Another Anniversary

Sunday, June 6th was our 45th anniversary. We've had a wonderful marriage, one which Leif envied and would like to have emulated. I am thankful for all those years of happiness with Peter, and grateful that our love was strong enough to last through the grief of losing our son.

In May, I got a card from my cousin, Marji, with two photos she found in her father's things, photos that were taken when Peter W., Leif and I visited her and my Uncle Jerry in June 1991. I had never seen these photos before and I am so glad to have them. This photo was taken on June 6, 1991, our 26th anniversary, when we were with them in Oregon. We had a wonderful trip and it was so good seeing them after so many years. It was the second time that Leif met his Great Uncle Jerry, my father's only sibling, and the last time as well, and the first and only time he met Marji .

He was 16 years old and just starting to grow his hair long. He's wearing those trademark Oakley sunglasses, and his stylish Hypercolor T-shirt and those weight-lifter pants that showed off his figure so well. He's already towering over his handsome father.

He enjoyed the trip as much as we did. We flew to Oregon after attending Peter Anthony's graduation from the Air Force Academy. Uncle Jerry took us to see Mt. St. Helens and Multnomah Falls.

That summer, Leif was tall, slim and handsome, and felt like he was coming into his own. I love to think of him that way.

We went on a short cruise for this 45th anniversary and it was great, but coming home as always brings back memories and missing Leif, especially when we pass the turn-off that would go to where he lived, especially when we see all the things he brought into our house or that we ended up with when he died. For some reason, I've had a hard time with it today. Sadness comes back, no matter how much we try to escape it.

My Three Guys - Giuseppi's Dinner Restaurant - Colorado Springs, CO - May 28, 1991 - Age 16

My two sons, horsing around together; how I loved seeing that, them having fun with each other. These photos were taken the same evening as the last group, outside  Guiseppe's Depot restaurant in Colorado Springs, Colorado, before we attended the Graduation Balls on May 28, 1991. Peter A. graduated from the Air Force Academy the next day.

This is a good example of how strong Leif was, to pick up his brother like that. Below, the two of them are "putting their best feet forward." They look like they are ready to take on the world and conquer it together.

I know Leif was enormously proud of his older brother and respected him greatly for graduating from the Air Force Academy. He must have wished he could follow in his footsteps, but for many reasons, that was not to be.

It was certainly a proud moment for all of us and we were so glad to be there to share it as a family. Peter W. got to pin on Peter A.'s lieutenant's bars wearing his own uniform and attend the ball in his mess dress blues. Leif was dressed in his stylish silver-gray suit and turquoise tie. He was only sixteen but he looks so tall and grown up.

It's odd what things around me trigger sadness and a deep sense of missing Leif. Yesterday we were in O'Hare Airport in Chicago on our way back from visiting Peter A. and family in India when it hit me that this Thanksgiving we will be here with only three of us, Peter W., my mother and me. Leif will not be coming. It seemed inexpressibly sad. Last year, I convinced Peter W. to go to the Washington DC area so that we could spend Thanksgiving with Peter A. and his family, our nephew Rick and his family, and my sister Lannay and her family. It was a warm and loving crowd of people celebrating together and it kept me from feeling Leif's absence so acutely. This year, there will be no big gathering to distract me.

Then, as I glanced around the restaurant where we were having breakfast, I nearly did a double-take. Across the aisle and down a table or two sad "Leif." Of course it wasn't him, but it was a man who was about Leif's age, with a shaved head and a mustache and goatee. From the side he looked uncannily like Leif, and that's when I nearly lost it. It didn't take more than a few seconds for tears to be brimming in my eyes. I tried to keep it under control, since we were in a public place, but I didn't completely succeed. I just wanted Leif to be there, to be with us for Thanksgiving.

The holidays this year will be hard. Although last year's Thanksgiving and Christmas were the first times without him, they were cushioned by the presence of many people we love. This year, we will not have others with us to fill our hearts and minds. This year, we will face his loss.

I have much to be thankful for, and I know many, many people have suffered worse losses than I have, but we, all of us, can only feel our own pain. Intellectually we may measure it against the pain and sadness of others and know that many have experienced far more terrible losses, but although we may be sympathetic, we cannot feel their misery as we feel our own. We may have four sound limbs but if we have a pain in our back, the sound limbs do not make the back feel better. We still feel the back pain. It is still intense. We can't tell ourselves, "Well, my four good limbs negate the back pain."

So it is with Leif's death. I have much to be thankful for in my life, but even my joy and appreciation of those people I love and those things I care deeply about do not take away the hurt of losing Leif . . .  they exist side- by side, the thankfulness and the pain, the joy and the sorrow.

Our Family the Night of Peter Anthony's Air Force Academy Graduation Ball - Colorado Springs, CO - May 28, 1991

I think this was the last, and perhaps the only, time that our whole family was dressed formally for a big event. Peter Anthony was graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy and we had flown to Colorado Springs from Puerto Rico to share in that momentous occasion. The night before the ceremony, we were all to attend the Graduation Balls. Peter Anthony was going to the Cadet Ball and we were going to one for parents and family.

Before the dances, we went out to dinner together at Guiseppi's Depot restaurant, which was in an old railroad station which had been converted into a posh restaurant. We had a great dinner and then took these, and many other, photos both inside the restaurant and outside in the dark. My mother was with us, too.

How young we all looked then, 18 years ago. Leif was tall, slim and handsome. Peter A. looked dashing in his blues and Peter W. looked great in his mess dress blues. It's hard to believe that we are the same people as the gray-haired grandparents that now stare out at us from the mirror, but it's even harder to believe that Leif is no longer with us. It still hurts to think that, and I know it always will. One-fourth of our family, one half of our children, never to be with us again.

No matter how many times I go over it all in my mind, I can't truly fathom it, how it came to that, how my son put a bullet in his head.

I am not alone in this. Just this past week we saw the news stories about the famous 32-year-old German soccer player who was depressed and jumped in front of a train to commit suicide. Why does despair grip them so tightly that they can't see a future?

How do we endure the pain they leave behind?

I re-read Peter Anthony's science fiction story about his brother's death and I cried again. There is no way to make his death comprehensible no matter how much I know about depression or the lethal combination of depression, alcohol and guns.

I am so thankful for Peter A. and for our beautiful grandchildren. They are our ties to the future. But I still think of the grandchildren I will never have and that brings tears to my eyes, and I will always think of my son, Leif, and miss him terribly.

Flaming Out Young

This morning, the conductor of the Women's Chorus I sing with shook her head when we opened up a piece of music and said, ""Mr. Chopin. So many of the great composers died young. They lived hard and burned out, like Mozart. I'm surprised Mozart made it into his thirties. They were brilliant but maybe that worked aganst them."

Someone in the chorus chimed in, "That's still true today," and people started mentioning names like Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson, and others.

I was thinking about Leif. Those people were immensely talented and they achieved great success, so we know about them. But how many more of our brilliant young people who live hard, trying to experience something, trying to figure out how to use their talents, and end up dying young? I've heard too many stories of young men in their early thirties, like Leif, who took their own lives or died of the consequences of their dangerous lifestyles.

Mozart was 35 when he died of a serious fever with rashes and swelling, which at least one medical sleuth says was probably rheumatic fever. Chopin was 39 and died of tuberculosis. Without modern medical care, it may not have been so much their lifestyles as the inability to treat contagious diseases that took their lives. We have to wonder what glorious music they might have continued to give us had they lived a normal lifespan.

We worried about Leif from the time he was about 21 and bought his first motorcycle, driving it like a demon. He admitted to me that he reached speeds over 100 miles an hour. We worried about the way he drove his car, too. I was always glad to know, each and every day, that he was all right. When we all got cell phones about five years ago (Leif had one since 1993, long before most people got them, and paid for it with his salary), I always kept mine with me, including at night on my nightstand, in case something happened to him. More than once, it did. We feared he would kill himself or injure himself terribly in a crash. It was a daily fear.

He had two minor motorcycle accidents and two minor car accidents, a car accident that totaled his Dodge Stratus and hurt his neck, and then the motorcycle that shattered his collarbone and required surgery. Ironically, that one was not because he was speeding. He was on a street in Tampa, near his apartment, going back to work after lunch and a white Cadillac swerved in front of him. To avoid ramming into the back of it, he had to lay the bike down and he hit the pavement instead. How well I remember the phone calls. How glad I was he was not severely injured and disabled or killed.

Leif did not die directly of disease, like Mozart and Chopin, but he suffered from asthma and depression (and possibly bipolar disorder and PTSD). Without those, he might have been able to sustain his life and deal with all the disasters, disappointments and loneliness. With them and a gun, he succumbed.

He was so bright and talented, had so much he could have given the world, if he had ever found out where and how. How sad that none of what he had to offer remains.
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This glowing and joyful photo of Leif was taken the night before his brother's graduation from the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado on May 29, 1991. It was a great evening. He was ecstatic. He was 16 years old. He lived to be only 33.

Peter W., Peter A & Leif - Fort Sheridan, Illinois - July 1988

We must have over 2000 photos of Leif, maybe 3000, though some of them are "repeats," part of a series taken at the same time. Yet with all these photos, I still don't have some of the ones I want, and in looking for them, i'm running across photos I didn't know I had, like this one.

This must have been the only point in their lives when the three of them were the same size, all the same height. What's amusing is that they all have the same stance and posture, too. That wasn't intentional or posed. That's just the way the three of them each chose to stand. I never thought of that as a genetic predisposition before, but they are so alike here.

Peter W., in his army uniform, was 45 years old. Peter Anthony, in his Air Force Academy uniform, was 19 years old. Leif, in his black suit, was only 13. By the next year, Peter A. would be taller than his dad and Leif would tower over both of them.

Peter A. would be starting his second year at USAFA a month after this was taken, and Leif would start eighth grade.

My three guys, how I loved them! How I love the still.

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This photo was taken in July 1988 in front of our townhouse quarters on Nicholson Road at Fort Sheridan, Illinois.

Leif & Us - Colorado Springs - May 28, 1991 - Age 16

It's hard for me to believe that the Leif I knew when he was a child and in high school, the one who loved the water, swimming, playing in the waves, SCUBA diving, became the man who wouldn't go in the water after the army. We couldn't get him to go to the pool with us, and if he went to the beach, he didn't go in the water. I don't know whether it was because he became self conscious about being overweight, or whether it was a symptom of depression, not enjoying things he had previously loved to do.

This photo of him was taken at the hotel pool where we were staying when we flew from Puerto Rico to Colorado Springs for Peter Anthony's graduation from the Air Force Academy. He sure looks right at home, doesn't he? At 16, he was tall and slim. His hair was getting long, and he looked like he belonged on the cover of a romance novel.

The evening after the pool photo was taken, we three went to one of the Academy Graduation Balls. My sister, Lannay, and my brother, Donovan, and my mother were also there. Leif was dressed in his snazzy, stylish "silver" suit. My, how all of us have changed! Peter W. is in his Army mess dress blues.

That was quite a trip. After Peter's graduation, he took off for South America with his best friend Dave, and we flew to California to visit Peter W's parents and then to Oregon to see Jerri's Uncle Jerry and cousin Marji. We all enjoyed the trip. It was a welcome interlude from the stress of being with the military during Desert Storm, the first Gulf War.

Jerri, Peter Anthony & Leif - US Air Force Academy - May 1991

We were extraordinarily proud of Peter Anthony's acceptance to and graduation from the U.S. Air Force Academy, and no doubt visits to the Academy while Leif was in junior high and high school continued to excite him about a career in the Air Force like his brother, though Leif wasn't willing to compete academically for a spot at the Academy. I don't know whether at that time he had thought about Air Force ROTC, but I do know how much he wanted to be a pilot in the Air Force.

Ironically, Peter A. hadn't pursued an appointment to the Academy specifically to become a pilot, but he did become one, and that route was barred to Leif due to his nearsightedness.

This photo was taken of me, Peter Anthony and Leif in May 1991 when we were in Colorado Springs at the Academy for Peter Anthony's graduation. It was gorgeous weather and we had a wonderful time. There were ceremonies, parades, dress balls (fancy dances) and more. We flew there from Puerto Rico and were joined by my mother, my brother Donovan, and my sister Lannay, as well as friends from Hawaii and more. Note Leif's signature Oakley sunglasses.

Peter Anthony is still serving his country as an Air Force officer and is now a lieutenant colonel.

By this time (1991), Leif could dream about the Air Force in other ways, but he already knew he could not fly. In earlier visits to the Academy, I'm sure he still ahd those dreams. Leif was just completing his sophomore year in high school in this photo and was 16 years old.

Leif could easily have starred academically. He was brilliant, and he could get through school, including college, without taking notes or studying. He hated studying and homework and all the things that went with achieving academically, and he aimed for a B average and that's what he got.

His reasoning was that he wanted to be above average (and get the good student discount on our auto insurance that we told him he had to have if he wanted to drive), but wasn't willing to put in the time and effort to get As. He wanted to spend his time on other things, or as he put it, "to have a life."

We could never convince him to do otherwise, and it's a shame, because he wanted to meet "smart people," but didn't want to get into the kinds of classes or activities were he actually could do so. He would have been outstanding in several fields as long as he could do the practical, actual things of the work world, but he could never get there because he wasn't willing to punch the academic tickets needed.

He admitted one time that he probably should have gone into science, for his mind excelled at scientific concepts, but he wasn't willing to take the math courses required.

How I wish that today's world would have had more possibilities for a man like him with a mind and abilities but without a formal education to get him in the door. (He did have a bachelor's degree in general social science, but that is not a degree in demand in fields that would have been good for him.)

Leif - 1987 - 1991 - How Quickly a Boy Grows Up - Ages 12-16

These two photos were taken four years apart when we visited Leif's older brother at the US Air Force Academy in September 1987 and when he graduated in May 1991. How clearly Leif has gone from being a child of 12 to a young man of 16 (with his Oakley sunglasses hanging around his neck).

In the younger photo he is leaning on the balcony of his brother's room, wearing Peter A's squadron jacket, which he wanted to try on. I'm sure he was dreaming that he, too, might wear such a jacket, go to the Academy, become a pilot. Being a pilot was his dream, the one that was not to be because his eyes weren't good enough. He didn't have the drive to get the kind of grades needed to be competitive for the Academy, though he certainly had the mind for it. At the age of 12, though, he could still innocently dream of charging through the skies.

Leif and Peter Anthony had been close brothers all the years of Leif's young life until, when he was 12, Peter A. (six years older) left for the Air Force Academy. While he came back for Christmas visits, sometimes at spring break, and perhaps for a brief visit in the summer until 1990, they rarely saw much of each other and the bond between them slipped away.

Peter was so busy with his cadet life that he didn't have time to cultivate that relationship and it was quickly replaced by others. Leif didn't talk about it, but I believe he both felt that loss, and was also newly empowered at home and at school by not being in his brother's shadow. He blossomed, but his dream faded as he found out he could not fly.

We moved to Puerto Rico in the summer of 1990, and between then and when Peter Anthony graduated from USAFA in May 1991, we only saw him once when he came to Puerto Rico for Christmas in 1990, if my memory is correct. Then we went to Colorado Springs for his graduation.

Peter A. now says that it seemed to him as though Leif had suddenly grown very tall and slim and had jumped from being a kid to a young man in one giant leap.

It wasn't that fast, and there were several times between these two photos when they saw each other, but it was the Leif of May 1991 that impressed Peter A. with the fact that his little brother was growing up.

I know Leif looked up to Peter. When he went to college, even though he could not be a pilot, he became an Air Force ROTC cadet, hoping for an Air Force career. Even that was not meant to be. He was acing the coursework and summer camp subjects but was sent home when he pulled a muscle in his groin and could not do the sit-ups required for the physical fitness test.

He didn't show his disappointment to us, as ever putting up the good front, but I know it must have been another heavy blow to him. He could have put himself a year behind in ROTC and tried again, postponing his college graduation (which was eventually postponed, anyway), but instead he dropped out of ROTC. Who knows how his life might have been different but for a pulled muscle and that decision not to stay with ROTC. Leif would have been an outstanding Air Force officer if he had made it.

Unfortunately for both our sons, they never again spent much time in each other's company after Peter Anthony left for the Academy in the summer of 1987. The bonds that loosened were never taken up again. Although the two men had much in common, including deep interests in technology and science fiction, they rarely explored it. It was a loss for both of them.

But here in this photo of Leif at 16, you can see a young man who still was looking forward to a good life, a vital teenager coming into his own.