A Way to Heal

Three years ago, two years ago, I would not have been able to do what we did today and be happy. The day would have been too fraught with sorrow. But sometime in the past year, I told Peter W. that instead of staying home and being sad on Leif's birthday, we should celebrate it by doing something he would have enjoyed, after visiting the cemetery, and I feel the same way about the anniversary days of his death. It's important to mourn, but it is also important to find some joy.

Yesterday, the third anniversary of the day we found Leif, we went to the beach. It was a gorgeous day, balmy, and the beach was full of people reveling in the wonder of it.

Then we went out to dinner at Two Senoritas Mexican Restaurant in Sarasota. Leif would have approved.

And last, we went out for a sunset cruise on "Le Barge," a boat that oddly has four live palm trees growing on the top deck, glitzy mermaids pointing the way, and live music in the Margaritaville vein. It was a beautiful evening to be on the water and watch the sun go down. Leif loved sunsets, and as I saw it set, I thought about his life, as though the setting sun was a metaphor for the sunset of his life, though his end was not beautiful.

I was at peace, and glad that we had gone to the cemetery the day before and said our words of sadness and grief so that today we could find beauty in our surroundings. Leif was with us in our hearts.

Leif at the beach in Puerto Rico

Leif loved the beach all his life, though without a companion here in Florida he rarely went. When he was with us, we had a beach vacation every year but for three years we lived in Hawaii and went to the beach often, and for two years we lived in Puerto Rico and went to the beach now and then, especially when Leif and Peter W. were SCUBA diving.

This photo was taken on the beach in Puerto Rico, probably Luquillo Beach, in February 1991. We had been in Puerto Rico for six months and Leif was 16 years old.

I look at these photos and I'm so grateful I have them, so glad to have a record of his life. The last couple of days I've been in a kind of funk of sadness on and off. The questions I had put out of my mind for a time came back to haunt me, and I am acutely aware that we are coming to the third anniversary of his death in April. For some reason having another year pass is very hard. The knowledge reinforces the finality of his death.

Peter W. is again talking about how Leif had so many things that should have given him a good life . . . good looks, height, a strong and happy family background, brilliant intelligence . . . and he asks how this could have happened. I reply that with all Leif's gifts, he was somehow cursed with the same misery that took my father's life, and my father's aunt's life. I find that some days it hits me and I can't get past it. He was and is so much a part of our lives that I don't think we will ever really be over it.

Forever Changed

It is proving far harder than I thought it would be to give up writing this blog regularly. I knew I had a lot of emotion invested in it, and I thought I was ready to let it go, but now that I am at that point, I am finding it to be heart wrenching. I know I am not forgetting Leif or really letting him go, but in some deep emotional way it feels as though I am abandoning him, and that makes me terribly sad. It feels like the day of his memorial service, like when it was over and we all walked away from his niche at the cemetery leaving him behind in the place of no life or future. I know that I will never forget him, will think of him every day of my life, but who else will?

Of the 630 posts I've written in the past two years, this is one of the hardest to write, and certainly the hardest one to publish, to click that little "button" that says, "Publish," because it marks an end to an emotional journey that really has no end, and so is hard to give up. It has meant a lot to me to be able to tell Leif's story and to write about my feelings.

Memory is fleeting. Life goes on. I know that's as it should be, but it is also sad. And yet, I will be able to come back here to visit, just as I can go to the cemetery, though as Peter always points out, Leif is not there. It's not really visiting HIM. It's visiting memory and love. It's a kind of symbolic pilgrimage. Although we are often sad at cemeteries, I don't see them as frightening or sad places. They are monuments to love and memory just as this blog is.

I think of my father and I wonder who remembers him and how often they think of him. Like Leif, he lived. He had a life and contributed to the world. At least he left four children behind who, though some were too young to remember much, were a part of him that lived on. There is no blog about his life, no book, and no burial place. There is no place of pilgrimage except in my mind.

Leif had no children. What survives but memory? And how long will that survive? Not long for most people, I suspect, except if some reminder evokes a thought of him. This blog was my way to keep that memory alive, though of course I had no idea who would read it or if anyone but Peter and I would. That didn't matter so much as the preservation and the continuance, and now that I am ending it, it feels like I am again walking away and leaving him behind in that place of no life or future, which of course is what death is, and what we don't want to face.

I have always felt emotions deeply and strongly, and Leif's death has brought me torrents of tears and sadness, and I can say, like the Tin Woodman in the "Wizard of Oz," "Now I know I have a heart because it is breaking."

Yesterday I saw another reference to that saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Like many sayings and platitudes, it has a valuable message, but some lemons are beyond the possibility of lemonade. Some things life dishes out you just have to endure and survive. How does one "make lemonade" out of the suicide death of a cherished son?

When Leif died, he not only erased his future and his pain, but he changed our lives forever, not only our lives, but the lives of his family and friends, and all who knew him. For some of them, the changes were likely temporary without live-changing consequences, but for those who loved him, the changes are not only enormous and emotionally wrenching, they are quite literally life changing.

There are so many things we will not do with Leif or because of Leif now. We will never have grandchildren from him. He will not be there to help us or see us through our old age. We will not have the joy of his company. Our focus and identity is changed forever. Our emotions will never be the same, and there will always be the undercurrent of sadness, loss and grief no matter what else our future holds. This is not the retirement and old age we envisioned for ourselves, but what it now is has in part been created by Leif's act.

We must not forget, though, all the wonderful ways in which our lives were changed by having him as our son, the years we did enjoy his company, his help, his laughter, his intellect, his love.

We must not forget all the things we did with him, all the experiences of the thirty-three years of his life.

I have chosen the last images of the main blog to be all of Leif on beaches. Somehow, even though he seldom actually went to the beach once he moved to Florida (because even the beach isn't as attractive when you go alone), I will always associate Leif with beaches.

Partly this is because as our sons were growing up, we planned a beach vacation every year. Leif had wonderful times on beaches in so many places; Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, California, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Japan, Hawaii, Thailand, Italy, France, England, Texas and more places I can't think of to name right now. I remember him glorying in the waves when he was just a tiny tot, and how he loved sailing in the British Virgin Islands and SCUBA diving in Puerto Rico. Somehow for me, beaches will always be associated with Leif's happiness, the places he felt alive and free . . . beaches and motorcycles and cars.

I wish I could have a picture in my mind of Leif walking on a sunset beach with someone he truly loved who was the guardian of his heart that he so deeply desired. That would be the photo I would like to cherish for the rest of my life, but that does not exist and is a big part of the reason he is no longer here.

So, I will have to keep in my mind a picture of my tall lonely son alone on a sunset beach, as though the sun of his life was setting, and remember the beauty that once was.

-------------------------------------
The photo was taken by Peter W. Garretson in Puerto Rico in 1992. Leif was 17 years old. Who would have thought, seeing that tall, handsome young man, that half his life was already over?

At this time, the blog has 630 posts, 977 photos, and has been visited 10,127 times since May 15, 2008.

Leif - Palominito Island, Puerto Rico - July 1991 - Age 16

In July 1991, we were invited to go on a day trip by private boat to the island called Palominito off the eastern coast of Puerto Rico. It was a lovely yacht and we had a beautiful day swimming and picnicking. This yacht even had a hand-held shower the you could wash the salt water off with before you got back into the boat, and a nice set of steps to make it easier to get back aboard. The water was the gorgeous Caribbean turquoise, and quite warm.

Leif was at his physical best, slender, muscular, and tanned. This photo is of him using the shower before getting aboard. I wish I had better photos of that day.

We made other trips to Palominito; Peter W. and Leif went SCUBA diving there. We also went to the islands of Culebra and Vieques in the same general area off the northeastern coast of Puerto Rico.

There was one trip we took with an army captain when we rented a sailboat and sailed out to Vieques. It was a lovely day, but unfortunately, no one was a really good sailor, and coming back into port we managed to run the keel aground on a reef. How embarrassing!

Leif enjoyed being around the water, the beach, boats, and diving. That same summer when he was 16, we sent him on a teen sail adventure in the British Virgin Islands, ActionQuest, which he loved. I wrote about that some time ago.

I think it was memories of how much he had enjoyed Puerto Rico that were part of the reason Leif wanted to move to Florida so much. Unfortunately, he didn't have the companionship he needed here to make going to the beach enjoyable, and didn't have the money to go out on boats or SCUBA diving, so he made little use of the wonderful beaches here.

Leif in Pacific Grove, California - July 1980 - Age 5

In his 33 years, Leif traveled many places as an army brat and many he saw only once, but a place he visited more times was the Monterey-Pacific Grove area of California during the years his Oma (paternal grandmother, Ellen Garretson) lived there. These photos were taken on one of those trips, in July 1980 when he was five years old and Peter Anthony was eleven.

The boys liked to go walk on the beach and play in the sand. There wasn't much for them to do at Oma's house except watch television, so we tried to get out of the house and go places together. Oma liked the beach, too, especially at sunset. We also took a lot of walks along the seashore path where there was no beach, only rocks, like these at Lovers Point. That was a great place for the boys (and Peter W.) to climb around like mountain goats.

Sometimes we went to visit Ellen at Christmas time and then we would drive or walk around looking at all the Christmas lights. There were some beautiful and elaborate displays we all enjoyed.

We visited Ellen before we moved to Japan, which was when these photos were taken. We were on our way, moving from Germany to Japan, and wouldn't see her again until we lived in Hawaii and she came to visit us about four years later. We weren't back in Pacific Grove with Leif until the summer of 1985, but we visited her every year at least once, sometimes twice, between 1986-1990 and then 1992-1997 when we moved her to the 710 N. 9th Street house in Manhattan, Kansas. Leif knew his Oma much better than Peter Anthony did, because Peter didn't see her on the trips we took after he left for the Air Force Academy. He did see her when he came to visit us in Kansas with his family after 1997.

Leif was a good traveler, adapted easily, or at least it seemed so, and enjoyed seeing new places and things. Looking back, though, I think he felt in some sense cut off from the world except for his dad and me, because we were the constants, always with him, and everything else kept changing. Because of our moves, he had to leave friends behind and those connections were broken. I wonder if it made it hard for him to make friends and commit himself to friendships because of the sense of loss when leaving them.

The sweater Leif is wearing in the photo where he's climbing on the rocks is the one that Peter W's Aunt Käthe made for him.

Oma died in Kansas in September 2002.

At the Beach Today

Peter W. and I had a relaxing swim at Turtle Beach on Siesta Key today. On the way home, Peter was saying he was feeling really happy, and how much he enjoyed being with me. I was relaxed and happy, too. However, inevitably in the car on the way home, our conversation turned to Leif, how we were feeling, how much we had wished for him in life. It's the recurrent theme of our lives now. We are rounding some kind of corner, where we are able to enjoy things, enjoy being together, but the undercurrent comes back, the loss that stands in the background.

Peter asked me if I still cry every day. I told him I do. Not always a lot, though sometimes more than others. He said he wished he could take that sadness away. I said, the sadness isn't mine alone, and he acknowledged that was true. He asked if I talk about it with anyone, and I said no. He said, you just keep it private? Yes, pretty much so, except for some times on this blog. Although anyone can read it, it seems impersonal when writing it, like a diary, and so it's easier than to actually talk to someone, when I might break down in tears and embarrass myself. Here, no one sees.

We talked about how we wished we could have taken him to dinner with us, remembered the beach vacations we had with our boys, talked about how we wanted to take Leif on another cruise with us and now will never have that chance.

We had such good years, such a good life, Peter W. and I with our boys. How fortunate we were. Even now, with Leif's death a shadow over us, we are so fortunate to have each other, to have Peter Anthony and his family, to have had those wonderful 33 years with Leif. No, they weren't all wonderful. They weren't without problems, but they are the problems of normal, everyday living, which, in the end, is all we have and what we must treasure.
---------------------------------------

The photo was taken of Leif at the swimming pool near our townhouse in Charlottesville, Virginia in June 1977. He was not quite two and a half years old.

Leif at Waikiki - Honolulu, Hawaii - June 1980

Yesterday we took our granddaughters, Madeleine and Aly, to the beach and took turns in the water with them while the other stayed with all the belongings on the beach. While it was my turn to sit there I was musing on how pleasant it was to be there, how much like it was when we took our two boys to beaches years ago. I remembered how much fun it was, how I was content to be with them, happy just being together. The girls loved the beach, spent most of their time diving for shells, and didn't want to leave. We finally persuaded them to leave the water when the sun went down. I spent most of the time in the water with them, but that time sitting watching them with "Grandpa Peter" brought back so many happy memories and a few tears, thinking that those times will never come again, and a great sense of gratitude that we can experience this with our granddaughters.

This photo of Leif when he was five-and-a-half was taken on the beach at Waikiki, Honolulu, Hawaii, in June 1980 when we were stopping in Hawaii on our way to Japan, the summer we moved from Germany all the way to Hawaii. How small he looks, though he was big for his age.

Leif at Pattaya Beach in Thailand - December 1981 - Age nearly 7 years old

This photo of Leif on the beach was labeled December 1981. We were living in Japan at the time, but I can't imagine that it was warm enough to be at the beach in December so it has to be Thailand. We went to visit my Thai sister, Lek, and her family in Thailand that December. We got to see a lot of the country and really enjoyed it. She and her family took us to stay at the Royal Cliff Hotel in Pattaya, where Peter W. and Peter A. tried parasailing and Leif and I watched.

It was also on this beach that Leif noticed a woman from France sunning herself on a beach lounge without the benefit of a bathing suit top. He was quite surprised and made some comment to his dad asking where her top was.

We also saw a big black snake slither into the water.

Leif, along with the rest of us, enjoyed beaches in the USA (Hawaii, Virginia, South Carolina, Florida), Italy, Thailand, Japan, and Puerto Rico.

We all loved the relaxation, the waves, and the sun.

Leif at the beach - Rimini, Italy - September 1979 - Age 4

Leif enjoyed the beach nearly all his life. One of the trips we made to the beach when we lived in Germany was the one to Rimini, Italy. We drove over the Alps and the Dolomites in our secondhand Opel Diplomat (car), an act of faith, as it was old and not in the best condition. On top of that, we chose a very scenic and interesting route through the mountains in Italy that turned out to have roads on the edges of cliffs, hairpin turns, no guardrails and steep dropoffs tumbling hundreds, perhaps thousands of feet at the edge of the pavement. We couldn't see around curves, and in some places there wasn't even room to pass. Leif and Peter A. weren't much fazed but it but I was terrified. Peter W. was driving and I was a nervous wreck. It would have been quite beautiful on foot, but I don't think we even got any photos.

We were (at least Peter W. and I were) vastly relieved to come down out of the mountains safely and make it to Rimini. Our hotel was right on the beach, but the beach was strewn with seaweed.

The boys had a good time anyway, and they delighted in digging holes. This photo shows four-year-old Leif in the hole he dug.

Leif & His Dad - Turtle Bay Resort, Oahu, Hawaii - May 29, 1986

I think it was Memorial Day weekend that Peter W. took Leif and me to lunch at the Turtle Bay Resort on the north shore of Oahu. It is a beautiful place. We enjoyed our meal and then the two guys had fun at the beach, renting a paddle boat and swimming. Leif was comfortable with adults and we enjoyed taking him places. He was eleven years old in these photos.

Leif & His Dad - Bellows Beach, Hawaii - August 1987 - Age 12

One time when we were at Bellows Beach, the guys found a piece of a styrofoam boogie board and decided it looked like a gravestone, so Leif decided to bury his dad in the sand and make a "tombstone" out of it and have me take photos. They had a blast doing it. You can see Leif posing beside the buried daddy and then Peter W. "escaping" from his sandy "grave."

We thought this was very funny, and actually there are more in a series of photos I took. We sent copies to Peter W's mother, Ellen, and she said she about had a heart attack. Apparently, all she saw when she took them out of the envelope with the letter was a tombstone and her son's head sticking out of the grave, not realizing no one would be buried that way if they were dead.

This was in August 1987 on one of our trips back to Hawaii flying space available on military aircraft (usually tanker refueling flights that were training missions for the National Guard) out of O'Hare Airport. We were living in the Chicago area then at Fort Sheridan, no longer in balmy Hawaii.

Leif was 12 years old.

Peter A. & Leif - FRAVs - Bellows Beach, Hawaii - 1984 - Leif age 9

Our favorite beach in Hawaii, and probably our favorite of all the places we've been, is Bellows Beach, a strip of land on the leeward side of Oahu that is officially an air force base, and actually still has a weed covered airfield on it, which has cottages and camping spaces, but most of all, a glorious beach with a view of the mountains.

It was one of our favorite excursions to go to the beach and then afterward for quesadillas at Bueno Nalo, a great little Mexican restaurant just down the beach (which last I knew had moved to the town of Waimanalo after we moved away), and then to Dave's Ice Cream for the most terrific coconut ice cream. A wonderful afternoon!

This photo was taken sometime in 1984. Peter A. and Leif were drawing FRAVs on the beach. FRAVs were invented by Peter A. and Darren, his best friend in Japan. They were a bit like the tiny beings in the movie "Batteries Not Included" (though they came up with the FRAVs before the movie came out) and a bit like Transformers, in that they could fold themselves into a variety of shapes with a variety of uses. They each had a special one, and Peter A. designed FRAVs for me and for Leif as well. He and Darren filled notebooks with FRAV designs. Their two "personal" FRAVs were Ace and Fran.

Leif was caught up in the ideas and designs, too. They all had a lot of fun with them, but they were more than fun. They were truly imaginative and wonderful.