eventually, and not too long after this, Leif did get the precious Lotus Esprit. I found it at his apartment after he died. That was one really special toy!