He wanted to SEE everything

I miss my little boys but I realize how lucky I was to have them, two beautiful, curious, intelligent creatures that kept me challenged. Leif always wanted to be UP where he could see everything that was going on around him. I found I could do just about anything around the house if I carried him around in a baby backpack, but if I put him down, he would wail. If he could crawl and get to something interesting, that was okay, but otherwise, he wanted to be carried in some fashion until he could pull himself up and walk. 

I made many a meal with that heavy little fellow jouncing up and down on my back. He was strong, and he would hook his little toes in the support that ran across my lower back and "jump" up and down with glee.

This photo was taken by my mother. It hadn't seen the light of day because it was so badly exposed and color shifted that she had never printed it or showed it to anyone. I'm surprised she didn't just throw the slide away. As hard as I worked with PhotoShop, I couldn't get the color and exposure right. For instance, the cabinet walls were a supposed to be a lovely shade of blue. The shirt I'm wearing actually had a brown background color. Our faces in the original slide were a lurid magenta-red. So, this will have to do, but I love it because he looks joyful and brings back the memories of those days in that kitchen, in a house no longer standing. It was taken early in 1976 when he was just over a year old.

 

We were at sea on the 16th anniversary of his death

 

Leif died sixteen years ago on April 9, 2008. Not a day goes by when we don't talk about him and miss him. This year, we were at sea on a transatlantic cruise and I couldn't help but remember how much he loved the sea. He would have gloried in the waves and wind. How I wish we could have given him that pleasure.

I am always happy when I discover photos of Leif I didn't know existed. This one was taken by my mother in November 1975 when Leif was ten months old, in the old stone house in Manhattan, Kansas. What a joyful moment.  

His 45th Birthday

Hard to believe Leif would be 45 years old today, if he were still alive. Hard to believe the last birthday he spent with us was his 33rd. Hard to believe that in April he will be gone from us twelve years. He's with us in our hearts every day.

This photo was another one I hadn't seen, probably since it was taken in January 1976. We printed so few of the slides we took. There's a teeny bit of snow on the ground in the bottom right corner, and it was a sunny but cold January day. We went for an outing to State Lake in Pottawatomie County, east of Manhattan.

I miss him with all my heart. Happy Birthday, son.

Happy Birthday, another year missing you

Today (January 28th) would have been Leif's 42nd birthday, if he  had lived. I spent the day doing something he would have enjoyed, going to the Tampa Gasparilla pirate festival, Tampa's pirate version of Mardi Gras.

It was just his kind of day, boats, a pirate ship, wenches in sexy pirate costumes, a parade, cannons firing, plenty of beer being consumed. His kind of party.

I don't know whether he ever went to Gasparilla during the few years he lived in this area. If so, I didn't find any photos of it on his camera or computer. It he didn't, it's a shame. Too bad he didn't belong to a krewe. He would have been a good member and could have lobbed beads at the crowds with phenomenal strength and aim.

His first persona in the Society for Creative Anachronism was a "Viking pirate," and because he was stylish and debonair, he was known as the "GQ pirate."

I wish that GQ pirate had been there with us today. I would have loved to see him swashbuckling around.

This photo was taken in Manhattan, Kansas in 1993 when he was 18 years old.

Baby Leif on the Back of my Bicycle

There are so many memories for which we have no photos. While I was riding my bike yesterday, I remembered how, during the 1975-76 school year when Leif was still a baby, I went back to school to try (again) to get my master's degree, this time in Family and Children Development. I hadn't finished my first try, back at the University of Kansas, because when Peter graduated from Law School and went into the army, I went with him, and we were sent to Germany for four years. By the time I came back to the USA, I would have had to retake or validate all my credits, and my interests had changed. The army assured us that we weren't going to move, so I decided to go back to school and try again.

It was't easy going to grad school with a six year-old and a baby, but I was determined. We also had a transportation issue. We only had one car, and Peter needed it to get to work at Fort Riley, so he put a yellow plastic child seat on the back of my blue Schwinn bicycle, and away Leif and I went. It was about 8 blocks from our house to the Child Development Center, the lab school for early childhood studies students at KSU. I was lucky to get a space there for Leif. He loved it! His first experience with a preschool learning environment was while I was in class during that school year.

I have no photos of us on the bike, and no photos of the Child Development Center except for a few B&W photos of Leif, Peter Anthony and Peter Walter at their playground one late afternoon in May 1976, which is when this one of Leif by the sandbox was taken. He looks so tiny! He was little, though always big for his age.

I didn't finish that master's degree either. Despite the army's assurance we wouldn't move for another year, we were transferred to the JAG School in Charlottesville, Virginia that summer.

I don't think I'd have the courage to put a baby on the back of a bike and ride through those streets in Manhattan, Kansas now. They are too crowded and there's too much traffic. I guess I would have had to walk him in a stroller.

At that time, it was fun, and Leif loved it. I think it must have been his first experience of going somewhere on wheels with the wind in his hair. He loved that all his life.

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 being silly on his grandmother's birthday

He could be so funny, so silly, when he felt comfortable and let go. He could be impish, a rascal, but only when he felt comfortable with those he was with.

This photo was taken on July 18, 2002, in his paternal grandmother's nursing home room in Manhattan, Kansas. It was her last birthday. She was 82 and dying of gangrene, but we had a little family birthday party for her, and Leif wanted to bring some amusement and smiles to the occasion, so he took two of the birthday party hats and made horns out of them. We teased him about being devilish.

My mother took this photo, which I hadn't seen until I started going through a huge box of photos she'd had packed up for years. It's too bad his eyes are closed, too bad she didn't catch the cute dimpled smile. We'll just have to imagine it.

It's so hard to believe that less than six years later he was dead. 

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 on December 29, 1996

Here's an unusual photo of Leif, with short hair and a beard and mustache and the large lens glasses that were the fashion at the time. It was taken December 29, 1996, when he was just shy of 22 years old, at a family gathering in our old stone house in Manhattan, Kansas. He looks a bit solemn and thoughtful.

I found the photo among my mother's things, many photos I'd never seen. She always made prints of the best ones for all those in them, but there were many she never thought were good enough to share. Leif was part of a family group in this photo but I chose to scan only his face.

Most of the time, he either had long or short hair and no facial hair, or facial hair and no hair on his head. He also usually had a goatee and not a full beard, so there are few photos of him like this.

He was married and in college at the time. Finances were tight, but not yet desperate. I think the realities of adult life were just starting to set in.

I think, sometimes, about all of the places that were associated with him that are no longer . . . our old stone house, which was demolished, for instance, restaurants we used to go to together that went out of business, the places he went to preschool.

I wonder, sometimes, whether he could have made it if he hadn't had a gun in his hand that April 9th.

I think about what a beautiful child he was, and how full of bright intelligence. Why did he never find a focus for it?

Life is so full of questions. He looks full of questions in this photo, though of course I don't know what was really going through his mind. It's hard to believe that eleven years later he would be dead.

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.

Leif at Twenty - Handsome and Hopeful

It was so very long ago, April 4, 1995 when this photo was taken. Leif was twenty years old and at the height of his handsomeness. He was still exuberant and happy. He still had hair. :) He was slender and athletic, and about finishing his sophomore year at Kansas State University.

Just when I don't think I'll see a new photo of Leif (or Alex as he was still called when this photo was taken), someone brings me new ones. My sister, Leif's beloved Aunt Lannay, brought several photos to me in March that I had never seen before. I was so glad to get them.

This photo was taken at my mother's house on Pottawatomie Street in Manhattan, Kansas. We were there for the "April birthday dinner." Mom would make a big dinner for as many of the family as could come, sometimes as many as sixteen, to celebrate all the birthdays in that month. In April, the birthday "boys" were Peter W. (Leif's dad) and his cousin Tim. The original of this photo has Tim and his sister Holly in it.

Those were good times. Leif really enjoyed those family togethers, all the conversation, bantering, and Mom's excellent cooking . . . and I think he and Tim liked the peach fritters with foamy sauce the best of all.

I love seeing a photo of Leif that looks like this, happy, healthy and optimistic, joyful, even. It's so much better than the withdrawn and depressed person he became. He had hope then. You can see it in his eyes.

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.
-------

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.

Are you over it yet?

Peter asked me on our bike ride yesterday whether I was "over" Leif's death after four years. I told him no, that I still felt like the man we sat with at a German American Club Christmas Party a couple of years ago whose 17-year-old daughter had committed suicide some fifteen years ago . . . that it still hurt just as much, just not as often.

We didn't continue to discuss it then, but today I asked him whether HE was "over it," and he said he thought he was. But then it occurred to me that so often we use words in different ways. What did "over it" mean to him? So I asked.

He said he still thinks of Leif "all the time" and misses him, but that life must go on and that he was able to enjoy our trip to Germany.

I guess my definition is different. I knew all along that life had to go on, and since Leif died I've helped take care of my mother through a broken back and a broken hip, and now am helping her with another move. We've traveled to Egypt, South America, Alaska, Germany, India and Russia since Leif's death, and I've enjoyed the trips. Most of each day I'm busy and functioning well. I don't dwell on his death the way I did for the first three years after he died. I cry more rarely, but I still do get tears in my eyes, and once in awhile grief still comes back for a pity party.

If being "over it" means being able to function and enjoy life most of the time, I guess I am . . . but if being "over it" means it no longer hurts or affects me, or that I no longer miss him, or that I no longer question and wonder why, no, I am not "over it," and I don't think I ever will be.

There is something so integral to one's life about being a parent, about loving someone so completely, that even if we can eventually let go of the daily depths of grief, we can never really let go of the person we love and miss so much.

I was thinking just today, again, of all Leif's things I still have and what to do with them when there he had no family to give them to, no children to wonder about their father, no grandchildren who would like having his things.

I was thinking of all the memories that we cherish, how glad I am to have them, and yet how hard it sometimes is to remember and know what we have lost.

There are so many days I'd like to write on this blog but find no time. The demands of life have closed in and taken away the time I used to spend each day here with "Remembering Leif," and it may seem to the casual reader of the blog as though I am no longer remembering as often or as deeply, but that would be untrue.

I'm glad I had the time in the first two years after Leif's death to write more often, even daily, to be with him in my mind's eye and share those moments in some inner way with him. Now those moments are fewer, but not because I think of him any less.

I think Peter, too, wishes for more of that time. He checks the blog every day and waits to see whether I've written anything new, tells me I should write something, even if it is short. He may be "over it," but he's not over wanting to see the photos and read about our son.

This photo of Peter and Leif was taken in the back yard of our old stone house in Manhattan, Kansas, in June 1976 when Leif was a year-and-a-half old. He had been playing in the little wading pool and gotten tuckered out, so he climbed up on daddy and fell asleep in the sun, all cuddled up, safe and warm. He must have felt so snuggled up and loved . . . and he was. It's a precious moment, to have a little boy asleep on you like that. They both were so young then.

Remembering Easters Past

Chain Mail Shirts - Remembering Leif in Russia

We recently returned from a two-week trip to Russia, which put a stop to my blog posts for awhile. It was an interesting trip and there were so many things a long the way that reminded us of Leif, things we would have liked to share with him.

One afternoon we went to the History Musuem in Moscow. It is just outside the Kremlin and a beautiful old building. Although there was little English to tell us about the exhibits, we enjoyed the progression of Russian history from pre-history times until the time of the czars.

One of the things that made of think of Leif was the medieval battle accoutrements, armor, chain mail, swords, axes. Leif loved those things and when he lived in Kansas he was an avid member, and fighter, in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism). One thing that amazed me was when he bought big spools of heavy wire, spun it around a rod, cut links from it, and made himself a chain mail shirt. I can't even imagine how many hours that took him. In order to work on it, he hung a large, heavy metal pipe from the transom between the living and dining rooms at 710 N. 9th Street in Manhattan, Kansas, and hung the shirt on it. It passed through the sleeves and held it up straight so that he could add to it.

When finished, the shirt weighed 52 pounds. We all tried it on and wondered how the knights could ever have engaged in battle wearing armor and chain mail with such incredible weight. I think that chain mail actually weighed considerably more than metal armor, but either way, a knight (medieval or modern) would be carrying probably a minimum of 55-60 pounds of armor or mail, and the weapons were heavy as well.

However, modern army infantrymen, especially machine gunners like Leif was, have to carry more than that and still be able to march, run and fight. Leif was used to that heavy load from his time in the infantry, so putting on a 50 pound shirt to go fight in the City Park wasn't the ordeal for him that it would have been for any of us.

The top photo is of Leif at the City Park in April 2003, not long after he finished the chain mail shirt, and before he got his fancy new armor later that summer. Imagine trying to move and carry on a sword or axe battle in that much bulk and weight. Leif loved it.

The other photos are of chain mail shirts in the Historical Museum in Moscow. Leif would have been interested in their construction. There are various ways to make chain mail, various patterns. The middle photo is more like his. The lower one uses much heavier iron rings that seem to have some kind of fastening or locking mechanism on them.

There were more chain mail shirts there, and many interesting suits of armor. I wish Leif had seen them.

When Leif died and we had to clean out his apartment, we had no room to keep all of his SCA things, and no use for them other than memories, so we gave them to his friend Jason, including the chain mail shirt, and hope that he found other SCA members who could use them and perhaps remember their original owner and creator. We have only photos.

Will They Remember Him?

Leif's nieces and nephew found him irresistible. They would climb all over him, touch his beard, play with him, act silly, make cell phone videos together, play chess together, and generally horse around. He was good with the kids, gentle and tolerant, and amused, my gentle giant. I wondered how he felt about being with them, whether he wished he had children of his own to go home to, though he never really voiced that sentiment.

I wonder, now, whether they will really remember him. I know they will remember that he lived, that they had an uncle that died, but they were so young when he left them that I imagine they will only remember him from photos or stories we tell.

I have a lot of photos of him with them, but I don't post photos of them online. This one is an exception because it was taken six and a half years ago and their faces aren't shown. That night in July 2004, all three of them were climbing all over him and having a great time. He was pretending to roar and flex his muscles like some kind of giant and they loved it. I loved watching it. That was a happy evening with all of us together, and Leif seemed relaxed and happy. It's a good memory.

The photo was taken in our old stone house in Manhattan, Kansas. Now neither Leif nor the house is still on this earth.

Thirty-five Years Ago - Leif at Nine Months - Manhattan, Kansas

This picture of Leif when he was nine months old, thirty-five years ago in October 1975, was taken in the backyard of the old stone house at 804 Moro Street in Manhattan, Kansas. It was a beautiful, warm, Indian summer day, and he was having a ball scuffling around in the leaves. Leif started walking at 10 months, so it was right about this time he was learning to navigate on two legs, though he also did plenty of crawling in the leaves. He looks so happy!

I remember that he was barefoot and so cute tippy-toeing around.

I have to smile when I see what he's wearing. Back in those days, we could actually save a significant amount of money by making our own clothes, unlike today when we have all these cheap clothes from Asia. I made a lot of the clothes for myself and my sons, and it was during a time when the styles and fabrics were very different than now, too. I didn't make the little t-shirt he's wearing. That was from Sears, but I did sew the overalls he has on, and even put on the gripper snaps, with a second set to make it possible for him to keep wearing it a little longer as he grew.

No one would probably be caught wearing such things these days, or putting them on their kids, certainly not stripes like those! It's amusing and fun to think of that now, and I enjoyed sewing. I did some crocheting and knitting, too. Knitting was not one of my specialties, but I did knit a "romper" for Leif and crocheted a winter cap and matching cardigan sweater.

This is another photo that was badly damaged by age, faded and spotted. It has such a wonderful smile I'm glad I could rescue it with PhotoShop.



Fall in Manhattan can be very beautiful, with all the leaves turning and falling, deep blue skies and wonderful sunsets. That was an especially good fall for us, for now our family was complete, with our two happy, healthy boys.

Memories of the Heart

Tomorrow, Leif will be dead for two-and-a-half years, yet it seems like yesterday that he was here, so much a part of our lives. Perhaps counting years and months is meaningless, except that we assign meaning to the time passing, and it is also a way of measuring how far we have come in our lives since his death. Tomorrow I will finally notify Facebook and MySpace to "memorialize" his accounts, and this week I closed the last of his email accounts. Somehow it seems like the time is right.

In a strange quirk of fate, that last email account of his sent out blank email messages to quite a few people in his address book. The messages were blank and had no Subject line. I got one of them. It was eerie, and really startled some people who got them. I don't know how it happened, whether someone manage to hack his account, or what, though I don't think so since there was no other unusual activity. Some people thought that perhaps he was sending some kind of a message, some form of goodbye. Several of them fervently believe this.

The messages were sent in groups and so some of those who got them replied to the others. It was interesting to see conversations develop among some of Leif's friends and acquaintances who didn't now each other. It was also odd to see which people got the blank messages and who didn't. I suppose with such an unexplained circumstance, it might be tempting or even easy to attribute it to Leif himself, and I have been told by friends to accept it as that. However, I doubt it.

Never-the-less, it seemed to come at a coincidentally meaningful time, since I was about to close these accounts.

That same day, to other interesting things happened. I went into the garage and a small brown wren flew in and perched in front of me briefly, then flew away, and that night, I woke up at 4:00 a.m. and heard an owl hooting over and over in our big oak tree. That, too, was eerie.

If I were a superstitious person, I would see these all as signs, especially coming in a group of three on the same day, but I think that's just the human mind looking for patterns. I know we have owls in the neighborhood. I've seen one (very large) twice, but have hardly ever heard them, certainly not long and loud as I did that early morning.

So, if Leif was here saying goodbye, or letting us know he's around, I'm glad for it, though I don't believe that to be true. Regardless, there was something comforting in the three occurrences.

I still have bouts of sadness. I still miss him. But I also can remember the feel of his baby body and the energy in it, the alertness and the delight in his little face, and be so glad he was mine.

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This photo was very badly exposed, but it's one of few I have of Leif and me that that period of his life. It was taken on May 7, 1975, when he was not quite four months old. We were at Bluemont Elementary School in Manhattan, Kansas, the school near us where Peter Anthony was in kindergarten at that time, and they were having their spring picnic and field day. Peter W. is laughing at my "Princess Leia hairdo."