Guys and Dolls at Antilles High School

Another find! I was scanning some of my mother's old slides, none of which we had ever seen, and found this shot of Leif (second from left), on stage in his first part in a Broadway musical . . . which we missed!

In April 1991, Peter was sent to a conference in the Washington DC area, and wanted me to go with him. My mother came to Puerto Rico to stay with Leif while we were gone and visit us when we returned.

Antilles High School was putting on "Guys and Dolls," and we knew that Leif was helping with scene construction and lightning, but didn't know he had a small part as well. I'm not sure he even found out he'd be on stage during the performance until we were gone. We were away when the musical was performed and missed seeing him. This photo seems to be the only one. He is wearing his Fedora and carrying his camera. I wish we had been there.

He seemed to be bitten by the theater bug by this experience, and the following spring tried out for a main part in "Grease." No one had ever heard him sing before, but he blew away the audience as Kenicke singing "Greased Lightning."

We moved to Manhattan, Kansas the summer before his senior year, and he tried out for the MHS musical, and was terribly disappointed when he was told that he was good enough to get a major part, but was new to the school and didn't "deserve" it. We never saw him on stage again.

Back to Manhattan and More Memories

So many memories are tied to places and events. We just made a trip to Manhattan, Kansas, where Leif was a baby, where he graduated from high school and college. We drove by the places we used to live, toured the high school, went through the City Park where he used to participate in SCA "fights." So many memories. We saw some of his best friends and the boy who bears his name.

We made the trip to visit family and attend a class reunion, but going back to a place we spent so many years with Leif brought back memories I hadn't thought of in years.

The house where this photo was taken, our old stone house on Moro Street, no longer exists, but we have 17 years of memories of life there.

I am always glad to find photos of Leif I hadn't seen before, and this one made me smile. It was taken not long after he graduated from MHS, handsome, slim fellow with his luxurious long hair pulled back in a ponytail, his mustache and goatee, and the snappy stylish clothes he wore then; silk shirt and silk jacket.

It also shows his sense of humor and silly side. We were having a family dinner in the dining room. I don't know what came in the large white envelope, but he grabbed it and quickly fashioned a mask/hat and popped it over my head. I hadn't seen this photo since the slide film was developed in 1993, because it wasn't a photo we would have printed from the slide to go into an album, but now it seems priceless and cute.

I think of all the things I learned from Leif and wish he were here to teach me more. At the time this photo was taken, he was one of the early users of a cell phone, which he paid for with his own earnings from the telemarketing company he worked for, his first job, as a senior in high school. He taught me so much about how cell phones work (and why they don't work). I miss learning from him. I miss his political and historical discussions. I miss his laugh. I miss his hugs. I want him back.

Leif and Lannay in December 1992

 In December 1992, when Leif was just shy of his 18th birthday and in his senior year at Manhattan High School, his Aunt Lannay (my sister) came to Kansas for an early Christmas celebration with our family. At that time, a lot of us were living in and near Manhattan, Kansas, and she wanted to spend a Christmas with her family. Lannay and Leif always had a special relationship, ever since he was one-and-a-half and we moved to Charlottesville, Virginia for a year. He was more affectionate with her than he was with anyone else and they had a bond.

It's interesting to me to see this picture now, nearly 21 years later and see a family resemblance between them that I had never really noticed before.

Leif was so slender then, handsome with such cute dimples. He still had acne, but it was a lot better than it had been when he was in junior high. His hair was very long, not quite as long as Lannay's but close. In these pictures he had it pulled back in a long pony tail. You can see that even at 18 when his hair was luxurious and long, he had a high forehead and receding hairline.

I remember how important music was to him, always, and you can see one of his guitars hanging up behind him in the top photo. He had quite a collection of CDs. Sometimes the door to his room would be literally pulsating more like a drumhead than a wooden panel door from the deep bass he played on his stereo.

These photos make me smile. He looks happy, really happy. He beams. That kind of unreserved smile was rare from him. I didn't see it often, and I miss it.

Leif's Antilles High School Yearbook 1991

 We moved to Puerto Rico in the summer of 1990. It was a rough adjustment for Leif in some ways. Nearly all of the students at AHS were Puerto Rican and spoke Spanish, which Leif never learned. The classes were taught in English, and all of the students spoke English, but for many it was their second language.

Leif was the new gringo, and a tall one that stood out. He got picked on and attacked. He did make it through the initial hazing and made good friends there, but the start that summer and early fall were hard.

He went out for soccer and finally had to quit trying to stay on the team. He wasn't used to the incredible heat and humidity after living in Chicago for four years, and wasn't immediately able to keep up with all the local kids running in the heat. Then he sprained his ankle. Between that and the coach having no understanding of his difficulties with the heat, he gave up. It was a shame, because he was quite a good soccer player, and he never played again.

Instead, he invested himself in music and drama, not through classes, but through playing his electric guitar, building one himself, and working on the school musical that year, "Guys and Dolls."

Sadly, this photo is the ONLY photo of Leif in this yearbook. There are no photos of him in any activities, and no mention of them. It's hard to imagine that.

I am still wondering where his second (junior year) Antilles yearbook might be, and whether he even got a yearbook his senior year when he attended and graduated from Manhattan High School in Manhattan, Kansas.

Twenty Years Ago

Twenty years ago I took this photo of Leif in his room in the old stone house in Manhattan, Kansas. He had just graduated from Manhattan High School. You can tell he was a big fan of Cindy Crawford. He hung his guitars from the ceiling. The one he's holding is the one he designed and made.

Leif had a black and white decor in his room. The walls were white and the mini blinds and ceiling fan light fixture were black. His choice.

In this photo, his hair is pulled back in a long pony tail and he's that very slender young man he was from about seventh grade until he was in his late twenties. I loved those cute dimples he had.

It's hard to believe, or even imagine, that twenty years have gone by since I took this picture, and even harder to accept that it's been over five years since his death. He is still such a big part of our lives, you'd think he still lived in Tampa. I doubt that he had any idea how much impact he had on us, or on others.

When he told me in a chat about how he had been suicidal at Fort Drum, New York in the army, after his marriage broke up, he said what stopped him was knowing what it would do to me. I guess that didn't figure into his decision on April 9, 2008 . . . or if it did, he probably thought there would be some acute grief and we would get over it. I'm sure he had no idea how it would affect our lives so profoundly, but then, he probably was not in any mental condition to contemplate that and probably thought we'd be better off without him. We are not.

Graduations

This week, our granddaughter, Madeleine, Leif's niece, will graduate from high school. I was thinking today about all the graduations that have taken place in our family, beginning with my parents, and how much hope, pride, gratitude and expectation are part of all that surrounds the event.

When Leif graduated from Manhattan High School in 1993, he was already taking classes at Kansas State University. He was the "cool dude," the one with the RX-7 (used) sports car, the one with a cell phone (very unusual at that time, and he paid the bills himself), the one with the long leather coat and the long luxurious hair that the guys hated and the girls loved.

High school was not an easy time for Leif. He had many ups and downs, as so many teens do. He was shy, but had to adjust to three different high schools. He fell in love, deeply, but it was not reciprocated. He had parts in two musicals and found he could sing and make the girls scream, but he couldn't get and keep the one(s) he wanted. He had his first job and earned his first paychecks, but squandered the money. He managed to get through school with minimal effort but not know what to do with his life.

But that day in 1993 when he graduated from high school, he was happy and we were proud. I think he thought life was going to get better, and be easier, and he would shine. I wish that had happened for him.

Bad luck and bad choices

Today Peter W. (Leif's father) told me that I make Leif out to be some kind of paragon, handsome, brilliant, and so on, and I countered that I have written blog posts about his poor choices and inability to manage his spending, his drinking, procrastination, terrible housekeeping, lousy record keeping, and fast driving, and that I'm quite clear-eyed about the real person my son was. It's true; I have a balanced view of him, but he WAS brilliant and handsome, and he had many wonderful qualities as well. What he didn't have was good luck . . . and in many cases, good judgement about relationships, job choices and spending money. He was a decent man who didn't harm others and showed remarkable restraint when dealing with people who were very difficult, even those who hurt him. And yet he could be exasperating, uncommunicative and evasive, or by turns helpful and generous or sullen and withdrawn.

But regardless of any of that, he was my son and I loved him dearly, and I appreciated his good qualities and regret all the times I had to talk to him or write to him about his finances or things he needed to get done. It makes me sad to look at the email and mail I sent to him, so often only filled with admonitions, financial figures, or in relation to some legal issue he had to deal with, such as the time he spun his car around near a car dealership and threw up some gravel that damaged some windshields or the time he was trying to get his apartment management to stop charging him for damage that was in the apartment when he rented it (and he had photos he had taken to them when he moved in to prove it). These were things I helped him with and we had to go over all that, but there is so little of our written communication that really reflects our relationship, all the great discussions we had, or the love we had for each other.

I not only miss what was, I miss what could have been. So much potential that was never realized. So much hope that was lost.
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This photo of Leif when he was super slender as a senior in high school was taken in our old stone house in December 1992 when Leif was almost 18. He would have been 18 a month after this was taken. I don't really like this photo of him. He looks sad, pained and haunted, and that's not how I remember him at that time, but perhaps there was that aspect to his life as he was kind of a loner and had been moved away from his friends in Puerto Rico. He never developed that kind of circle of friends in the brief time he was at Manhattan High School.

Leif in 1993 - Age 18

These photos were taken at the surprise family reunion we had in honor our of my mother's 75th birthday the weekend of July 4, 1993. Leif had just graduated from Manhattan High School at the end of May. He really enjoyed seeing his cousins, aunts and uncles.

You can see that already at the age of 18, his hairline was receding badly, a presage of things to come as it receded farther and farther, but here he still had that luxurious long hair, back in a ponytail and he's wearing his trademark (at the time) earrings and a chain he made himself using a heavy gauge wire he wound and cut into rings. It was part of his making chain mail, and he made quite a few items, culminating years later in the 50 pound chain mail shirt he made.

Leif's Essay on Freud and His Own Personality Development - February 11, 1994

Leif started taking classes at Kansas State University when he was in the spring semester of his senior year at Manhattan High School and continued at KSU after graduating from MHS in May 1993. This is an essay he wrote for his Human Development class in the spring semester of 1994 when he was 19 years old. I think it is revealing of some of his feelings about a couple of the moves he made as a military "brat" and how he molded his personality to fit the environment in which he found himself. It would be interesting to see what he would think today, or at the end of his life. He always remained vitally interested in psychology and personality theory, and he might have majored in psychology instead of general social sciences if he hadn't had to take math, which he hated, like statistics.

Leif Garretson
HDFS 110
February 11,'94

For this assignment I would like to discuss the various aspects of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytical/psychosocial theories of development. I find that Freud had a unique and brilliant, but simultaneously narrow and simplistic, insight. His description of the human psyche in terms of the id, ego, and superego, rings true and explains a large percentage of one's personality.

However, Freud's intense concentration on the libido as the sole motivator is unrealistically unilateral. According to Berk (1994) Freud states that the ego develops as a mechanism for satisfying the demands of the id within the confines of reality. Later the superego develops as the conscience that further inhibits the desires of the id. I agree with Freud about the structure of the psyche, however, I do not believe that the child's personality has completely formed by age five.

I have had opportunities to change my personality dramatically much later in life. This, I believe, is due to the fact that growing up as an army "brat" I had my environment changed dramatically every few years. In my opinion, the most profound of these changes occurred immediately following my freshman year of high school, at approximately age fifteen. I had been living in an upper-middle class suburb of Chicago, known as Highland Park. Highland Park was a predominantly Jewish city with a very exclusive social structure. The people that had grown up there and already had long-standing relationships formed their own groups that were virtually impenetrable. I found that an outsider like myself could not break into one of these cliques and became as inconspicuous and introverted as possible.

In contrast, after moving to Puerto Rico I found that I could leave my old self behind and become whoever I wanted to be. I responded much differently. In Puerto Rico I was regarded as something exotic and changed my entire behavior dramatically. I began to wear nicer, less ordinary clothes; I became much more confident and assertive. I began to make lasting friendships that I had not made in the past. I began to do all the things that I never would have dared in Highland Park, including developing a "rep" for being a flirt. The person that I became in Puerto Rico, and for the most part remain today, is the antithesis of the invisible army "brat" that I was prior to the move.

In my opinion the Freudian theory of development can be very helpful as a model for therapeutic reference and is a good base for psychoanalysis. However, it gives explanations for only a few aspects of human development. It suffers from an extreme overemphasis on sexual impulses. Freud seeks to explain all of human behavior through sexual impulse, an approach that is inadequate and rather narrow-minded.

The psychosexual stages are an excellent map through the human psyche which tells us how the mind itself learns to deal with the world. They give a working explanation for certain adult behaviors and are extremely useful for psychotherapy. On the other hand, they are ineffective for defining all but a small number of personality traits. The concept that a person's personality is established by the age of five is absurd (Berk, 1994).

Freud's work was and is essential to the development of both the disciplines of psychology and human development. "His psychsexual theory was the first approach to stress the importance of early experience for later development." (Berk, 1994). His theories are important and must be understood to grasp a large potion of developmental thought. However, they should not be taken as the "Gospel."

[Berk, Laura E. (1994) Child Development, (pp. 14-15) Boston: Allyn and Bacon]

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At the time he wrote this, he probably still had his long hair, but he was required to cut it to keep his job. He was working at Aladdin's Castle in the Manhattan Town Center Mall. When he got the job, he had long hair and the management had no problem with that, but then it was purchased by a new owner (Japanese I think) that required employees to have short haircuts and he cut his, I don't know just when that change occurred but this picture was taken on the day of his marriage to Nikko, October 20, 1995.

Leif's Ninth (and First) Home - Back to 804 Moro Street, Manhattan, Kansas - July 1992 - Summer 1995

In July 1992 Leif flew from Puerto Rico back to Kansas to stay with his grandmother, Marion Kundiger, and take drivers' education at Manhattan High School, back to the old stone house where he lived when he was born. He stayed with her there until we arrived in September and started renovating the house. I've already written about that.

He went to his senior year at Manhattan High School, but started taking classes at Kansas State University during the spring semester and graduated from high school in May 1993. It was during this time that he became active in the Society for Creative Anachronism, SCA, and began making his own chain mail.

The summer after graduation, he had two special trips, the one back to Puerto Rico to be with his friends there when they graduated, and the NCL cruise to the western Caribbean we took that August.

In the summer of 1995, he moved out with NIkko, who was then his girlfriend, soon to be his fiance and in a short time his wife, but the house continued to be an important part of all our lives until 2005.

The three years he lived there again he was 17 to 20 years old.
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The photos are:
1. The front door of 904 Moro Street with a Christmas decoration on it. Taken in November 1998.
2. Leif at the formal night of the NCL cruise in the western Caribbean in August 1993.
3. Leif in his cap and gown after graduating from Manhattan High School in May 1993.
4. Leif at the Renaissance Fest near Kansas City in October 1993. He made the chain mail necklace and cape he is wearing.
5. Leif at Renaissance Fest near Kansas City in October 1993, with the chain mail necklace and cape he made. Note the earrings.

Leif - Graduation from Kansas State University - May 17, 2003 - age 28

On May 17, 2003, just about exactly six years ago, Leif graduated from Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas with a B.A. degree in general social sciences. He had started classes at KSU while still a high school senior at Manhattan High School, taking psychology and sociology in the spring of 1993. He never did manage to make up his mind which of the social science disciplines he favored most, so he created a program that included courses in psychology, sociology, history and political science.

Leif had an incredible memory. He remembered nearly everything he heard and saw. As a result, most of school, including college, was ridiculously easy for him. He didn't have to expend much effort and if he had, he could easily have earned all As, but he hated studying and wasn't particularly interested in academics. He did like to learn, and what he could learn by sitting in a classroom listening, he learned. He didn't take notes and didn't do homework, except for graded assignments that counted a lot toward a grade such a a theme paper or report. Some of his teachers thought he wasn't "getting it" just as his preschool Montessori teacher thought, but he demonstrated that he was. He once admitted to me that he probably got a college degree with less effort than anyone else he met.

This watch and listen method didn't work for him when it came to foreign languages and math. He could understand what was being shown on the board or spoken in class, but since he didn't want to do homework, when it came time to work college algebra problems on a test or pass a Spanish or German test, he was in trouble. He not only wasn't used to studying, he didn't want to do it. He flunked college algebra (a graduation requirement) twice before he quit school and enlisted in the army.

He quit school in the fall of 1997 because he couldn't keep it all together. He was married, to Nikko, since October 20, 1995, and had been trying to work and go do school (with our help for the school expenses and and $600 a month toward living expenses), but he couldn't make ends meet, in part due to his spending and his motorcycle payments. He worked longer and longer hours at Aggieville Pizza, not getting home until 3 a.m., too tired to get up and go to class, too tired to keep up. He enlisted in January 1998 and spent the next three-and-a-half years as an infantry machine gunner. I've already written about those years.

He came back to Manhattan, Kansas in May 2001 a depressed and broken man in a dark funk, having lost his health, his career and his wife, but he pulled himself together and went back to school using his GI Bill, supplemented with a small income from working as a school crossing guard. And I offered to play the same role I played when he was in high school and tutor him in Spanish, German and algebra. He accepted and tolerated my tutoring pretty well. At least he got through the courses all right.

Leif loved his philosophy classes, too, and the talked a lot about them, his political science classes, and history classes.

He had a brilliant mind for science, and admitted when he was older that he probably should have majored in science, but the stumbling block was math. He didn't want to take more of it, and he didn't get the kind of career counseling that might have shown him that there were careers in science other than being a "lab rat," which he wasn't interested in.

From the way he felt and looked in May 2001 to the vibrant, handsome, mischievous man who graduated in May 2003 was a world of difference. He looked great. He was a rascal. He had achieved his goal.

Leif didn't want to go through the graduation ceremony, like a lot of college students. I told him he "had to," because I wanted to go. I told him that while he didn't think it was important at that time, in the future he would be glad he had "walked" to get his diploma, and that since his dad and I had paid for his education, that was the price. He laughed and said something like, "Silly mommy," and did it to please us. I'm so glad we have these pictures. I particularly like the silly one of him blowing the tassle.

It was a gorgeous and very warm spring day and the graduation ceremony was held at Bramlage Coliseum at KSU.

I think Leif must have had the idea that getting a college degree would automatically mean a better job and a more lucrative career, but just as he wasn't interested in burning up the academic charts, he also wasn't interested in working hard to find a good job. Partly that was due to his lack of focus, not knowing what he really WANTED to do for a career, because if he had, I am sure there would have been no stopping him. However, there wasn't anything he wanted badly enough to spend a lot of time to pursue it. We were disappointed that the summer after graduation, instead of looking for a job, he went to summer school. He enjoyed the classes, but since they weren't aiming toward a graduate degree, from our point of view, it was just running up more tuition to pay, more loans, and postponing a job hunt.

At the end of the summer school classes, he got a job in Manhattan working in a Sykes call center doing telephone customer service about DSL internet service. He was there only about two-and-a-half months before finding a better job in the next building working at a call center for Western Wireless, which was eventually purchased by Alltel. Even when we moved to Florida, Leif continued to find similar jobs, which didn't require a college degree. He always hoped he would move up the ladder through promotions, but it never worked out for him. It must have been very discouraging.

But that day, May 17, 2003, he was on top of the world and so were we. We were so happy to see him graduate, so happy to see him looking healthy and full of mischief and fun, so hopeful for his future.

Leif - Graduation from Manhattan High School 1993 - Age 18

It was a beautiful late spring day when Leif graduated from Manhattan High School in the Class of 1993. He was happy, exuberant, looking forward to his future. He was tall, slim and good-looking, and was excited that he was getting a trip back to Puerto Rico to see his friends there and be at the Antilles High School graduation, where he had spent his sophomore and junior years of high school. He had a great trip, and in August of that year, we took him with us on a cruise in the Western Caribbean on a Norwegian Cruise Lines ship. He was excited about continuing college in the fall.

Leif only attended Manhattan HIgh School during his senior year, and he wasn't really there for a full senior year. Although his fall semester was a "regular" semester of high school classes, Leif had fulfilled nearly all his graduation requirements by December, so he started taking classes at Kansas State University during the spring semester of his senior year. He did well taking classes in psychology and sociology.

Because of his shyness and reserve, and his coming to the school as a senior, Leif didn't have a lot of friends at MHS, and he didn't participate in activities as I wished he had. He tried out for a part in the school musical and didn't get a part, which was hard for anyone in our family to fathom since he had done such a terrific job of playing Kenicke in "Grease" at Antilles High School the year before. Leif felt it was because he was new and hadn't "earned" his place with the director. We will never know, but I know that hurt him. He didn't go out for sports, either, after being out of soccer for two years in Puerto Rico. Instead, he got his first job at Idelman Telemarketing. We certainly learned a lot about what telemarketing was all about from the inside. Luckily for Leif, the accounts he was on involved contacting customers who had a particular credit card already and offering them new goodies, not some kind of hard sell to people without a relationship to the company.

We wee so happy for Leif on the day he graduated, so full of hope and expectations for him. It was a wonderful day, as I know it is for most parents.

Leif - NCL Caribbean Cruise - August 1993 - Age 18

We just came home from a three night cruise to the Bahamas. We were remembering each day how much Leif enjoyed the two cruises we took him on when he was a teenager and how we wanted to take him again. I had asked him about a year ago whether he still had a passport and whether he had any vacation time at work, because I wanted to schedule a cruise (but I didn't tell him that part because I wanted it to be a surprise). He never answered me about the passport, and I didn't find one among his belongings after his death, but he said he had no vacation. I'm sad that we weren't able to take him on another cruise, or find a way for him to go on one with his friend Michael. I think it would have been a great time for the two of them.

These photos were taken on the cruise we took the summer after Leif graduated from Manhattan High School. He was eighteen, tall and handsome with very long hair. He looked like Tarzan and could have graced the cover of romance novels or been a model.

Leif had a great time on the cruise and had a shipboard romance with a lovely young woman from England who was a dealer in the casino. Her name was Jacquie and he was quite enamored of her. He had quite a few photos he took of the two of them together. After the cruise, she wrote to him a few times, but he didn't answer. I used to think that Leif didn't answer people because he was either to lazy to write back or didn't care, but at some point he made it clear that it was too hard emotionally for him to try to keep contact with someone he cared about who was so far away he would likely never see them again. When he was older and email became established, he did keep contact with people, but not in 1993.

Two of these photos were taken during the "formal" night on board ship, at our dinner table. The one at the top, with him in his purple silk shirt, was taken at Playa del Carmen on the "Mayan Riviera" near Cancun and Cozumel. He was fascinated by the Mayan Ruins and he loved Cozumel.

Missing Leif for Nine Months

Today it is nine months since we found Leif's lifeless body in his apartment and we are no closer to answers about why it happened or how. We miss him terribly and never know what will trigger tears. People say to live in the memories and hope only good ones will be left, but how could the memory of his death be wiped out? It invades the good memories, colors our lives with sadness. There is so much lost, and none of it fades away. No matter how many times I go over all the difficulties and problems he had, all the disappointments, even knowing he had been suicidal in 2001, I still can't really fathom it.

People say there must have been some indication, but men don't show it. They hide it. They put up a good front. My father did. Others who have had a male member of the family say those men did, too, gave no indication of what they were planning. Did things like telling their wives they were going to work and instead went into the basement and hung themselves. Do they become in some way detached? Do they look at it like some kind of ledger sheet, deciding this is the solution to the unbalanced rewards and punishments of life? A rational solution? I can imagine Leif doing that.

And yet, looking back over his life as I write this blog, looking at the photos of a lifetime in chronological order, remembering the things he said, I see a pattern of denial of much of the hurt and pain he felt, because the evidence is there in other ways. I see a vulnerability he denied and hid. I see a deep need for love and companionship that was always thwarted and left him in despair. I see a strange combination of cynicism and almost unreasoning optimism that next time things would turn out right . . . until the end.

I see a moodiness, even as a child, that didn't seem pathological, but may have been deeper even then than he showed. I see highs and lows that deepened as an adult and now I wonder whether he either suffered from bipolar syndrome or PTSD. He certainly had experiences that could have caused PTSD, and I found an information pamphlet about it in his apartment after he died. And, months after his death, had a surprise correspondence with someone he never actually met but spoke with and corresponded with who said he speculated to her that he had PTSD. Did he take a dive into the deep low of bipolar disorder in the early hours of April 9th?

In researching bipolar disorder to find out more, I discovered that it seems to have a genetic component, like chronic depression, and is a physical disease caused by chemical imbalances in the brain that distort thinking and that those suffering from it are at high risk for suicide. The onset of the disease seems to be caused by trauma and once set in motion is very difficult to treat. Did Leif get that genetic component through my father, for either chronic depression or bipolar disorder? It seems heartbreakingly likely.

Leif, the student of psychology, the observer of life, who tried so hard to help others who were suffering from bipolar disorder, depression and sadness, and made sure they got professional help and medication, never (as far as we know) revealed his own depression to a professional or took medication for it. Instead, he tried to "treat" or self-medicate his depression with alcohol and shopping. His "show no weakness" code probably prevented him from seeking help. I wish he had.

I asked him many times about depression, sent him online self-evaluations for it, but until November 2007 he denied it completely. He new enough about psychology and testing that he could easily fool those tests, and would report to me that he was fine. I think he wanted to believe that.

Whenever a loved one dies, we try to think whether there was anything we could have done to prevent it, to help, but it's far worse with a suicide. Even if you know it's not your fault, you ache to think of their pain and agonize over whether you missed the signs or didn't do what you should have to help.

Leif is gone and the days pass. Most things are normal, but he's never far from our thoughts and the sadness is always just under the surface, waiting to express itself.

This photo was taken the fall of 1992 during his senior year in high school by Blaker's Studio Royal in Manhattan, Kansas. He was 17 years old.

Leif's 18th Christmas 1992 - Manhattan, Kansas - Almost 18 years old

We only lived in Puerto Rico for two years and then Peter W. retired from the army after 24 years of service. We moved back to Manhattan, Kansas, to the old stone house and Peter elected to use his GI Bill benefits and go to back to school at Kansas State University to get a teaching degree.

We bought the old stone house in September 1973 when we moved back to Kansas from Germany. When Peter W. got orders to the JAG School and we moved again in the summer of 1976, he talked my mother into living there and taking care of the place, and renting out the extra 3 bedrooms to KSU college women. Now we were going to "kick her out." She always knew she would have to move if we came back and wanted to move it, in after living there for 16 years, I know it was a shock.

My brother, Donovan, was a custom home builder at that time, and he built a house for Mom in the "Kundiger Addition" on the south side of town. It was quite a rushed time for all of us, as she was packing to move out, we were trying to move in, and at the same time, doing a lot of painting and remodeling. Leif was a great help with all of it. He was strong and capable, and also had many good ideas. I'll write more about working on the house later.

It would have been better for Leif if he hadn't gone to three high schools. That made it hard to have the friendships and kinds of experiences so many teens take for granted. Unlike his older brother, Leif was reticent, shy, and did not mingle and make friends easily, so leaving his Puerto Rican friends behind and going to a new school wasn't easy for him.

Leif could be talkative, open, full of fun and had a great sense of humor, but he didn't show those characteristics until he knew someone and felt comfortable with them. On top of that, he had his own sense of style, which was also influenced by his two years in Puerto Rico. He didn't fit any of the cliques in Manhattan. He said there were three main ones, the jocks, the skaters and the farm kids. He didn't mention the academic types. Leif wore colorful clothing, let his hair grow very long (which wasn't the style then), and liked to wear a long, brown leather coat and combat boots.

Leif was 17, and although he was born in Kansas and had lived there as a very small child, we had moved away when he was only a year-and-a-half old. He had been back for visits when he was five, ten, and a young teen, so he did know the house, neighborhood and something of the town, but had no friends there. He did have two cousins still living in the area.

He didn't have his driver's license yet. Both my sons surprised me by not even asking to get their driver's licenses until they were 17. I didn't want him just learning to drive from us, partly because I felt someone with a different authority would make more of an impression, and partly because there would be a discount on the auto insurance if he took driver's education.

We found out that Manhattan High School was offering driver's ed in summer school, but it started before we were able to make the move, so we put Leif on a plane and sent him to Kansas to stay with my mother and take the course.

We got back to Manhattan at the end of August 1992 and Leif was already starting his senior year at Manhattan High School. He tried out for a part in the school musical, but didn't get one and was very disappointed. He felt that the parts all went to kids who had been there at the school for their whole high school careers and that even though he was really good, he didn't have a chance. I didn't see the tryouts, but having seen him as Kenicke in "Grease" at Antilles High School, I know how talented he was. After his experience in Puerto Rico, I didn't try to go out for soccer. I wish he had.

Leif did make some friends at MHS but only one really close friend, Jason Palenske. They remained friends for the rest of Leif's life.

Our first Christmas back in Manhattan we still had the small tree (artificial). You can see that it wasn't any taller than Leif. All our Christmas ornaments, and the tree, fit into one large box. As the years went by from 1992, Leif would tease us about the accumulation of Christmas decor, which mushroomed from one box to six and the tree "grew" much larger. Leif never seemed to care about Christmas decorations. What interested him were the family gatherings, the food, and yes, the presents.

This photo of him on Christmas of his senior year in high school, shows a tall, slender young man who had learned in Puerto Rico to carry himself well. He was becoming the "GQ Pirate," which was his "handle" for a long time.

January 28, 1993 he turned 18 and he got his first job, working for Idelman Telemarketing, and had some significant spending money, which he used to get a cell phone when it wasn't yet common for high school kids to have them, and for music CDs and cool gadgets, and began his "career" of introducing them to us.

Leif as a high school senior

How things change! This was Leif's high school graduation photo. He was slim and had luxurious long hair that guys said he should cut and girls loved. Even then, his hairline was high and receding, but this photo was so mesmerizing that the photo studio that took it made a huge print to display at their studio.

In high school, Leif didn't have a fancy sports car yet. He had to drive our old 1983 silver gray Maxima station wagon, so he "souped it up" with neon green windshield wipers, a boom box, and the loud heavy metal music he loved.

He was one of the first to get a cell phone, paying for the account from his first job as a telemarketer for Idelman, a firm that called Citi group account holders with offers on their accounts.

He trailed around in a long brown leather coat. How I wish I had a photo of him dressed like that!