A photo from long ago - Scheffau - August 1979

Last night I dreamed about Leif. I can't clearly remember the dream, unfortunately, but I do remember glimpses of following him and Peter W. down some stairs, of being in a strange house, where I was making up some kind of bed for him on the floor. In this dream, he was a young man.

I wonder how often I dream about him and don't remember the dreams. He lives on, in my subconscious, as well as my daily thoughts.

I've also recently found a few new photos of Leif, slides taken by my mother in her visits to us in Germany in 1978 and 1979. I've never seen them before, since she never projected them or made print copies. The photo at left is one of them, taken in the town of Scheffau, Austria, in August 1979 when Leif was four-and-a-half years old. That's him in the red shirt. I wish he were facing the camera. He seems to be trying to pull me toward something,

Scheffau was a favorite destination of ours. We went there in the winter for skiing on the Wilder Kaiser mountain, and in the summer for the beautiful mountain scenery. Since we left Germany in the summer of 1980 when Leif was only five years old, I doubt that he had memories of this, but we had such good times there.

Peter W. was looking through photos of Leif a couple of days ago and said, "We gave him a good life." Yes, we certainly tried to, and I think we succeeded when he was a child in our care, and Scheffau was a part of that. Life was not good to him as an adult, when everything he tried seemed to disintegrate.

There are so many reminders of him everywhere. Last week I came out of Walmart to find a gray RX8 parked just one space away from my car. Leif's was silver, so I knew it wasn't his, but it was so close it startled me.

The third weekend of July we had a family reunion in honor of my mother's coming 100th birthday. Every one of her descendants were there except Leif. This is now the third family reunion he has missed. It brings tears to my eyes that Leif was the only one not present. He would have enjoyed it, seeing his cousins and nieces and nephew, aunts and uncles. 

What's the Matter With Saturdays?

The last two Saturdays, Peter has been down in the dumps, very nostalgic, missing the family we once had. I felt that way, too, Saturday before last. Didn't even want to get out of bed. I'm glad that feeling of sadness didn't last pervasively for me, and I wonder what was the trigger. Why Saturdays? After all, we are retired and Saturday really isn't much different than any other day of the week for us.

I think after a couple of weeks, I may have figured it out, or at least what came to make some sense to me. In those years when we were raising our boys, Saturday was often a day we did something special together, some kind of outing we all enjoyed. Peter and I weren't working on Saturday, so it was family time. What we did depended on where we were living at the time. In Germany, it was Volksmarching, six mile hikes in towns all over southern Germany.

In Japan, it was the Saturday bus trips to some interesting destination in Japan, or soccer games at Camp Zama (the boys playing; one year, Peter W. coaching), or a train trip to somewhere like Machida for shopping, Tokyo, or Kamakura.

In Hawaii, it was likely to be either beach day, going to Bellows Beach and then to Bueno Nalo for quesadillas and Dave's Ice Cream for the marvelous coconut macadamia nut ice cream, or down to Waikiki for dinner, a movie, and playing games at the video game parlor.

In Chicago, we might have gone to a museum, or something like a car show, or walked down to Lake Michigan, or many other things we did there. And in Puerto Rico, going to Old San Juan, the beach, or trips around the island.

Even after the boys were grown, it was Sunday evening that Leif was likely to be at our house for dinner, so that was associated with the weekend, too.

None of those things happen now, but I think there's a nostalgia for it, for those times we were together. I think we are both finding time, in a way, to think about this more now that we aren't traveling as much and having company. The distractions aren't there. We are refocusing inward.

I do miss that family we had when the boys were young and their problems were small, when they were beautiful, handsome children who made us see the world through new eyes.

My Leif was always the climber. If there was something to climb on, he'd climb it. Rocks, stumps, trees, walls, hills, anything he could go UP. Always up. He could skip around on things like a billy goat with no fear.

This photo of him on a huge stump was taken in Scheffau, Austria in August 1979 when Leif was four-and-a-half years old. He was glorying in having gotten up there and was surveying the world from above our heads. Of course, being "mom" I was worried he'd get hurt, but he wasn't worried in the least, and he got safely down without any assistance. How I wish the other things in his life had been so easy to "get down" from.

Leif in Scheffau, Austria - March 1978 - Age 3

When we lived in Germany the second time, from the summer of 1977 to the summer of 1978, we made two or three trips to Scheffau, Austria. Scheffau is a lovely Tirolian village in the shadow of the Wilder Kaiser Mountain which in the winter is a terrific place to ski and in the summer is a wonderful place to hike.

Peter W. and Peter A. skied and Leif and I hiked around in the snow. We stayed at the Gasthof zum Wilden Kaiser, a lovely place with cozy rooms and superb food.

One of the highlights our our stays was the swimming pool complex in the nearby town of Söll. It had indoor and outdoor pools and one of the outdoor pools was heated to a toasty temperature in the winter. You could swim from the indoor to the outdoor pool through a passageway and literally swim surrounded by snow and ice. We spent one magical evening there swimming in the moonlight and watching the skiers on the mountain where they had lighted downhill runs.

There was another outdoor pool that wasn't heated, and it was so cold that ice was floating in it. If I remember correctly, some German or Austrian guy got out of the nice warm pool and walked (his body steaming in the light as the outdoor temperature was below freezing) and jumped into that icy pool.

Then Peter Anthony dared his dad to do it. I was not in favor of this experiment because I thought it was way too much of a shock to the body to go from a pool that was probably at least 95 degrees to one that was probably just above freezing, but what do wives and mothers know when there's a masculine dare afoot.

Peter W. climbed out of the warm pool, body steaming, and did jump into that freezing pool. To go the other guy one better, I think he even swam across the icy pool before climbing out and jumping back into the hot water.

He said the cold pool was bad, but going from that back into the hot one was much worse. He said it felt like a million needles jabbed into him.

Luckily, he was young and strong and survived this ordeal without any harm, and it became a favorite family story to tell. Unfortunately, we have no photos of it as we had no camera out there in the pool.

I don't know whether Leif remembered anything about our trips to Scheffau or not, but the likelihood is that he had at least some memories of it. He had an astoundingly good memory for things from his childhood and beyond. Even if he didn't remember it, he surely heard the story many times.

He was only three years old when we took the trip that is shown in these pictures, and although he was very tall for a three-year-old, it's hard to believe that my "gentle giant" was ever that small.

We were so fortunate to have the chance to live in so many fascinating places and be able to travel and enjoy them. I have warm memories of our Scheffau trips, and of walking in the woods with Leif and snuggling up with him and reading stories.

Leif & Peter Anthony in the snow - March 1978, Sheffau, Austria - Age 3

While we were stationed in Germany the second time, from the summer of 1977 to the summer of 1980, we took ski vacations every winter, and one of our favorite places to go was Scheffau, a village in the Austrian Tyrol. We stayed at a Pension am Wilden Kaiser, a lovely place with great food. Leif was too young to ski, so he and I went for walks in the lovely, snowy woods, and sometimes it was the three of us, Leif, Peter A. and me. In the spring, it's often a wonderful time to ski, warm enough to ski without a jacket, even, with the sun reflecting blazingly off the snow. Leif loved tramping around in the snow with us. Snow is magic to children, and as long as they are dressed warm enough, it's great fun.

This photo was taken in March 1978 when Leif was just three years old.