The Whole KVCC Veterans Memorial Mural Wall

This is the whole mural or mosaic with Leif's stone near the top right.

Nine Years

Today it has been nine years since we found Leif's lifeless body. I can still remember the details and overwhelming grief of that day, just as I can remember the last time we saw him alive and so much of the 33 years of his life.

Even halfway around the world at sea, a song from "Les Miserables" brings tears to my eyes when I hear the lyrics, "Bring him home, let him live." How dearly and desperately I wish he could come home, and live.

Last Christmas my sister Sherie, Leif's aunt, brought me photos of a veterans memorial wall mural at Kalamazoo Valley Community College, where she works. She purchased a memorial stone for him. I was so touched I cried. He lived. He served. He deserves to be remembered. Many thanks to her for this gift of remembrance. He will always be in our hearts.

This is a very small part of the wall. I'll post a photo of the entire wall separately.

It Means a Lot!

Today we received a card from my sister, Sherie. It means so much to me that she is thinking of us, and that she remembers this day, this week, and knows how much we miss our son.

Six years ago today we got up at 7:30 a.m. and got ready to go to Tampa to Leif's apartment to try to find out what had happened to him. It was with a mixture of hope, dread and fear that we left home. The best I could hope for was that he either was at home feeling ill or too depressed to communicate, but it seemed unlikely. We both knew that if we got to his apartment complex and both his vehicles were there, it most likely meant he was at home . . . but in what state?

They were both there. His door was locked and there was no response. We went to the manager's office, explained the situation, and asked if they could let us in. I'm grateful that the woman we talked to was sympathetic and willing to do so, and that she respectfully waited outside after she unlocked the door.

That was the saddest and most horrible day of my life, of our lives, and I hope there will never be another even close to it.

Peter said today that at least today we didn't find anything gruesome or horrifying. Yes. It was a beautiful day, full of ordinary work, with the anticipation of seeing Marcus and Darlene tomorrow.

Leif was and is on our minds. He always will be. We will miss him every day for the rest of our lives.

Thank you to my sisters for remembering these days and remembering Leif.

Missing Him So

I wonder what it is that triggers sadness and missing Leif again so much, as I have been in the last week. Next Sunday it will be four years and five months since he died. There are days when I'm busy and life is full and it doesn't hurt so much, but the sadness rolls back.

I think perhaps it's because of the election season. The last time around, before the actual nominating conventions, we had such lively discussions about the candidates and policies. He was writing email letters Hillary Clinton (as he had to General Wesley Clark in 2003). I probably miss him a lot right now because I know if he were here we'd be hearing a lot from him about the election and issues. It makes the hole in our lives so much more evident.

I know it's not my fault he isn't here, but I will always feel that I failed him, failed to help him, failed to keep him alive.

I look at this darling picture, taken by my sister, Sherie, in July 1976 when he was a year-and-a-half old, and he seems to happy, so carefree. I wish I had some scrap of hope that his adult life held any happiness for him.

I've thought a thousand times about why a death like Leif's, a suicide, is so very very hard, and I think that on top of the loss and grief we would have over the death of a child, our son, there are the dual burdens of knowing how unhappy he was and that we couldn't help him, that he died alone and uncomforted, cut off even from our love in that moment of death when he didn't reach out to anyone for help.

I can't have this beautiful little boy back. I can't have the handsome young man back. I can't even have the sad and depressed man back for a second chance to help make it right.

Was it his destiny?

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

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

n pl -nies

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

2. the predetermined or inevitable course of events

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

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

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

Is destiny the same as "fate"?

fate [feɪt]

n

1. the ultimate agency that predetermines the course of events

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

3. the end or final result

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Every Precious Picture

Grief hurts, and many aspects of grief are common to all who experience it, but some are acutely individual. Some people put away all photos, all reminders, of their deceased loved one because they can't bear to see them, can't bear to be reminded, can't bear to think about it. I often wonder, though, whether that is successful. Perhaps they can control the exterior stimuli, but what about their minds? Surely then can't cut off all the thoughts, the questions, the memories.

Others treasure every photo, every little scrap of something that was made by or belonged to their loved one, and I think this is particularly true of parents who have lost a child, no matter what that child's age.

I know it is certainly true for me. I look at these photos and remember when each was taken. Often, I was the photographer and I remember why I grabbed my camera at that point, how I felt, how I wanted to preserve the moment.

Photos that someone else has taken that I've never seen before are a precious gift. There have been very few of those. Surely some of Leif's friends took pictures of him that I may yet someday see.

This photo of Leif was taken by my sister, Sherie, when she came to visit us in Kansas in the fall of 1975. Leif was only about nine or ten months old. He was a happy little rascal then, into everything, and loved to play with pots and pans. He had a laundry basket full of stuff to play with and usually just tipped it over to get at everything. You can see it in the background here.

This photo is endearing in several ways, even the yellow corduroy pants and green shirt, an outfit no kid would be found wearing in 2012. :) His hair was still blond and thin. It's hard to believe that he would be so dark-haired as a teen and an adult.

A Happy Family Photo for Valentine's Day

When the boys were little, we made Valentines, and we had Valentine's candy. Once they were grown, we didn't normally do much about Valentine's Day between us, figuring that was more between them and their girlfriends or wives, but I used to send them cards, sometimes with a little cash just for fun. In later years, I didn't do that any longer, either. Now I just send little remembrances and cards to my grandchildren.

This photo was taken at a happy time. Both my sisters and their husbands were visiting us in Charlottesville, Virginia. We enjoyed having them there and showing them around the area. This photo was taken by my sister, Sherie. We look full of life and love, and Leif looks joyful. He was always happy when Lannay or Sherie was around, when he was a little boy. 

A Day Like Any Other?

My friend and neighbor, whose son committed suicide a couple of years before Leif asked me a few weeks ago, just before the anniversary of her son's death, "Why is it that those days are so hard? Aren't they just a day like any other?"

I answered her that they aren't just a day like any other because humans mark time. They have calendars and a way to measure the passage of time. We spend our whole lives measuring time and its passage, knowing what day it is, what hour, what month, what year, knowing what we are supposed to do or celebrate on a particular day, knowing when the birthdays and anniversaries come, when the holidays arrive. It's only natural that the day something as momentous and life-changing as the death of one's child happens will be one we will continue to remember, not just as the day it happened, but each calendar day throughout the years that falls on the same month and day, another year having passed.

We note or celebrate the passage of a another years since our last birthday, another wedding anniversary for a year gone by, and the birthdays of our deceased child will still come. We will still calculate how old they would be if they had lived. We will remember the day of our child's death and each year on that day we will commemorate it in our own way, whether only in our hearts and minds, or with something more concrete.

Today my sister Sherie brought beautiful plants from her and my mother, and a lovely bouquet from my sister, Lannay, in remembrance of Leif's death three years ago. Three years ago today he died, though we did not find his body until April 10th. My mind goes over again and again those hours when none of us knew where he was or what had happened to him, thinking about his lifeless body lying in his kitchen, cold, gone.

It still seems as though he could come driving up to my door, still get out and say "silly Mommy," and give me a big hug. It still seems as though he should be coming here for dinner and to watch a movie, or chatting with me online. I expect it will always seem that way, no matter how real his death is. The mind does not let go of a loved one easily. The heart holds them close forever.

So no, it is not a day like any other. it is a day with a terrible significance, the anniversary of a tragic loss, a day to remember, a day to mourn. But also a day to pick oneself up and dry one's tears and go on with life, grateful for sisters, grateful for each other, Peter and I, grateful for our son and grandchildren, grateful Leif was ours, even for so short a time.

Reading to Leif - July 1976 - Manhattan, Kansas - Age 1.5 years

I loved to read to my sons. Ever since I learned to read in the first grade it has been one of the joys of my life. I read passionately and voraciously as a child. I grew up without television, so my stories came from books. I've always treasured reading time, and most especially, all the years I read to my sons.

Of course I read to them at bed time, but not just then. We also shared books just about any old time. And not just when they were little fellows. I read to them until they were in junior high, and only quit when homework, sports and other things intervened and made it impossible, though even then I continued to read things aloud at the dinner table or in the car. I remember reading Judy Blume's "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" to the boys in the airport in Hawaii, or at least that's where we started it.

Reading together was always a special time, a teaching time, and learning time, a fun time. We read all kinds of books, fiction and nonfiction, picture books and novels.

My sister Sherie took this photo of me reading to Leif in July 1976 when she and her husband DeWayne drove down from Michigan to Kansas to see us just before we moved to Charlottesville, Virginia.

Leif with His Aunt Sherie - November 1975 - Manhattan, Kansas - Age 10 months

Because Peter W. was in the army and we spent so many years of our children's childhoods overseas, they didn't always have a chance to get to know their extended family. When Leif was born we were living in Manhattan, Kansas, which was still pretty far away from most of them, but we did get a chance to see each other. In November 1975 and again in July 1976, my sister Sherie came to visit from Michigan. This photo of her with Leif in November 1975 when he was ten months old was taken with her camera. I think I took it. It's beautiful of Sherie and Leif looks like such a jolly little guy, playful and huggable.

We got to see Sherie and DeWayne the following year when we lived in Charlottesville, Virginia, but then not for three years while we were in Germany. Then another five years while we were in Japan and Hawaii, but when we moved to Fort Sheridan, Illinois north of Chicago, we were only about two-and-a-half hours drive away from Sherie for four years and we were able to visit back and forth. Leif got to know his aunt and uncle and his first cousins, Shane, Brenda and Derek, and really enjoyed them. He was older than they were, but he was always great with younger kids and they had a lot of fun together.

When we moved from Chicago to Puerto Rico, we were separated again for two years, and once we were back in Kansas with 700 miles between us, didn't see each other as often as we would have liked, but Brenda came to visit us on her own by then, too.

Jerri and Leif - Manhattan, Kansas - November 1975 - Age 10 months

My sister Sherie came to visit us in Manhattan, Kansas in November 1975 and took this photo of us out in our backyard, behind our old stone house. The weather was still pretty warm even in November that year, or I wouldn't have had Leif out there barefooted! That was one of the periods when I had shorter hair . . . like Leif, I guess, who hadn't yet grown his full head of hair. He was ten months old then. I was so happy to have my two boys!

Leif's Second Home - Charlottesville, Virginia - Age 2

When Leif was one-and-a-half years old we moved from the old stone house in Manhattan, Kansas to a townhouse we rented in Charlottesville, Virginia, at 1 Woodlake Drive. Apparently I never thought to take a good photo of it. This one was taken during a rare snowstorm and deep freeze that froze our water pipes for a week. The area looks much different now, with large trees.

The townhouse had a fenced area in back that was perfect for Leif to play in. We only lived there for a year, from July 1976 to the summer of 1977, but a lot happened during that time. Leif had his second birthday on January 28, 1975. The house was across the street from a nice woods with trails and we went hiking there. Behind us was a large pond or small lake, and we liked to go walk around that as well. We celebrated Easter with Leif's first real egg hunt. He started preschool at Rocking Horse Country Day School when he was barely two years old.

We got to see a lot of my sister, Lannay, his aunt, and traveled around the area, visiting Washington, D.C., Monticello, Williamsburg, the Blue Ridge Mountains, and Virginia Beach. We also had visits from my sister Sherie and her husband, my brother Donovan and his family, and my mother.

It was a good year for all of us and it was a nice place to live. I have fond memories of those days.

Even with his phenomenal memory, Leif wouldn't have remembered this house or Charlottesville but it was his home for one of his 33 years.
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The photo of the house at 1 Woodlake Drive was taken in January 1977, close to Leif's second birthday.
The photo of Leif flying high on his dad's upstretched feet was taken in the house in Charlottesville in May 1977 when Leif was two years and four months (28 months) old.

The Old Stone House in Mahattan, Kansas - Part 2

Leif lived at 804 Moro twice, once when he was a baby from birth until he was a year-and-a-half old and we moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, and the second time from July 1992 when he moved back from Puerto Rico until he moved out to live with Nikko, which must have been the sometime between the summer of 1994 and 1995.

That seems like a short time, but that house had been a sort of constant in Leif's life from birth in 1975 until it was demolished in the summer of 2005. While we didn't live in it all that time, traveling and living around the world, we owned it and his grandmother, my mother, Marion S. Kundiger, lived in it for the years we were gone. We came back there to visit, had family reunions there. In short, it was home, the home we knew we could always go back to, the one constant in our lives besides each other.

It was where he saw his grandmother, his Uncle Donovan; his cousins Rick, Holly and Tim; sometimes his Aunts Lannay and Sherie and their families. It was where we celebrated Christmas when we could.

After he moved out, it was still the place to go back to Mom and Dad's for dinner, for holidays, to celebrate Christmas.

Leif moved back there two months ahead of us in July 1992 while we were still in Puerto Rico, to live with his grandmother and take a driver's ed course at the high school. We arrived in September. Then the grueling work began. When we had lived there before, we didn't have nearly as much "stuff" as we were moving in this time and we consulted a structural engineer to be sure the house could handle the weight, and find out where to place it.

Although we had renovated in when we lived there from 1973-1976, and had worked on it several times during the intervening years when we were there for visitis, it needed a complete renovation again. This time, we decided to tackle refinishing the floors, knowing we would never manage to do it once we had everything moved in there. Little did we know what a mess we would get into. We knew that the first floor was oak. We rented a huge sander and ran it practically around the clock, the three of us taking turns with it. It was hard work, but it was nothing compared with the second floor.

The second floor was covered with old linoleum which was on it when we bought the house in 1973. By 1992, it was badly in need of replacement, or having something else done to the floor, and we decided to rip it up, not knowing what we would find underneath. We paid Leif to help us and the three of us spent days and days on it.

First we ripped up the linoleum, which we discovered was glued to Masonite which had been stapled to a yellow pine floor with a staple gun. Whoever did it had gone nuts with the staple gun and there were thousands of them. I counted over 200 in one square foot. Leif was so strong he could rip up the Masonite and linoleum in large chunks, which he threw out of the second story window. This left all the staples stuck in the floor, and some nails, too. In one chunk of the ripped up stuff, there was a long spiky nail that was sticking up out of a pile waiting to be tossed out the window and Leif stepped on it. The nail went right through his athletic shoe and into his foot. That necessitated our first trip to the emergency room that was caused by working on that floor. Luckily, it didn't continue to cause him pain, didn't get infected, and he healed fast.

Once we had all the linoleum and Masonite up and were faced with removing thousands of staples by hand, we also saw that the flooring was in lousy shape. It had apparently never been refinished after the house was built. The walking pathways were worn down to bare wood but those areas not trodden by feet for years and years were still covered with thick brown shellac. One place in the hallway was missing several boards and the area had been "repaired" by flattening an old turpentine can and nailing it over the hole.

The three of us spent days on the floor pulling up the staples until our hands and fingers were swollen and painful, but we finally got them all removed. About this time, I think everyone was about ready to curse me for insisting we refinish the floor. Then it was time to remove the shellac. It's impossible to sand off shellac. It just gums up the sander and starts to smoke. You have to dissolve it with denatured alcohol and sop it up, removing as much as you can that way before you can sand it.

Leif was removing a section at a time in this way, by pouring denatured alcohol on, spreading it around, leaving it for a few minutes to soften the shellac, and then wiping it up off the floor with rags and paper towels. He was working around the corner in the upstairs hallway, on the way to the back bedroom, when my mother came rushing up the stairs and around that corner because she had a doctor's appointment and hadn't been watching the time. She knew Leif was there removing the shellac and how he was doing it, but she somehow didn't think there would be a slippery puddle right in her way as she rounded the corner.

She slipped in it and took a terrible fall. She knew right away she had done something bad to her back so she lay still. I called the ambulance and they put her on a board to immobilize her back and neck and took her to the hospital. She had fractured two of the vertebrae in her back. She was in terrible pain. To my shock and surprise, they sent her home, even with that broken back, with very little instruction in how to care for her safely. That in itself is a long story, and we are just grateful that she healed and wasn't paralyzed. My brother, Donovan, had an old crank-style hospital bed that he got when the contents of an old hospital he tore down to build an apartment building were auctioned. He put it in our living room and I took care of her.

Meanwhile, we continued to work on the floor. Once the shellac was off and it was sanded, I had to patch innumerable holes with wood paste before I could apply the finish. While i was sliding around the floor doing this, I wore heavy jeans and sat on a large foam pillow to try to avoid the splinters in the old pine, but I wasn't successful. I got a very large one stuck in my fanny and had to make the third trip to the emergency room. Leif thought this was quite funny and loved to tease me about it.

Eventually, the floors were done, including putting in new boards instead of the turpentine can, and we went on to other things that needed fixing. Leif helped his dad install a split rail fence in the part of the property on 8th Street that didn't have a large hedge, helped paint, work on the yard, and much more. He had a lot of time, sweat and effort invested in the old place.

The old gravity hot water furnace was out into the house in 1904, according to a sooty old paper that was stapled to a floor beam in the basement. It had originally been a coal furnace but had been converted to natural gas years before we bought the house. Peter Anthony, who was four-and-a-half years old when we bought the house, thought it looked like a scary monster. It never seemed to disturb Leif, though. It's amazing that it was still working over 100 years later when we finally sold the house for demolition in 2005. What's amusing is that we found out that our neighbor when we children lived on Fairchild Street, Dr. Oscar W. Alm, had lived in that very house in 1929 when he moved to Manhattan, Kansas with his bride. They had a chance to buy the house in the 1930s but didn't because they thought the furnace was too old!

The photos of the house show the south and back sides, the picnic table we used so often, and Leif and Peter W. working on that floor. The odd thing is, we took many photos of the exterior of the house and yard, but foolishly never took before and after photos of the interior . . . or much of any shots of the interior except what showed up in the background of the many, many shots we took of people in the house for all the occasions we celebrated. The only time I systematically did take photos of the interior was when we cleaned it out right before we sold it, and then the rooms looks sadly empty and forlorn.

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The photos from top to bottom are:
1. Leif and Peter W. working on the upstairs flooring in our bedroom, August 1993.
2. The surprise Kundiger family reunion in 1993 in the backyard, held in honor of Leif's grandmother's 75th birthday, early on July 4, 1993. Leif is on the far left all in white sitting by his cousin Holly Kundiger.
3. The backyard picnic table, taken February 10, 1999.
4. The old gravity hot water furnace from 1904.
5. Looking at the southeast corner of the house and lot from the intersection of 8th and Moro Streets on March 18, 2001.
6. The east side of the house taken April 4, 1999.
7. The back of the house taken April 1999.

Leif & Holly - Fort Sheridan, Illinois - July 1987 - Age 12

Our sons grew up without the frequent closeness of our extended families except for some brief periods.

Peter A. got to spend quite a bit of time with his dad's aunts, uncles and cousins in Germany starting when he was 6 months old until he was 4 and a half years old.

Then there was a short time when we were back in Manhattan, Kansas that he was around my mother and my brother, Donovan and his family (cousins Rick and Holly; Tim wasn't born yet), but we left when he was only seven and Leif was just a year and half.

We were close to Lannay for a year when the boys were 2 and 8, but her daughters weren't born yet.

We also had the four years at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, when we were a few hours away from my sister, Sherie, and her family in Michigan, with cousins Shane, Brenda and Derek. Peter A. was only there for his senior year of high school and then back for Christmases, but Leif had time with his cousins the whole four years.

Then Leif spent more time with my mother and my brother Donovan's family when he was a senior in high school and a couple of years of college back in Manhattan, Kansas. By that time, Rick had left for service in the navy, but he saw quite a bit of Holly and Tim.

Otherwise, were were far, far away from our extended families, so our sons didn't grow up with a continuous sense of larger family and we traded that experience for the travel and life in Germany, Japan, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.

However, Leif always enjoyed his cousins, and I think he if he'd had the chance, he would have spent a lot more time with them. They had a lot of interests and ideas in common.

He did have a chance to spend more time with his cousin Holly during two of the summers we lived at Fort Sheridan. Donovan sent her to stay with us for a few weeks each time and we had a good time together. We visited all the museums, downtown Chicago, and lots more.

You can see how Leif was starting to shoot up in height like a beanpole here. That year he was a gangly kid at the age of 12 and by the time he was 13, he was 6' 1" tall and shaving! It must have been an incredible transformation for him, but he took it in stride.

Dimensions of Sadness - Missing Leif

It's been a hard week and I've been posting simple posts of happier times, reflecting the way I wish life still were, not the way it is right now.

My sisters were coming to visit and I got the bright idea to take each of them on a cruise, with my mother. None of them had ever been on a cruise before and my sisters had always wanted to go. Mom is a world traveler that hasn't been on a trip outside the USA since November 2007, so I found a couple of inexpensive (great deals this time of year) short cruises to the Bahamas and booked them. I told everyone my one worry about it was the step up (or down when you come out) to the bathrooms in the staterooms.

We started the cruise with Mom and Lannay with very chilly weather, not at all like you'd expect for a cruise to the Bahamas, and we got to Nassau two hours late because right after we left Cape Canaveral, the ship had to return to port to disembark a passenger who had a life-threatening health crisis. We had a good time in Nassau, and at Coco Cay the next day, but Mom's back was bothering her and she seemed to have trouble walking at Cocoa Cay. I thought it was because she had stepped down a large step onto a water taxi too hard.

That night, the last night of the cruise, she got up in the night to use the bathroom and lost her balance. She fell into the bathroom hard and injured her back, but she didn't tell anyone. My sister Lannay, who was sharing the cabin, heard a noise but didn't find anything when she checked and Mom didn't tell her. She later said she didn't want me to know because I'd "have a hemorrhage."

We returned to Cape Canaveral the next morning, Monday the 23rd, and Mom was still having some back pain but not admitting she had fallen. We went to see the Bodies exhibit at MOSI, the Tampa Museum of Science and Industry, and had her in one of their wheelchairs she she didn't have to walk, but didn't know how bad off she was.

The next day, without our knowledge, she went to her doctor and told him about the fall, and had her back x-rayed. It wasn't until the next morning, Wednesday the 25th, that she told Lannay about her fall and by then she was in severe pain. I got another appointment with the doctor that afternoon and we found out she had another compression fracture in her spine. The doctor ordered her to lie flat on her back and to be up as little as possible, but she didn't follow orders and by Thursday she couldn't get up on her own and was in excruciating pain.

I had taken care of Mom when she broke her back with two compression fractures in 1992 and remembered how to get her up and walk her, and I got a wheel chair and walker checked out, but even with me staying there and helping her, by Friday evening the 27th, she was in such terrible pain that we had to call the Emergency Squad to transport her to the South Bay Hospital emergency room. She was admitted to the hospital and put on pain medications, given a CT scan, and the next day an MRI.

On Monday, March 2nd, she had a procedure called kyphoplasty to stabilize the fractured vertebra, but she was still in immense pain. By Wednesday they transferred her to the rehab center at Plaza West here in Sun City Center.

My sister Sherie arrived February 28th and has been so helpful in all the things we had to do for mom at the hospital and rehab center and at her house. I don't know how I would have gotten through this time without her. She was terrific.

All through this, I've been sick with a sinus infection, cough, and nasty sore throat. I've been exhausted, but had to keep going with so much to do. I still haven't unpacked from the cruise.

Today, I took Sherie to the airport. I was so sad to see her go. I really appreciated having her here, not only for all the help, but for the moral and emotional support. She had taken vacation to come here to go on the second cruise, and instead she helped rearrange and clean up at Mom's, visited rehab centers with me, made her own breakfasts and lunches, did dishes, and so much more. I knew I'd miss her when she left, but I wasn't prepared for how all the emotion of the past week and a half would hit me then.

Not only did all my worries about Mom, which had been buried under the work that had to be done, surface, but as it always does when I'm driving alone, the bottomless sadness about missing Leif came pummeling through. I cried all the way home, especially when I passed the exit that would take me to Bay Pines National Cemetery. I've been crying on and off all evening. I just can't shake it. I miss Leif so much! How could nearly 11 months have passed since he died? He helped me out so many times. Who will be there, now that he is not?

We will manage. We have family. We have friends. We are so much more fortunate in so many ways than many in this world, and we know that, but that knowledge doesn't take away the loss.

And I'm so worried about Mom living alone when she gets out of rehab and whether she's going to be able to manage, whether they can get her pain under control, what her future holds. I miss my sisters and having them here to buoy me up. I am so tired, emotionally and physically, still sick.

It will pass. I'll get well. Life will go on.

But so will loss.

I go along, busy, and being busy keeps my mind off things for awhile, but it always floods back. There are two times that it happens most often, when I am driving alone, and when I go outside at night, like taking out the garbage, or going somewhere, and I can see the sky. The night sky and the stars always remind me of Leif and I miss him terribly then.

I miss him terribly now.

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The photo above is of Leif and my mother on December 25, 2005 when he was showing her the cell phone we got her for Christmas . . . his idea.

Leif's 21st Christmas 1995 - Manhattan, Kansas - Almost 21 years old.

The two Christmases that I remember Leif being happiest were when he was in love, 1995 and 2003. Leif fell in love and married young. I've already written about his marriage to Nikko and posted this photo of them on Christmas Eve 1995. They were newlyweds, both just 20 years old, and married only two months when this photo was taken. They were playful, cute, full of energy. We were all at my mother's house on Pottawatomie Street in Manhattan, Kansas, quite a crowd of us; my brother Donovan and his family, my sister Sherie and her family. I think all told there were 16 of us there. If I remember correctly, they were living in a basement apartment in the 800 block of Bluemont Street, just a block from our house. Leif was a student at KSU and working to help support them and Nikko had a job, too. I remember the jobs they had, but I'm not sure what they were doing in December 1995. They were still full of optimism and hope. How I wish all their dreams together had come true.

Leif's 12th Christmas 1986 - Lawton, Michigan - Almost 12 years old

In the summer of 1986 we moved from Honolulu, Hawaii to Fort Sheridan, Illinois, a small army base on the north side of Chicago sandwiched in between the suburbs of Highland Park, Highwood and Lake Forest. Peter W. was actually assigned as the Staff Judge Advocate for the U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command (MEPCOM) at Great Lakes, a few miles farther north. We could have gotten quarters there, or lived in any of a large number of the northern suburbs, but after a thorough investigation of the schools, it was clear that the best place for our sons to go to school was in Highland Park, and accepting quarters at Fort Sheridan would put them into that school system. For Peter Anthony, it was a critical senior year, but for Leif, we knew it would be at least three years, and it turned out to be four.

Our sons had grown up so far away from my family for most of their lives that they really only knew my mother, who came to visit at least once a year wherever we lived. Moving to the Chicago area brought us closer to them, because my mother and my brother Donovan were a day's drive away in Kansas; my sister Lannay was a day's drive away in Maryland, and my sister Sherie was just a couple of hours drive away in Michigan. We were able to see them a lot more again and Leif took to his cousins very quickly.

1986 was the first Christmas on the US mainland since 1976, ten years! We spent it at my sister Sherie's home in Lawton, Michigan, and my sister Lannay and her family came, too. It was great to have a house full of family to celebrate with, and Peter Anthony and Leif got to know four of their first cousins. In the photo above, left to right are Peter Anthony (18), Derek, Leif (almost 12), Shane, Jacquie and Brenda. It was Peter Anthony's 18th birthday, my Christmas boy born on December 25th.

Christmas in the north, cold and snowy, seemed more like what we were culturally used to as Christmas weather, but it was a shock after three years in warm Hawaii!