I dreamed about him this morning.

We don't remember many of our dreams, so I don't know how many times I've dreamed about Leif. I only remember two or three. This morning, just before I was awakened, I was dreaming of him, and I remember the dream clearly. I was walking somewhere in a craggy landscape and looked up on some rocks above me and there he was. He wasn't in his SCA armor, like in this photo, but it was the same tall, powerful, imposing presence, with that intelligent, engaging look. I was surprised to see him and asked, "What are you doing here?" 

About that moment, my foot slipped and I started to fall over a long drop-off. He reached down and grabbed my hand and pulled me a long way back up. He rescued me. I said something like, "You came," and he just hugged me. 

Most of the time, my sadness about Leif's death and the fact that he is no longer with us is locked behind the door we learn to close on grief, but it gets loose in the days approaching Christmas, New Years, his birthday, the Fourth of July (which he loved), and I realize all over again he won't be with us. It certainly hit me today after this dream, or maybe because of it. Once again, he won't be here. 2007 was the last time we saw him for Christmas. He was sad and depressed then, though he perked up a little when he got to play with his nieces. Little did we know it would be the last Christmas together. 

I have been tearing up all day, thinking about this dream and about him. What does it mean, him appearing to rescue me from falling over a precipice? I don't feel like my life is on the brink. The mind is a mysterious thing. 

Merry Christmas, Leif. I will always wish you would be home for Christmas.
 

Fourteen Years

There are days in the year that are harder; the day he died, the day we found his body, his birthday,  Mother's Day, Father's Day, Fourth of July (since he loved it so), Veteran's Day, Christmas. But April 9 & 10 are the hardest, with the worst memories. It's still difficult to believe he is really gone, even after fourteen years.

How would he want to be remembered? Today, Peter W. Garretson and I looked at a myriad photos of his life, grateful we have them, grateful for the years we had him. From the baby to the toddler, to the schoolboy to the teen, from the college student to the soldier, from his SCA days to life in Florida. Ever changing, but still the same brilliant mind, the same sense of humor, the introspective frame of mind. To remember the 14th anniversary of his death, I chose one he took of himself in his SCA armor. I think he wanted to see himself as a knight in shining armor, a soldier for right. We will miss him and love him the rest of our lives.

Leif's Coif and Armor

Tonight Peter W. and I went to the German American Club Fasching party, like a Mardi Gras celebration German style. Although it's traditional to wear costumes, most of those attending don't, and the smaller percentage who do are competing for small cash prizes.

This year, Peter W. went as a knight, wearing the chain mail coif (the head covering you see in the photo) that Leif made and one of the beautifully crafted hand and wrist armor pieces that Leif purchased in 2003. He combined a shield he made with a shirt made from two dragon flags and completed his costume with leggings, boots, a sword and a dagger.

There were a lot of comments on the coif and many questions, asking what it was made of. They couldn't seem to believe it was really metal chain mail.

Peter won third prize for his costume, and although he was disappointed because he won first prize last year and second the year before that, considering that most people (including me) didn't win a prize, he should have been pleased.

Leif's coif and armor reminded me so of him, and his participation in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism). I could almost see his bemused smile, had he seen his dad in this garb.

As I have said so many times, Leif is still with us in so many ways, in our thoughts and hearts, in all the things he left behind, the photos, the belongings, the memories.

I remember when he made the coif. He was very proud of it. He truly created it from scratch, purchasing a giant spool of wire. He used a drill to wind it around a rod and then he cut it into links which he wove in a beautiful pattern to make the coif. He had no pattern that I know of, just figured out how to make it fit his head, face and neck. I've posted this photo of him in it before. I wonder how many tiny links the coif contains and how many hours it took him to make it. Nowhere near as many hours as it took to make the huge (because it had to fit on his 6'2" frame) chain mail "shirt" (which I believe should be called a byrnie or haubergeon) that must have required both thousands of links and hundreds of hours. It weighed 52 pounds. How he ever managed to fight in SCA bouts wearing that shirt, other metal armor, and a heavy metal helmet, as well as carrying heavy weapons, amazes me. He was so very strong.

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.

Leif and Football

During this fall season of football madness I'm reminded how little interest either of my sons had in the game. Even their dad didn't show much interest in it until we moved back to Manhattan, Kansas in 1992 and the Wildcats had a winning team. It seems that we always had a football, and periodically their dad would suggest that they go throw it around to each other, but that was about the extent of football at our house. We didn't watch games much, either.

Thus this is kind of a rare photo of Leif, with the green Nerf football. There were about three shots taken during that same afternoon, and I can only think of one other picture of him with a football in his hands. This picture was taken in our yard at Am Römer 9 in Sachsen bei Ansbach, Germany. You can tell it was already pretty chilly that October as Leif was wearing a warm jacket. He was four-and-a-half years old.

Even as a high school student and as an adult, Leif showed practically zero interest in football, and although he knew who some of the well-known players were, he couldn't really discuss the games, players or the season with any real background or enthusiasm.

I've often wondered why this was so. He was enthusiastic about soccer, but never showed any interest in playing football, basketball (despite his height), or baseball, or any other games involving a ball. Aside from soccer, about the only sports he participated in were discus and javelin throwing in junior high school, swimming (primarily because we taught him and took him to the pools and beaches). The two giant exceptions to this were judo, in which he earned his first degree black belt at the age of fourteen, and the sport of fighting in the SCA.

As an adult, it would have been good for him to have some physical sport outlet to help keep him in shape and raise his endorphins, but he preferred riding a motorcycle and playing computer and online video games. He did have a set of weights but I have no idea whether he used them.

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Peter W. tells me that Leif used to play touch football in the yard across the street from us with some of the neighborhood kids when he was in junior high, but I have no memory of this whatsoever. I know he never went to games or talked about it. I know he played volleyball at times, but that and soccer are the only ball games I remember him playing.

He Dreamed a Dream

Leif was a dreamer who dreamed of being a hero, a warrior. Someone who discovered him on Facebook or in this blog and asked to befriend him after death wrote to me that Leif would have liked this blog, that Vikings wanted the songs of their deeds and lives to be sung, to be remembered.

Leif's persona in the Society for Creative Anachronism, SCA, was a Viking pirate. For years SCA was an important part of his life, and he reveled in dressing in his garb, improving his armor and weaponry over the years. He made rattan weapons to fight with and fought many a Sunday battle in the Manhattan City Park (in Manhattan, Kansas), wearing an incredible amount of weight, especially toward this end of the time he lived there when he had the fifty-pound chain mail shirt he made. Several times I went to watch him and take pictures.

He dreamed of being the kind of hero he could perhaps have been in an earlier age, and surrounded himself with both ancient and thoroughly modern weaponry.

I was looking online for information about the Viking songs and sagas and was surprised to discover that they have fragments of ancient Viking songs written in a kind of musical notation using runes, and one site showed both the old runic notation and a modern translation of it. The title of the songs was so completely appropriate, "I Dreamed a Dream," so I decided to try to record it with GarageBand. I wish I had the time and talent to add accompaniment to it, though I have no idea what the Viking sound would have been, beyond the tune. I wonder, too, what the rest of the words were, and whether they, too, would have fit Leif.

The photos I put with the song are ones Leif took of himself on August 7, 2003 when he had just purchased his new armor. He was posing in the living room of the house at 710 N. Ninth Street in Manhattan, Kansas, where he was living at the time. It was a good time for him. I think he had at least somewhat recovered from the breakup of his marriage, he had graduated from Kansas State University that May, and was looking forward to a brighter future. He has just gotten a job at Sykes, which no longer has a call center in Manhattan. Little did he know how his life was about to change, first for the better, as he was so ecstatically in love beginning a couple of months later, and then dashed to pieces when the she left him. I think the period from about May 2003 to February 2004 was one of the happiest of his life, and it shows in his looks. He was so handsome then.

So, my Viking son, although I do not sing your exploits, I do write them and give them to the world.

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's Memorial Service at St. Petersburg Unitarian Universalist Church - April 29, 2008 - "My Friend, My Brother, Is Gone" - Jason Palenske (Video))

One of Leif's long-time best friends was Jason Palenske who came from Manhattan, Kansas to be with us for Leif's memorial services. Leif and Jason met in their senior year of high school. They shared many interests, Cyberpunk gaming, role-playing game development, Society for Creative Anachronism, motorcycles, and more. Jason refers to growing apart. It happens to so many of our friendships. Jason was married and had children, while Leif was divorced and alone. A married man has so many responsibilities and so little time. But there was always friendship and affection there. We were very touched that Jason came to be with us and gave his son Brayden, born March 4th, the middle name Leif.

Jason wrote a part of the remarks he read at the memorial service on his MySpace page on April 14. I found them meaningfl and touching and I asked him to read them at Leif's service. Jason did that for me, for us, and added to them. I have been profoundly grateful for the continuing contact with Jason and his wife, Melissa, who gave us the beautiful flag case for Leif's military honors flag.
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"My Friend, My Brother, Is Gone" by Jason Palenske

I was trying to make it through the day...

Not understanding why, not knowing what I could have done to make things better, not knowing how I could have helped...

Then for a moment I saw you again, saw you riding the wheels of a stranger, but then your hand reached out...

I wanted to follow, I wanted to turn around and ride, ride until there was no where else to go. I can't follow you this time, you're riding somewhere I can't go yet...not yet.

My dad once said a person is lucky to have 5 true friends in their life, and as you drove me to his funeral I told you you were one of mine. I made mistakes though, I made one of the worst mistakes a friend can make. I went down the wrong road and didn't make sure you were there. I didn't make sure that we didn't drift farther and farther apart.

I took the wrong road and now I can never get back...

I want to be able to call, I want to say "Why aren't you here?", I want to here the surprise and then that mocking tone "I am here, but where are you, I'll be there in a minute."

I am here my friend, I am here...it'll be awhile before I get there though. I've got things to finish here first, then, then I can be there. So be patient my friend, my brother, be patient. I'll be there soon enough, it just may take awhile.


My brother is gone and I can't fill the void that he left...not yet, not yet.

An Invitation to Remembering Leif Readers

I have been writing this blog for over a year now. At the beginning, some of you shared memories or made comments, but only one or two, and they tricked off to nothing. I wished they had been main entries and not in the "Comments," and that more of you had been able to participate by sharing your memories of Leif.

Although I still have many photos of Leif and much to write about, I don't know how long I will continue the blog, though I think I will continue at least until the end of May; perhaps a lot longer; I just don't know right now. I don't want the time to go on until some of you no longer visit this site, or forget your own memories of Leif. I would like to be able to post some of your memories, and photos if you have some to share. If you would like to do this, please email your post and/or photos to me at jerri.garretson@gmail.com

I reserve the right to edit them, and to decide whether or not to post them. I have to put in this note because I know there are people who visit this blog who did not know Leif and may choose to email inappropriate things to me.

If you are searching your memory for what to write about, think about his interests, things you did together, what you thought of him, his sense of humor, work, military service, school, vehicles, etc., anything you would like to share about any period in his life.

If you send photos, please be sure that you are willing to give permission for them to be posted and that that permission was given by anyone in the photos; also, if you mention anyone by full name, that they give permission to be mentioned. Otherwise, please use first names only.

If any of you have stories you would like to share with Leif's family but not on the blog, if you send them to me, I will be grateful to read them and will honor your wishes.

I want to thank all of you that come back again and again to read what I've posted and see Leif's photos. I can't see who visits, only how many visit. I know that many visitors get here by "accident" through a search that somehow includes one of my keywords. For those who come to RememberingLeif that way, I hope you realized that my son, Leif Garretson, is not Leif Garrett, and perhaps found something else interesting, touching or profound.

I want to know that others are remembering Leif, too.
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These photos are self-portraits of Leif in his "new armor" for SCA, August 2, 2003, late the same summer he graduated from Kansas State University. They were taken in the living room of the house at 710 N. 9th Street in Manhattan, Kansas, and show the odd juxtaposition of his medieval armor and his computer screens. He was 28 years old. He would only live another five years.

Leif and Love

It's impossible to understand Leif without knowing of his quest for love. I've already written of that, and posted his thoughts on dating, but I haven't written about the women he loved. Leif wanted to be in love. He was a romantic man who wanted the companionship and friendship of a soulmate and was actively searching for one beginning in high school.

His first love was a beautiful young woman in Puerto Rico. She went to a different school and her mother worked in the office with Leif's Dad. He only went out with K. a couple of times but he was head over heels in love with her and carried a torch for her long after we moved away from Puerto Rico back to Kansas. He never had a girlfriend during his senior year at Manhattan High School there, though he dated quite a few young women.

At a Society for Creative Anachronism event (Lilies War), which I think was in June 1994, he met Nikko, and married her a few months before his 21st birthday. I've already written about their marriage and divorce, and subsequent friendship.

After he climbed out of his depression when he came back from the army and losing Nikko, he again began dating and looking for love. He had a pretty good case on L. and hoped it would develop into something, but somehow it never did.

Then, after he graduated from KSU and began working at Sykes, he met J., a young woman who looked a lot like Gillian Anderson (Scully on the X-Files) and fell deeply in love with her. J. had a toddler daughter and had been in the army. Leif took them in and was prepared to make a life together. He got a better job at Western Wireless next door and she continued at Sykes. Sykes sent her to the Philippines to train people there for a call center (effectively making their team train their offshore replacements). While she was gone, he determined that he wanted to ask her to marry him and he had every reason to believe that she would. He bought the gorgeous ring above and showed it to me, thrilled.

I wanted so badly to be happy for him, to rejoice with him, to praise his choice of rings and bride, but I was concerned; concerned that the ring was beyond his means, concerned that J. wasn't ready to settle down, concerned that he would get his heart broken again. He was walking on air, though, and I didn't want to burst his bubble. I wanted his wishes to come true.

I asked him whether he was ready to be a father and he said he was. I think he had come to love J's daughter, too. Earlier in his life, he had said he didn't want children, but by this time, I think maturing had made him think perhaps he did, and being around J's daughter had convinced him. I took care of the daughter a few times. She was a cute little girl. I have a photo I found on his computer of the three of them going to the zoo in Manhattan, Kansas. J. and her daughter spent Thanksgiving and Christmas of 2003 with our family, and I have lots of photos of that, too but I won't post photos of anyone without their permission.

The night J. got back from the Philippines, Leif proposed to her and she accepted. He was ecstatic! He posted the news and the photo of the rings on the ZAON forums. I hoped things would go well, but a week later, she gave back his ring and left town. He was left with the payments on the ring and heartbreak, but he hoped the would get back together. Ever since that day in 2004, they had contact on and, and they both said they loved each other, but they never got back together, and Leif never got over her. He loved her till the day he died, and when he died, friends immediately asked if something had happened to her. Leif knew he would never have her, went on with his life, and continued to seek for another love, but he never really let go of any of the women he loved.

When we moved to Florida, he continued to search. He dated quite a bit and found someone he cared a lot for. Some strange circumstances broke up his romance with L., oddly enough, another friend of his somehow poisoned the relationship with thoughts that he was getting back together with J., which didn't happen. Although Leif loved J., I think by that time he knew it wasn't going to be a relationship that would happen or that he could trust and he was ready to find a new love even if he couldn't get J. completely out of his mind.

Then he found Donna. He was fascinated with her frenetic, mercurial intelligence and street smarts, her cuteness and bubbly personality, and overjoyed to have found a woman who not only liked to ride motorcycles and play online computer games (like his favorite PlanetSide), but also read Douglas Adams and was a model. He moved into an apartment with her in February 2006. For a time he was in love with her, but their relationship with through numerous ups and downs and he eventually and regretfully concluded that although he cared about her that their relationship was destructive to both of them and he wanted to end it gently and still be friends. Unfortunately, it didn't end well and it ended on top of his cycle accident. He did not take it well, and by November loneliness and depression had set in. He sent this email to me:

"No things are not bright. Rather dark actually as I struggle to find purpose. People have asked why I stayed with Donna. Including Donna. The simple answer is that she gave me a reason to exist. I had a purpose when I was with her. I had skills and knowledge that could benefit her. I had a reason to exist. That is the hardest part of this whole thing. I don't miss Donna; I just miss having a purpose. A reason to keep trudging on despite the fact that each day holds far more dificulties and irritations than it holds joys or pleasures. Part of me is relieved she is gone; part of me misses having someone that cared that I was there and was better for it."

I cried when I read that email. I felt so sad for him. How could my son, who wanted so badly to love and be loved, who needed so badly to be needed, to be someone's hero, be so lost and without a purpose in life? I think it also deluded himself that he didn't miss her, just as he tried to insist he didn't miss Nikko. It was that old male bravado again. Show no weakness. It was obvious that he missed them, missed the companionship, even if he didn't miss the problems. He knew the relationships were over, knew they weren't right for him, but just the same, he was so lonely and berift. I worried terribly about him between that email and March 2008. We tried to stay in contact every day, tried to see him as often as he would allow, which was about once or twice a month. When he came for Christmas he was clearly not a happy man. When he was here for his last birthday, he was subdued and preoccupied, looked depressed. As I've written, the photo of him at his last birthday made me cry. I had to cajole him into smiling, but his eyes did not smile. He looked so sad.

He got back into the dating game with Match.com and eharmony.com and tried again. I tried to get him to look at some other possibilities, organizations, SCA, but he focused on the online world, and he found someone yet again. In March, he began corresponding with and talking on the phone with D. who lived in another city in Florida. He was thrilled to have found someone he considered not only compatible but ideal in several ways. He only had one date with her and he immediately started sending me text messages all about her, then sending photos. He was totally smitten. I was so happy for him, but worried that once again, he would find disappointment and wondered how he could survive another one.

He never saw her again. The night they were to have a second date, her mother had a heart attack, and she had to cancel. He was willing to wait, he said. She was worth it. We saw him on Easter, March 23, for the last time. He seemed so happy, so animated. He talked about her, hoped it would work out for him. We hoped so, too. She, however, had pulled away to be with her family after her mother's heart attack. While Leif understood, he felt left out and lonely again.

Somewhere in this time, he lost control of his finances. He had lost his GI Bill benefits in February when USF decided the classes he was taking didn't meet the requirements. That cut his monthly income. Then he applied for loans and didn't get them because he was maxed out on his credit cards and couldn't pay his bills. We found letters rejecting his loan applications on his desk, neatly laid out as though he wanted us to find them. Perhaps he felt he wouldn't even be able to see and date D. without any money for dates and the gas to get there. As a joke, he sent me text messages about the gas mileage his RX-8 got. I was more than a little slow on the uptake.

Leif: "Have I told you about how great my car is for the quarter mile?"
Sent on Saturday, Mar 22 2008 at 5:46:06 PM

Mom: "Didn't know you were on a racetrack. Is this happening right now or is it a fond memory? Amusing. You can't afford gas to come here but apparently can afford a much more costly potential ticket or accident or using lotsa gas.:-P love your car? Sure is pretty!"

Leif: "No its a joke... Normally that means drag racing however in my case..."

Mom: "Joke? In your case?"

Leif: "At $3.50 a gallon a tank costs $50. One tank lasts 200 miles. Therefore 4 miles per $. Or one mile per $0.25. " In other words my car is built for a quarter ($0.25) mile."

Mom: "Argh! 4 mph? That bad?"

Leif: "No four miles pet dollar not gallon."

Mom: "Oh, that kind of 'quarter mile.' Kind of a sad joke, tho. Did you come up with that? If so, otta send it to Stewart or Colbert. Ok. Little slow here."

Leif: "14 mph but a quarter a mile.:-@"

He was joking on March 22nd. He hadn't yet received the rejections on his loans. 18 days later he was dead.

On the "desktop" of his computer I found this letter to J. I don't know whether he ever sent it to her. I was written February 18, 2008, a month before he met D., and less than two months before he died:

"I must say that as I write this I am a bit intoxicated. While I am not so intoxicated as to be unable to think clearly I have learned that for individuals like myself which are prone to be overly cerebral and rational such moments are not a dilution of ourselves but rather a liberation of our souls. Forgive me if my execution is not as brilliant as I would desire but the clarity is present. If you know me at all I always seek to make sense of things, to understand and to rationalize. I seek to find order in the universe and o make sense of things. I am not sure if it's my close connection or some other factor which makes it so hard for me to reconcile my undying love for you, but I cannot deny that never in my short life have I felt even a fraction of what I felt in those brief moments which you smiled at me. I have spent years trying to forget that moment in my car where I looked at you sneezing in the sun and knew I loved you. I have spent countless hours trying to move on, to find other more rational choices. I have tried so hard to ignore what I felt for you or at least not to think about it. But it is all for naught. In 33 years I have only once known what the word love could mean. All else is facsimile. All else is make believe. Even as I go though the motions of mating with other women in a vain attempt at self glorification and distraction I am only reminded of the brief magic I knew with you. My Mind reels against this idea as My cold rational Machiavellian realism tries to reconcile your unfettered optimism. Yet I can see that this is why I love you. You are so unlike me. So countervailing in your purpose as to balance me. As a cold hard realist your optimistic idealism represents everything which is lacking in me. All the goodness which I might neglect in favor of the practical and realistic. By contrast I would ground you in your noble but often unrealistically idyllic dreams.

"I really think we are a better match than might be readily apparent. I am grounded in the dark reality of existence and long for one to give me home and inspiration. Perhaps if I may speculate you are frustrated by the difficulties of translating your idyllic visions into reality in tangible form.

"But enough analysis. I do too much of that.

"I have known few things in my life. Of the things I have known I have been able to rationalize most of them. If I tried I might be able to do so with this but I don't want to. I just know. I just know that you are the only woman I have ever loved. And Increasingly I am coming to believe that you are the only woman I will ever love.

"I have made lists, looked at criteria, analyzed to no end. But nothing changes the fact that you are still the face I picture when I think of love. All others are stand-ins. Substitutes, facsimiles.

"How I wish I could convince myself not to love you."

I think there is a lot in this letter that makes one pause. The sad truth of unrequited love, the terribly loneliness and emptiness, but I also think there is some self delusion. He loved J. deeply and with all his heart, but in a sense, he could continue to love her like that because he never had to make it work. He could always pine away for what he didn't have. He didn't have the cold realities of the relationships he'd had that didn't work out. This one ended so quickly, just five months after he met her. It was the symbol for all he wanted in life, in a woman, and never had to pass the test of reality, of living together long term. He says she was the only woman he ever loved like that, but there were others, and he had talked about them to me. He liked to convince himself with his cold rationalizations that he didn't really miss those he lost, like Nikko and D., but he did miss them, terribly. And he stayed in contact, always. He could see some things clearly, but not completely, and some he could not really see at all.

But one thing is true. Leif died of a broken and lonely heart as much as he did from anything else. In his lonely male code, he was shut up in a tower of alone-ness, seeking for one woman to release him, and he never found her. I'm not sure the woman he needed really ever existed. I'm not sure any woman could have lived up to what he needed from her. Never-the-less, I wish he had found her. How fervently I wish it.

Leif in SCA Helmet & Chain Mail - April 2003 - Age 28

I'll close the SCA chapters of this blog with these two striking photos, both self portraits taken by Leif on April 29, 2003. He made the chain mail cowl and the chain mail on the lower end of the helmet.

To me, these are two pictures that tell a lot about the man and who he was. The knight, the warrior, a man who wanted to be a hero, and needed someone to be a hero for. There is a strong directness in the eyes of the man in the helmet, and a touching vulnerability in the man in th chain mail. They are both beautiful pictures of our handsome son, and again, ones we had not see while he was alive.

Tonight, Peter W. was watching a show about General Sherman and the Civil War while simultaneously researching the background of Sherman and others on the internet, on what had been Leif's laptop. It struck me that so many great military leaders had failed at civilian pursuits, as did General Sherman, but rose to become great leaders when entirely different skills were required.

Leif could have been like that, in a different place and a different time. He had incredibly good strategic skills and abilities, understood the art and rules of warfare. But, in his lifetime, in our time, he never had a chance to use those skills to protect those he loved. Though he did honorably serve his country, his profoundly brilliant mind was never given the opportunity to do the kind of planning and execution of which it was capable.

We like to think that in our "modern" world, we are beyond the need of the martial strategist, but if we look around us without our heads in the sand, we can see that is not so. People with skills and minds like Leif's are critical to our survival.

In another place and time, Leif might well have been the hero he dreamed of being. Perhaps he was, after all, really the knight Graeloch, somehow born into the wrong century.

Leif - SCA Fight Circa 2002 - Age 27

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These photos should have come before the last two batches of SCA photos from 2003, but I didn't find them in time. I'm not sure when they were taken, but probably in 2002 or early summer 2003. They were again fighting in the Manhattan, Kansas City Park.

At his size and weight, plus the weight of all that armor, Leif must have been an imposing opponent and he certainly wasn't shy about going on the attack. However, did didn't win all his fights.

I wondered how all that weight and exertion in the heat (Kansas summers are HOT) affected his asthma, but he insisted he was fine.

Leif - SCA Garb - August 10, 2003 - Age 28

Leif took these photos of himself in his new SCA armor, in the living room at 710 N.9th Street, Manhattan, Kansas. I never saw them while he was alive. I found them on his computer after he died. They are just a few of a series of many he took. Leif took a lot of photos of himself and his belongings, but he didn't share them with us. I am now seeing photos of him over the past ten years that I hadn't seen until April of this year.

This was expensive armor. I don't know whether he ordered it or bought it at "Lilies," the "War of the Lilies," the SCA event of the Kingdom of Calentir that he loved to go to the summers when he was living in Kansas. I don't think I have any photos of him fighting in this armor. By this time, I think he had evolved from The GQ Pirate to Graeloch.

When he moved to Florida, he never got started with SCA again, which I think is yet another connection he missed that might have helped him find friends and physical activities. In his email account, I found an email he sent to the local shire just a few months before his death, but apparently, it either wasn't answered or he didn't pursue it further. SCA was such an important part of his life in Kansas, I can't imagine that he didn't miss it. He still kept all of his garb and weaponry.

I think in addition to the thrill of fighting other knights, Leif really identified with not only the knight/warrior mentality, but also the hero aspect. He really DID want to rescue fair maidens . . . and most of all, to win the heart of one he could love.

Leif - SCA Fight - April 29, 2003 - Age 28

2003 was a good year for Leif. He graduated from KSU, got a new car, found two new jobs, and fell in love. More about some of those other things later. He also upgraded his SCA armor more than once.

In addition to armor he purchased, he also MADE this huge chain link shirt himself. I have no idea how many links it must have taken to make it, and each one he made himself by winding wire around a rod and cutting them. He had the shirt hanging on a rod from the archway between the living room and dining room where he lived at 710 N. 9th Street in Manhattan, Kansas so that he could work on it by continuing to add links to the lower edge.

The completed shirt weighed 50 pounds! You can imagine Leif's immense strength, to be able to not only put this shirt on and move around as though it were cotton, but to add all that additional heavy armor and be able to fight! We all tried it on and could barely stand still much less move.

Leif loved fighting and here are a couple of good action shots of him at the Manhattan City Park. I don't know who his opponent was. Perhaps if someone who knows is reading the blog, they can post a comment or email me with the identity.

These photos were taken on April 29, 2003, sadly, five years to the day before he was inurned at Bay Pines National Cemetery.

Leif - SCA Garb - 1998 & 2002, Ages 23 & 27

Leif was gone from Kansas from January 1998 until May 2001 while he served in the U.S. Army Infantry. When he returned, he rejoined the local SCA shire and began working on acquiring armor and fighting weapons. His first armor was leather and very simple, compared with what he eventually had. He made his weapons and worked to become certified to fight.

As I understand it, SCA weapons are made of rattan and are padded, and in order to fight, the fighter has to have armor and protection to avoid serious injury. That doesn't mean that some very nasty bruises can't occur. Leif got plenty of them.

The shire met in a couple of different locations, but the one where they were publicly visible and where I photographed Leif fighting was the Manhattan City Park. They were the often on Sunday afternoons, and sometimes would attract spectators. The set up a display at the Little Apple Folk Fest in September each year and put on demonstrations of a variety of medieval skills and costumes, including fighting.

Leif had rattan swords and other weapons, but he also liked to fight with two axes at the same time, an unorthodox two-handed style.

The left photo was taken June 1, 2002 in the Manhattan City Park. The one on the right was taken earlier, I believe the summer or fall before he went into the army in 1998. You can see that he gained quite a bit of weight in the photo at left and had added several more pieces to his armor.

Leif - The GQ Pirate - April 1993 - Age 18

Leif subscribed to the warrior ethic and mentality, and he was fascinated with historical ages of knights, the Middle Ages, swords and swordplay.

When he was in his senior year of high school at Manhattan High School in Manhattan, Kansas (the only year he attended there), he discovered the SCA, the Society for Creative Anachronism. He joined and invented his character, a Viking pirate named Leif. He was called the GQ Pirate after Gentleman's Quarterly. Leif was a stylish dresser, often wearing a long brown leather coat and unusual clothing. His email address in those days was thegqpirate.

Initially, Leif didn't have the money for expensive armor, but he did put together his "garb" and this is how he looked during his first forays into the local SCA world. What a handsome pirate! And he exuded confidence and strength.

These photos were taken in the backyard of our old stone house in Manhattan, Kansas in April 1993.

Leif Garretson - Farewell to My Gentle Giant

Today is my birthday. This is the first birthday in my life that Leif will not be there, in 33 years. He only missed the three while he was in the army, far away. Today he will not be driving up in his Mazda RX-8, the car he loved. Instead, today I will witness the repossession of that beautiful car, and realize anew that I will never see him in it again.

Today I decided to post the reading I wrote and read for Leif's Memorial Service on April 29th, and add a photo that is probably the closest one I have of him looking like Adrian Paul in The Highlander. It was taken in 1992 or 1993, when we lived in Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico. He was a junior in high school then.

Note the pierced ear and earring. He had his ear pierced by a neighbor, and wore an earring most of the time until he enlisted in the army in January 1998.

I mention the song, "Who Wants to Live Forever?" by Queen because that it is a song that held a lot of meaning for Leif. We had talked about it at length, and it was played as a part of his memorial service.

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Farewell to my Gentle Giant - My Reading at Leif’s Memorial Service

“Who Wants to Live Forever?” by Queen.

I can't listen to that sad, poignant song without crying. It is so quintessentially Leif. He loved the movie, “The Highlander,” and there was a time people said he looked like Adrian Paul. He loved swords, was a romantic at heart, and was devastated when loved died. He wanted to be a hero, wanted to be needed, wanted to be strong. Through so many disappointments and crises, he held his head high and did not let others see his pain and frustration. Finally, it was too much.

From the day he was born, Leif was, in a sense, larger than life. He was such a large newborn that the nurses at the hospital where he was born joked that I was supposed to raise my kids after I had them, and teased me about what college he was going to.

He dwarfed the other babies there. I thought it was a fluke, that he would slow down to the family average size, but Leif was always the tallest in his class, even taller than his first grade teacher, and was 6' 1" by the time he was only in 7th grade.

He also had a piercingly smart mind. His teacher at the Montessori school he attended in Nurnberg, Germany when he was two years old told me at a conference that initially she thought Leif paid no attention to anything, didn't join the circle time, and wasn't getting anything out of it because he was puttering around by himself. Then, when they did their learning assessments, she was amazed to discover that Leif knew everything that had been taught to the class while he was silently working on his own.

Leif had a nearly photographic memory, and an amazing auditory memory that allowed him to quote movie lines, not bother with note-taking in school, and recall even how people spoke, not just what they said.

He was a beautiful child, so beautiful that people would literally stop us on the street and tell us that, but I don't think he ever that sensed and would have been embarrassed it he had. By the time he was an adolescent, reaching puberty long before the other boys in his class, and spent years with a bad case of acne that he was teased about, he didn't believe he was attractive.

I don't know what kind of perspective a child growing up like that gains on the world, how it feels to be the giant, both physically and mentally, but I know he felt a kind of distance from others and an inner conflict that probably lasted all his life. He was only partly at home in the world of his peers, whether as a child, an adolescent, or an adult.

I called him my gentle giant, for with his size and enormous strength, it would have been all to easy for Leif to be a bully or use his body and mind to dominate or torment others, but he never did, not after the day in kindergarten when he lost his temper, threw toys at other children, and then was so mortified and ashamed of himself that he crawled under a table and would not come out. It was clear he had made a decision that would not happen again, that he would not hurt anyone.

Leif became in some ways a very traditional man From babyhood he loved vehicles of all kinds, and became an expert on cars and motorcycles, driving either as though he were in the Monte Carlo Grand Prix. He could never have enough gadgets and even built his own computer. He loved guns and was a certified armorer and a passionate believer in the Second Amendment.

He practiced martial arts and earned a black belt in judo, and loved fighting in medieval armor in the SCA, even wearing a 50 pound chain mail shirt he made himself. He loved movies about superheroes, men who saved the planet, the universe.
He joined the infantry to fight for his country, to defend his beloved Constitution.

Leif needed a focus for his intellect and his emotions, a defining purpose and a lofty goal, but unfortunately, he never really found them. He yearned achingly for someone to love, but a lasting relationship was not meant to be. He was deeply hurt, but he always forgave.

Yes, Leif wanted to be the hero, the gentle giant who would fight to defend his family, his friends, his country. His personal code was to never show weakness, and he kept his deep and towering emotions inside. He wanted to be needed, to be respected and loved.

Leif made many mistakes and he often lived life on the edge. He seemed to need and crave strong sensations, speed, danger, everything larger than life, as if life had to be over the top to be worthwhile, and yet he could patiently explain and teach almost any concept in a way the listener could understand, to an adult or a child.

I have been touched by the comments posted on my Remembering Leif blog, and I've asked one of Leif's friends for permission to quote her post because it captures some of how people saw him. Lorelei Siddall wrote:

“I met Leif in 2001 at the KSU Computer store where we were both employed. The computer store was a dim and humorless place at first, but then came Leif, a bright spot. I was intimidated at first since he was such a rambunctious person... full of ideas and interesting facts, philosophies, and an overwhelming presence that was almost bigger than the tiny alcove the store was tucked into.

“He quickly became the most interesting person in the store to talk to and work with, and soon my boyfriend at the time was coming up to the store specifically to talk to him as well. He spawned a sort of viral effect... whereas one person could meet him, then tell other people about this guy 'you just have to meet', and a sort of legend develops.

“I cherish the time I (had). You and your husband raised an amazing person, a person who has had a profound and global impact on the lives he had touched. He was a natural teacher, although this last lesson is the hardest one I think.”

It is indeed a hard one, one I don't want to learn. I don't want to learn to live without Leif, but I know I must. I don't want to miss his presence, his intellect, his humor, his dimpled smile, and most of all, his love.

As parents, we brought our sons into the world full of hope for them, and it is hard to accept that our dreams for Leif will never be realized, that he will never find his purpose and defeat his demons, that he will never have a family, that he will never be there for a birthday or a Christmas, never be there to teach us about the latest technology and set things up for us, never tease me about driving like an old lady.

It is hardest of all to know that our love was not enough to save him, that no matter what I tried, I could not help him be happy, or take away his pain. I knew it was there, but he would not admit to me how bad it was.

In many ways, he lived a life rich in experience, though it was also drowned in depression and loneliness. In many ways he engaged the world and wanted much from life, but he was also bitterly disappointed. In the end, he was overwhelmed.

I can't really talk to you about my deepest feelings about Leif, or I would be overwhelmed. I brought him into with world with hope and love; how I wish he would have had the hope I had for him. He was and always will be larger than life, my gentle giant, a tragic would-be hero, and I will be grateful for the 33 years of memories I have of him, the things he taught me, the bear hugs he gave me. I will miss him every day of my life.

The GQ Pirate Fights - Leif Garretson 2001

This is one of Leif's earlier SCA fights, in 2001, in the Manhattan, Kansas City Park. He loved the competition.

The GQ Pirate - Leif in the SCA - May 2001

Leif was an avid participant in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) and his character was a pirate, Viking style. Here he is in some of his first garb in May 2001. He loved dressing up and fighting with rattan swords and other weapons in the Manhattan, Kansas City Park. More photos of Leif in the SCA will be on the way.