Thinking of Leif

Next month it will be five years since Leif died, but he seems to be as much a part of our thoughts as ever. We still talk about him, still are reminded of him daily, still feel his loss, still smile over his humor.

We were at Bay Pines National Cemetery on March 3rd, with cousins Wolfgang and Cordula visiting from Germany. It still brings tears to see his niche and know that is all that is left of my handsome, brilliant son, all that is earthly remains, at any rate.

Oddly, a couple of days later, the beautiful Hawaiian lei which has hung over his portrait ever since the day of his memorial service, now dried and still lovely, fell off of it for the first time in all these years.

It's amazing the number of things that can remind me of Leif. I was driving to my friend Chris's house a couple of times in the past week or two and saw many feral black and white cats. That reminded me of how much Leif loved cats, and how he had tried to get close to and tame the feral kittens that lived under our townhouse in Hawaii.

This picture was one that Leif's ex wife Nikko sent to me, taken by her, one of those precious photos I hadn't seen before, and is one of a series she took of him with one of their cats. I've posted some of the others before. I still wonder who else has photos of Leif I have never seen. This one was taken while he was in the army at Fort Drum, New York on August 20, 1999. This was shortly after we had visited them there and shortly before he went to Bosnia.

So much in our lives has changed since he left us, but our love for him has not.

Leif's Memorial Service at St. Petersburg Unitarian Universalist Church - April 29, 2008 - Candle Lighting and Speakers

Leif's nephew, Marcus, prepared a reading which he did with his mother, Darlene's help, and then lit the special candle they had made for Leif, a beautiful candle surrounded with photos him and things he loved and a small Specialist 4 army insignia, his rank.

After that, everyone attending the ceremony was invited to light a candle and speak if they wished to do so. Peter W., Leif's dad, went to the podium to make his remarks, and Leif's friend, Michael, spoke from the floor. Everyone lit one of the small white candles of remembrance.

We brought Marcus's candle home with us and will light it on special occasions along with the one that Peter W's cousin Wolfgang and his family sent to us.

The Surprises of Grief

Peter's cousin Wofgang Schneider in Heidelberg, Germany, and his family, sent this beautiful candle in remembrance of Leif. The poem on it says:

I'm not there
anymore
where I've been
but I'm everywhere
you are
In the night
I'm the stars sparkling light
On every day
I'm the sunlight's ray
shining
on you.

It's such a beautiful thought, and I wish it to be true. But Oh, how I miss my son!

There are things no one ever tells you about grief, not just missing the person, or wondering why this had to happen, and all that goes with those feelings. Other things sneak up on you unawares.

We got our wills redone yesterday. It's true that it's a formality, because it won't change anything about our heirs, but it seemed so sad and so lonely to put down just one son's name, as though I only had one son. I know that's not the reality of it, just that only one is still here to inherit whatever I have to leave behind when I die, but it's the meaning of writing down that there's only one now. In 33 years, I've never put down just one name.

How grateful I am that I have Peter Anthony, that he is my son.

Yet how hard it is to see Leif being erased from one document after another.

In choosing the photos to put on this blog, I find there are few of me with my sons. I was the one taking so many of the photos. I wish now I had more showing us together.

I also see how fast I am racing through the 33 years of Leif's life. Of the photos I scanned for the "slide show" I made of his life I'm nearly through the first year of his life. There are so many, many more I didn't scan and can't go back and do now. It's going to seem odd to post Christmas photos in June, but that's what I will do since I want a little continuity about his childhood in the blog.

My mother-in-law, who died in 2002, used to ask why we took so many pictures. I am so glad we did. They aren't enough.