Was it his destiny?

Someone asked me, a few months ago, whether I thought perhaps Leif's life and death were his destiny. I thought a long time about that. What does destiny mean?

The Free Dictionary by Farlex defines destiny as:
destiny [ˈdɛstɪnɪ]

n pl -nies

1. the future destined for a person or thing; fate; fortune; lot

2. the predetermined or inevitable course of events

3. (Philosophy) the ultimate power or agency that predetermines the course of events

How can we really apply that to a life? Because something DOES happen, can we automatically assume it was "destiny" and MUST happen?

If there is such a thing as destiny, can we change or avoid it?

Is destiny the same as "fate"?

fate [feɪt]

n

1. the ultimate agency that predetermines the course of events

2. the inevitable fortune that befalls a person or thing; destiny

3. the end or final result

4. a calamitous or unfavourable outcome or result; death, destruction, or downfall

It seems to me that the definitions rather beg the question. If the end result IS fate or destiny, then of course it was fate or destiny, but if we define it as "inevitable" and basically preprogrammed to happen, that's a different thing all together.

Or, is there a force called destiny or fate that DOES determine our lives?

I don't believe that, at least not in the usual colloquial sense. For instance, I don't think there was some guiding hand of fate that "made" me and Peter go to the Manhattan swimming pool one August day just so we could meet. I think that was a more or less random piece of luck that could easily have happened entirely differently.

However, I DO Think there are factors that determine things in our lives, some of the biological or genetic. I think that genes not only determine or heavily influence much of our appearance, they also determine many other things about us, from talents and likes and dislikes (some of them) to propensities to diseases or risky behavior or some forms of mental illness.

It's hard for me as a mother to contemplate that I, and perhaps Peter, passed on to Leif some genetic tendency toward severe depression, but with the family history on my side, and my father's suicide, and Peter's mother's severe depression, it know it is possible, and indeed probable, that he inherited the gene for depression and that it was activated during his miserable time in the army and he fought it the rest of his life. Perhaps he WAS doomed by destiny, the destiny of that inheritance, and perhaps it was only a matter of time for him, as it seemed to have been for my father.

My dad lived 13 years longer than Leif did, but he had much to anchor him to this life that Leif never had, a wife, four children, a career, a home. Even with those things, life became empty and he said he felt "dead inside." Leif listened to Johnny Cash's sad song "Hurt," which seemed to speak of what Leif was going through.

I don't know whether Leif had an exact predetermined fate, one that would end on that day, that exact day, with him taking his life, in that exact place, with that gun. I doubt it. What I do think is that he may have had a destiny to become depressed and eventually end his life, but the how, why, when and where would have been shaped by the events of his life. Perhaps if he hadn't joined the army, perhaps if his marriage had lasted, perhaps if he'd found a career he could get his mind into, perhaps if he'd felt he had worth in this life and that he mattered, he would have lived . . . but for how long?

In the end, would he have still terminated his life as my father did? I will never know the answer to that, never know exactly why did shot himself in the wee hours of April 9, 2008, never know whether he could have been saved . . . or if he was, for how long.

I have come to believe that we all face some destiny in our lives, but that it isn't all just predetermined, that it influences our lives but doesn't just determine it. We, and events, and the people in our lives, shape the outcomes every day with each and every action and decision. Yes, many of THOSE are in some sense "determined," too, but not every detail, just the broad outlines. We paint in the strokes.

Leif suffered, but there are others who suffered worse than he did who did not and will not take their lives. What could be the difference? I believe it was inheritance, the genetic disposition to depression and suicide, and I regret that I passed that on to him.

Could things have been different? I believe they could have, but his life would have to have been different, too. He would have to have made different decisions, found a path that wouldn't have taken him down the path of depression, or found a way out of it for a second or third time. But much of that was not of his choosing . . . the things that happened to him were the RESULTS of his choices, but all of us make choices without knowing the outcomes we will face, and he was no different.

Was suicide my father's fate? Yes, because it happened. Perhaps yes because of his genetic inheritance. Yes because of the damaging depression he developed.

Can we know our fate? I'm glad we can't, though sometimes we can see some possibilities or the broad outlines we face in life. I'd rather not know if terrible times are ahead. Nor do I want the happy times lessened by knowing about them in advance.

All we can do is make the best choices we know how, forgive ourselves for the ones that turn out to be foolish or unwise, and appreciate, as much as we can, the life and loved ones we have.

I will always be glad that Leif was my son, no matter how hard it is to know he is dead, no matter how much I miss him, no matter how much I disagreed with some of the choices he made. He was my son, my handsome, brilliant, anguished son, and he brought much to my life I would never want to wish away.
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The photo was taken of Leif by my sister, Sherie, in the living room of our old stone house in Manhattan, Kansas, in November 1975. Leif was 10 months old, and must about that time he started walking.

The Music Leif Listened To The Last Two Weeks of His Life

Leif loved music all his life. He had eclectic tastes. His huge iTunes music collection, nearly all songs ripped from CDs he had purchased over a twenty year period, encompassed everything from Bach organ fugues to rap, from acid rock to Kitaro. The one genre he really didn't go for was country music, but there were even some country songs he liked and had in his library.

Music can either set a mood or reflect the mood we're in. We chose it to lift our spirits, commiserate with our sorrows, inspire us, even help us deal with anger. I think that listening to a lot of dark and unhappy, angry music sets a bleak view of life that's not conducive to happiness.

In the last couple of years of his life, Leif discovered new artists he liked, and I know he listened to a lot of what he called techno music. Much of what he liked was too "growling" with too strong a bass beat for my tastes, without much melody. He cranked it up loud in his car, very loud. He was delighted when it became possible for him to mount his iPod on his dashboard and play it through the car's stereo system instead of having to either pop in one CD at a time or have a changer in the trunk.

iTunes keeps a count of how many times a song has been played, and the last play date. Because of that, I could see what songs Leif was listening to the last two weeks of his life, and how many times he listened to them, and I could listen to them myself. I found that to be a very sad experience. He was listening to very sad music, the saddest of which was Johnny Cash's rendition of "Hurt," from the album "American IV - The Man Comes Around." This is one of the saddest songs I have ever heard, with the line, "I hurt myself to see if I can still feel," and the lines about everyone going away in the end. Leif listened to it 10 times in those last two weeks of his life.

This count is only what he listened to at home on his computer, not what he was listening to in his car. I don't know what he listened to then. But it was at home that he would have been alone and most likely to be feeling lonely and depressed.

I cried when I heard that song, and some of the others. Leif purchased it from the iTunes store not long before his death, and only that song, not the album. As I said, he wasn't fond of country music, but that song must have spoken to him in a deep way.

I know he didn't always go for that kind of depressing music. He loved the guitar soloists from some of the big rock bands in the 1980s, the magic of Kitaro, the hard charging rock of the 80s and 90s.

The photo with this post was taken in Germany in May 1988, twenty years before Leif died. He was 13. We had taken a "Space A" trip on a military refueling plane from Chicago to Bamberg, Germany. There we rented a car and drove to see Peter W's relatives in Heidelberg. Unfortunately, Leif didn't remember his German (he had been so fluent at the age of 5 when we moved to Japan from Germany), so he couldn't talk with his German cousins, but he enjoyed the trip.

One funny thing that happened while we were there staying with Peter W's Uncle Helmut and Aunt Elfriede was the Pink Floyd tape incident. They gave Leif some spending money as a gift and suggested that he and his cousin, Marc, go shopping. Leif wanted to get a cassette tape for his Walkman and found just what he wanted, a Pink Floyd album called "Ummagumma." It has several minutes of some rather odd animal sound noises on one track, called "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict."

Leif thought this was hilarious and wanted Marc to listen to it. He couldn't explain to Marc what it was, so when Marc listened to it, he thought there was something wrong with the tape and that was why Leif was having him listen to it. When they got back to the apartment, Marc told this to the adults, who thought they should go back and exchange the tape for one that wasn't defective. When we asked Leif what was wrong with it, he had a good laugh and quite a hard time trying to explain that there was nothing wrong with the tape and he actually wanted it that way.

Since Leif's death, I've come to look at music in a different way. I grew up loving music, too, and I fully appreciated the emotional range and impact of music. Now that is even more pronounced. Peter W. said yesterday that he noticed that just about all of the songs on the radio are either love songs, or lost love songs, or somebody done somebody wrong songs. I got to thinking what kind of effect that would have on someone who was lonely, who was looking for love. Wouldn't that just make it all the more poignantly sad?

I've also come to realize that although these songs are written to be about romantic love, many of them have lyrics that apply just as well to any kind of love between people, and those about missing one's love are so much sadder to me now, for although I have my romantic love with me, I don't have my son, and the words of those songs are too true.

Music is powerful and musical tastes are individual. I didn't share much of Leif's musical taste, but I could appreciate what he liked about some of it; some I did like. There were bands and artists he introduced me to that I still enjoy. But now, I look at that music he listened to those last two weeks, and I wonder if it didn't help send him deeper into depression.

It would have been better if he had listened to happier, more uplifting music, instead of matching his own dark mood.