Halloween, a favorite of Leif's

I suppose Leif and Peter Anthony were like most brothers. Sometimes they were good companions, and sometimes they competed. Sometimes Peter teased Leif and Leif got mad and went on the attack. I used to tell Peter that he was lucky Leif was six years younger than he was, because he was to big for his age. I think that in the years after Peter left home, when Leif was twelve, they grew apart and forgot all the good times they had together when they were younger.  This photo is an example. It was Halloween and Peter, who was nearly nine years old and in third grade, was a classy vampire with a ruffled shirt. He was already in costume way early, as we were having a party at our house for him and his friends. His dad dressed up as a sort of swami fortune teller. I looked ridiculous in a true 1970s tie-dyed dress, leopard print hat, and fish net stockings, or at least that's what I think I wore.

Look at the expression of pure delight on Leif's face, the cute body language as the vampire leans over to bite and Leif expects it will tickle. Yes, Peter did bite, and yes, it did tickle. There was a lot of laughter.

Leif was only two-and-a-half years old then and not really old enough to understand much about Halloween except that he got to go beg for candy at a few doorways in the stairwell, but he certainly understood the idea of having fun with his brother.

When Leif was grown, Halloween was one of his favorite times. He loved to have parties and was devilish and cute. I wish he was here this Halloween with us.

Two Brothers on an Airplane

On October 6, 2008, when I had been writing this blog for only six months, and Leif had been dead that long, I wrote about an incident that took place on an airplane. I was surprised, the other day, to find a photo I took at that time. When I originally wrote about it, I had the date wrong. It actually happened April 24, 1977, and we must have been flying to Kansas, not Germany.

Leif was a little over two years old, and Peter A. was eight. I was flying alone with them, and they were quite a handful, just normal slightly rambunctious boys. They actually entertained each other for quite awhile but then they began to get on each other's nerves and began to fight. It was annoying to all of us, and although they weren't loud, it probably wasn't all that pleasant for those around us, either. It was primarily boredom and being stuck in those seats, just running out of interesting things to do.

Peter A. said to me, in a rather snotty tone of voice, "Why does HE have to be here?" and added some comment about why we didn't just leave Leif behind.

I remember telling him that he wouldn't appreciate it if someone had that attitude about him, either when he was two or now, but he wasn't buying it.

Not long after that, Leif fell asleep. I thought Peter A. would be glad, because then he didn't have to put up with his little brother, but no, in just a few minutes he was asking me, "When is he going to wake up?"

I told him I thought he wanted to be rid of his little brother and would be glad now that he was asleep and he didn't have to put up with him.

I had a hard time not laughing at his reply. He wanted to wake Leif up!

I asked him why, and he said, "I'm bored. There's no one to fight with."

Such is the way of brothers . . . and perhaps sisters, too, I guess.

Leif looks so sweet and cuddly in this picture. He's wearing the little plastic set of "pilot" wings the airline gave him. I wonder, sometimes, if those and that flight began his love of flying, a love that was destined for disappointment when he found out in high school that he couldn't pass the flight physical.

Peter A. looking over that pillow, the one he put between them to keep Leif from touching him. So cute, the two of them. It's easy to say that now, looking at the photo. At the time, I was doing all I could to keep them settled down. It wasn't a relaxing flight for me, though Leif eventually relaxed plenty. :)

Memories, Music and Christmas

This weekend has brought two days of strong emotions for Peter W. and me, emotions brought about by memories triggered by music. It's amazing how deeply music affects us, how closely music can be tied to memories.

Yesterday we went to the Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony sponsored by the German American Club. We go every year. For Peter, it was the sixth one; for me the fourth. It's a nice tradition, with carols in German and English, and German Christmas cookies, Stollen and coffee afterward.

I was doing fine and enjoying it until we started singing "O Tannenbaum," and then the tears welled up in my eyes and I just couldn't stop them. Peter got misty-eyed, too. The song brought back such dear memories, of our boys during Christmases in Germany, of Peter Anthony singing this song with the Sachsen Kinderchor, of Uncle Helmut lighting the real candles on the fifteen-foot tall tree, of Aunt Toni with little "Peterle" and "Peterle" with his little train conductor hat, all excited about his first electric train when he was two. Of Peter A. singing the part of Joseph in the Christmas Cantata in Sachsen and Katterbach. Of Leif with such joy on his little face opening presents in Japan when he was five or six. Of baking our traditional Norwegian Christmas cookies and bread together. Of all the Christmases we spent with our children when they were small and it was so magical for them.

It's embarrassing to cry in public, something I try hard to control, but the memories brought by the music were too much for me. I loved those days so much and I miss them.

It was "O Tannenbaum" that got me started, though I had trouble with some of the other songs, too. And then Peter W. said that when he sang "Sleep in heavenly peace" at the end of "Silent Night," he was thinking that he hoped Leif was sleeping in heavenly peace, and I lost it again. Just writing this tears stream down my face. I remember saying, "I wish he were just sleeping. But I hope he is at least at peace."

Without the music, I got through the rest of the day without tears, but today I was fighting them again when I was performing with the Women's Chorus. I don't know what it is about the act of performing that changes the depth of feeling of a song. I've been singing those songs all fall without a problem, but just like last year at the concert, there were certain words that choked me up and I couldn't sing for a few measures. One of them was "Merry Christmas, darling. We're apart, that's true, but I can dream and in my dreams I'm Christmasing with you." "I'll Be Home for Christmas" is another one that stabs.

The holidays can be very hard for those who are alone, lonely, depressed and unhappy, or not with those they love, or who have lost someone they love near the holidays or recently. Leif has been dead for two-and-a-half years, and this will be our third Christmas without him. We won't spend it alone and are grateful and happy that we will be with Peter Anthony, Darlene and our grandchildren, and my sister, Lannay and her family. It will be a happy time, and we will enjoy it, but there will be an empty space in my heart for Leif, and I will no doubt fight more tears when I hear certain songs or miss him most acutely.

When our boys were young, Christmas was such a wonderful adventure, full of their wonder and anticipation, their eagerness, utter joy. How fortunate we were to have those days, those moments, those memories. Even with the tears, they are a treasure to be cherished and held close.

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This photo of Leif and Peter A. was taken on Christmas Eve in Japan, probably in 1981 when Leif was six years old.

Leif's Memorial Service at St. Petersburg Unitarian Universalist Church - April 29, 2008 - "Who Was My Brother? (First Half of video & entire text)

Peter Anthony did a lot of research about his brother, Leif, on the internet, from posts that Leif made on the ZAON forums to posts about him both during his life and after he died, to comments on this blog and on Leif's MySpace and Faceabook pages. He tried to formulate a picture of Leif as others saw him and integrate it with his own. Peter Anthony was six years older than Leif and left home to go the the Air Force Academy when Leif was still a twelve-year-old junior high school student. From that day on, he only saw Leif during his visits home, as he never lived under the same roof again. Leif went through his teen and adult years from from his older brother. Though they were family, though they were a part of each other's identity, and though they had been close as children, they had too little contact after Peter Anthony left home to keep the relationship close. In the year before Leif died, it seemed to me that they were contacting each other a bit more, that maybe there would be a closer relationship developing as they headed into middle age, but it was not to be. It was prematurely ended with Leif's death.

We found Peter Anthony's detailed analysis fair and penetrating, interesting and challenging, revealing and thought-provoking, touching and well-delivered, and we were very glad and grateful that he was willing to share it with us and with those at the memorial service.

The first half of the video of his speech is in this post. The second half will be posted tomorrow. The entire text is below.
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Who Was My Brother? by Peter A. Garretson, April 2008

Who was my brother?
People describe my brother as brash, unabashed, unappologetic, uncompromising, inconsiderate, incautious, arrogant, selfish, lazy (unless a project caught his interest), creative, talented, tolerant, accepting, enthusiastic, crass, deeply caring, forgiving, committed to his friends, practical.

He went by many names: Leif, Ashley, Lance, Alexander, first moving away from his given names (when unusual names weren’t cool) and then moving back to his given names.

He was a patriot, a man who loved and served his country, endured hardships for, and put his life on the line for his country, and he cared deeply about its future.

I think he would have been surprised at the breadth and depth of the lives he touched, and the positive effect he had on them. He had a kind of charisma, rawness and authenticity, inclusiveness, tolerance, and welcomingness that made people instantly like him. He was not the kind of guy who was going to get offended by anything you were likely to say or do (unless you were repealing constitutional liberties or mis-spending the lives of citizen soldiers).

A friend captured him perfectly, saying “He challenged us, provoked us, and never ever held back his opinion. This forum will never again be the same to me without him.” Another said: “He challenged me to be better and to think. He will be missed.”
Enthusiastic about the things that mattered to him, passionate about his chosen endeavors, unapologetic about his opinions and desires, Leif called people to look at the bigger picture and take life with a sense of humor.

Those who knew him said things like “He was an incredible man. A bright spot. The most interesting person in the store to talk to and work with. A rambunctious person... full of ideas and interesting facts, philosophies. He was an overwhelming presence that was almost bigger than the tiny alcove the store was tucked into. Words truly can not describe him. So full of infinite knowledge, a compassionate heart, and internal drive that will live on in the hearts of those he touched. Seemingly brash, once you got to know him you quickly realized just how caring and good a person he really was…He was definitely a good guy inside.”

On any subject, whether life itself, psychology, philosophy, politics, religion, or the latest videogames, Leif was never without some valuable perspective to contribute to the rest of us. And from my perspective, he was just now getting more sublime and interesting.

His associates saw him as a support, a champion of their cause, a loyal and committed teammate and ally, as someone who gave good advice, was encouraging, who helped them to see the big picture, and who challenged, pushed and encouraged them to be better and to think more deeply. Through that encouragement, those he touched grew, and tried things that otherwise they never would have. His friendship was transformative.

Leif was not one to hide his opinion, and so I will honor him, and a favorite book of his, “Speaker for the Dead” by telling the truth about my brother as best I knew him.

None of us knows or probably can ever know whether Leif departed us through design or accident, but if he thought he was not needed by his friends and family, he was deeply mistaken. While no explanation is satisfying to have lost one so young, full of potential, and such a contribution to our lives, it is my hope that his final moments were not of concealed quiet desparation and despair, but rather incautious enjoyment, and so I am personally happy that his last few hours were spent in joy with friends.

I loved my brother, and had always wanted the best for him. Leif very much needed a partner, a complement. I had hoped he would get marreid, have kids, find his calling, moderate his excesses with age. But it was not to be. He had hard luck, both in love and work. He had many, many breaks, but not the ones that matter to a man’s soul.

As a kid, he wanted to be a fighter pilot, and would have been an excellent one (particularly in the era of Boyd and Yaeger when pushing a machine to its limit was a virtue), had poor eyesight not closed that door to him. Denied his first calling, never found another. Denied his first love, he never found his way to a safe harbor. He had great affection for children, and would forever be a child at heart, but never had his own.

While his rational morality understood Earthly virtues and had a place for wisdom, fortitude, justice, truth (and to a lesser extent temperance), he never had access to faith, hope, and charity which see so many through despairing times, and might have aided him as well. Leif cared deeply about truth and morality, but never found God, never found a faith in which he could trust, and so was denied the nurturing discipline, community, and security which it provides. He never found that higher purpose, and without it rejected protective constraints on his liberty.

When no path will get us to where we need to go, we tend to be more haphazard about our next steps since none of them matter to the goal. Perhaps that explains why, for one of the smartest people I knew, his life seemed to me an almost unbroken string of poor decisions and poor judgment.

Starved of higher purpose, he was a fountain of unchanneled energies, forever driving him to excess, whether it be drinking, guns, gadgets, cars, alchohol, and a lifestyle far beyond his means.

In one sense he knew how to enjoy himself, and drank more fully of life than most of us do. But in another sense he was unfortunate, for having drunk so deeply, he was still unsatisfied, and ever thirsty.

He seemed afflicted with that pathology that afflicts males with no children: No one to whom to devote resources but on one's self. No compelling reason NOT to take chances. A constant dissipation of frustrated libido, and a fascination with this thing called violence, not yet understanding what it is for.

My first memories of my brother go back to dramatic goofing around on the back terrace of a wonderful house on a hill in Germany, and later to our time in Japan watching Japanese robot anime, Ultra-man, and Kamen Rider, and endless hours of watching, and re-watching the first generation of real sci-fi movies: Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien, the Black Hole.

Later, I remember coming home and finding my little brother transformed. He had gone from a mop-haired, cute little kid, to this incredibly tall, long-haired guitar hero dude with his own fashion sense, with a room decorated with a gigantic stereo (when that was cool), a shrine to Cyndi Crawford, guitars, and having transformed my parents old station wagon into something that was not quite boring, but not quite cool yet either…but on its way. My brother, was a “cool dude.”

His death came at an unfortunate time in our relationship, when we were talking and connecting more. I was re-discovering a love of anime and video games, having just seen Final Fantasy, Macross Zero and Appleseed, and when he was developing not just his Bacchan side but had just taken philosophy, and I was looking forward to exploring his Apollonian side. I was looking forward to getting together this summer.

In the oddest and most perverse way, I can’t help but think he would have had interesting insights and observations on his own death and our reactions and its meaning to us. I find that more than anyone else, I’d like to get his take, his detached perspective on things. I’m greatly annoyed that he isn’t around to represent himself. No doubt he would have had a good bit of dark humor about his own death, and he certainly would council us to take nothing as sacred, and enjoy this opportunity to get together. He would certainly not encourage us to follow his last example.

In one of his favorite games, when things clearly aren’t going your way, when you know you aren’t going to win, you can just blow yourself up and re-spawn to try again. Perhaps, if the Hindus and Buddhists are right about reincarnation, that is exactly what he did.

He was fond of saying that there is no problem that a proper application of explosives cannot solve. And perhaps it solved the problem for him…but not for us. Leif jealously guarded of the liberty of human decisions, and had it been one of us, he would likely have rejected any notion of impaired decisionmaking, and would likey have been both accepting and disparaging if it had been our choice. If he were here, he’d probably say something shocking and callous, pretending to great selfishness like: “Why are you so upset over me? I woundn’t be so upset over you.” But I wonder how well he knew himself or how much he cared for others.

My brother had a deep reservoir of talent, creativity, and virtue. I suspect he was like many of the world’s greatest citizens that were ne'r-do-wells until fate placed them in places of responsibility in a time of need. I say this because those who were touched by him found him to be full of wisdom, insight, encouragement, and his pride had a meaningful effect. They looked to him as a confidant, mentor, teacher. They felt improved, enobled, an uplifted by their association with him.

As far as I could tell, his highest values were liberty, coolness, and loyalty to friends.

My brother valued coolness very highly. He sought it in all things, and wished to surround, accessorize himself, and project it. Whether it was computers, phones, guns, guitars, he seemed to have done a tremendous amount of research, knew exactly what the best and worst features were (and would gladly tell you), and of course, whether he could afford it or not, he most likely had the best and latest gadget. But he was not a materialist. He did not acquire them because he valued the things themselves, but rather the experiences they conveyed.

And the experiences he sought were not the quiet experiences of the soul. He was not one to sequester himself at a mediation retreat, or the solitude of a Walden Pond. Rather, he sought loud, stimulating experiences that would challenge his “coolness” and turn him on—and he had a much higher excitement threshold than most. He loved games, and spent tremendous amounts of time on games like Cyberpunk, Planetside, Mass Effect, and pouring his creative juices into ZAON, and he organized his social life around them.

He enjoyed many a pleasure to excess, took full advantage of the pleasures of this world, and was willing to risk life and limb to experience them. Nothing was muted.

And among the coolest and most compelling experiences for my brother was speed. He valued this very highly and was willing to take tremendous risks to experience it. I remember him taking me on a ride in his RX-7, and being utterly scared for my life. Never, in all my life had I been in a vehicle where the wheels did not turn at the same speed as the road, or where the experience was closer to a roller coaster than to a car ride. And he claimed that no car could compare to a motorcycle. He had numerous accidents, and continued to feed his thirst for speed. He seemed to me to be always cheating death, riding without a helmet, taking turns at the edge of performance, and living on borrowed time, and like some of you, I thought he would most likely die on a motorcycle, chasing the experience he valued so highly. Like one of his online friends, I too thought: “Never would have I thought something like this would ever happen to him. Perhaps out in a blaze of glory at mach 10 with his ass on fire on one of his toys, but not like this.“

As I said, he jealously valued human liberty, and rejected all claims of others to moderate his joys for their own benefit, safety or security. He took life lightly with a wry and often dark sense of humor, and he was quick with penetrating, humorous, and darkly humorous insights.

His “coolness” even permeated his person. He seemd to cultivate a Zen-like inperturbability, and gravitas. That gravity of personality seemed to attract, and he seemed to welcome, people who were much more volatile, emotive, and expressive and needed that kind of gravity to stabilize and hold the space for them.

And as far as I could tell, despite his outer coolness and brashness, he seems to have been a caring, reliable, forgiving individual who always sought the best for those close to him. Even through rocky circumstances and separations, I’m not sure anyone, once entering Leif’s circle, was ever outside it.

Certainly I had relied upon him to be there for my family should I be in trouble, or should something happen to me. I had relied upon him to be close to my parents and take care of them. And I had relied upon him to hold a certain position in life as a measuring stick for my own decisions and accomplishments. That rug has been pulled out from beneath me. His passing has made each meal simultaneously more flavorful and tasteless. In every bite, in every experience, I taste my own mortality, for we were made of the same basic cloth--both thrilled that I am still alive, and saddened that he is not.

Brothers are also competitive and run a good race to bring home to each other and their parents the fruits of their labors. Now I find every successful accomplishment is bittersweet, sweet because death causes us to appreciate life, and bitter because his passing deprives me of a meaningful victory because it is like winning not by virtue but by forfeit. In this life, at least, he should have stayed in the race. With his talents, frankly, he should have won it.

Had things worked out just slightly differently for Leif, he might have become a pilot and married that high school sweetheart, and perhaps he’d have a couple of lovely daughters. Doing something he loved and was good at, he might have been promoted below the zone, perhaps he’d even been selected as initial cadre on the F-22 Raptor and applying for this year’s astronaut class. I’d like to think that he’d have been motivated to continue his Judo, to stay in shape, and might be playing guitar or bass in a band. I’d like to think he’d have reason to come through DC where I’d take him to train with my local jujitsu group and amidst a likely argument about Col. John Boyd’s philosophy of winning and losing, I’d try to talk him into requesting an assignment to Air Force Future concepts where he could put his wargamer design skills to use for his country. Later, perhaps we’d be getting together, letting our kids play and our spouses talk as we enjoyed a good bottle of wine and and made plans for a family trip to Palau where we could dive and ride, two things we both enjoyed.

As one of his friends wrote, “I wanted so much for him to find the love and happiness, he deserved it more than anyone I knew.” Regrettably, the bright future or past we would author of Leif is not to come in this incarnation, and I hope Leif’s best guess about our Creator was not on target, and his spirit will persist, and he will get a second chance to realize the destiny he was meant for.

I would like to end with a something that one of his online creative collaborators, Rush Wingate wrote about Leif that both captures him and his dreams, and our best intentions for him:

"Leif was a free spirit in life. He loved speed, he loved adventure. Like us, he held on tightly to the child's dream and fantasy of rocketing among the stars. Well, through tragedy, Leif will the first among us realize that dream. In the summers to come, I will lie along rivers and beaches, or in fine pastures on my many camping trips, and I shall look at the stars. In winters I will continue to haul myself out into frosty fields with my thermos of coffee and many telescopes to gaze at the cosmos. When I do, I shall think of that "brawlin' SOB". I'll think of how that spirit is now free to roam and explore those very stars we all fantasized about. I know that our resident Speed Demon will have strapped himself to a blazing comet, rocketing in the cosmos, a permanent smile on his face."

Leif & Peter Anthony - Kyoto, Japan, Spring 1982 - Ages 7 & 13

Leif and his older brother were close and spent a lot of time together until Peter Anthony left for the Air Force Academy in the summer of 1987, and most of the time they got along well, but not always. Sometimes Peter, like most older brothers, delighted in teasing Leif or doing small things just to get a rise out of him, such as extending his right arm full length and pointing at Leif. Just that, just pointing. It drove Leif nuts.

If I had a dollar for every time I heard, "Mom, Peter's bugging me," I probably could take the family on a trip. One time, Peter did something that made Leif so angry that he grabbed a chain with a bicycle lock on it and chased Peter, swinging it. Whether he would actually have hit his brother with it, I don't know, although I doubt it. That was after he had the outburst in kindergarten and mostly had his temper under control . . . except when it came to frustration when drawing or building models, and then he'd crumple paper or, in extreme cases, break the model.

It was the usual sibling relationship. I remember when Leif was two-and-a-half and we were on the plane from the USA to Germany. They amused each other for quite some time, and then Peter got tired of it and started to get annoyed. They began squabbling, which annoyed me. Of course, it was primarily boredom at work. They were confined and ran out of things to do. Peter A. said to me, "Why does HE have to be here?" and added some comment about why we couldn't just leave him.

It wasn't long after that that Leif fell asleep. I thought Peter A. would be glad, that now he didn't have to put up with his little brother, but no, in a few minutes he was asking me, "When is he going to wake up?"

I said, "I thought you wanted to be rid of him. Now you are. Why do you want him to wake up?"

His answer was so telling, "I'm bored. There's no one to fight with."

When we got to Germany and moved into quarters in Nurnberg, Peter was eight-and-a-half and Leif was two-and-a-half. Peter quickly started making big deal about Leif not coming into his room. One day, he shoved Leif out and Leif got so upset he started throwing his toys at Peter's door. (This was before the kindergarten incident when he decided no more toy throwing.) But then, not long after that, the two of them were happily playing together and had constructed a big spaceport and city with all their toys.

By the time we moved to Japan in 1980, and Leif was five years old and precocious, they could do more together, though they each had their own friends.

These photos were taken in Kyoto in the spring of 1982 when Peter Anthony was 13 and Leif was 7. They were having a good time pretending and posing, play fighting, and making up imagination games. You can see the fake fist "fight" followed by the very genuine affection. There was a lot of that, and we loved to see it.

Leif and His Brother, Peter Anthony - Summer 1975

Leif's older brother, Peter Anthony, was five when I got pregnant with Leif. He was fascinated by the whole idea. He turned six a month before Leif was born, and Leif was like some interesting new, self-activated "toy" to Peter. He was very interested in his development and very affectionate to his baby brother.

I thought we had the so-called sibling rivalry battle completely licked. We did . . . until Leif began to walk and talk. Then he started unwittingly competing with Peter for attention and time, and Peter was a little less enthralled . . . and upset if Leif came into his room without permission and touched his things. Other than that, though, the two of them liked being together and spent a lot of time together.

One day in the summer of 1975, when Leif was about 6 months old, I found the scene i this picture. Peter had climbed into the crib with Leif and was having a great time entertaining him. Peter was six-and-a-half years old.

My First Mother's Day with Leif

Thirty-three years ago I first celebrated Mother's Day with Leif in my arms. Today is the first Mother's Day since then he will not be alive in my life. There is a hole in my heart, but I am grateful for those 33 years. I only wish his adult life had been a happy one, that he were still here.

Today I will remember the happy times.

And today I will remember that I have another wonderful son, Leif's brother Peter Anthony, who is six years older than Leif, and who has been the light of my life for 39 years. I have been blessed.