Two Years Ago

Two years ago at about this time we were at Leif's apartment and found him dead on his kitchen floor. We knew when we drove up to the apartment building that something must be terribly wrong because he hadn't answered repeated phone calls, emails or text messages for a day, but when we saw both his vehicles there, our hearts sank and what little hope we had was gone.

If anyone reading this is contemplating suicide, think about this. Think about what it will be like for someone who loves you to find your body, to see you dead and what you have done to yourself. Such a death is not a simple closing of the eyes like you have seen in many movies, and if you use a violent means of death, it is a grisly and terrible scene.

Think about them having to call the police and then being required to leave while the police do their investigation, being required to stand by while they remove your body, how they will not be able to be with you. They cannot touch you. They cannot disturb the scene. They will be questioned, and depending upon the circumstances, they may even be suspected of causing your death. If not them, perhaps your friends. They are only doing their job, but it will be hurtful and horrifying. Luckily we were spared that, but many suicide survivors are not.

Think about the questions your family and friends will have, how they will always wonder what made you do it, whether they could have done anything to prevent it, the eternal whys, the sadness and grief they will feel, the future that will never be.

Think about the mess you will leave behind for them to try to clean up, not only the death scene itself, but your affairs, your belongings, your taxes, your finances, your vehicles, everything you own. Think about them having to clean out your dwelling, dispose of your possessions, and how heart wrenching all of that will be for for them.

Think about how it will never be over for them. It will be over for you, though you will have destroyed your future, but for them, it will be months if not years before they have completed all the tasks that must be done when someone dies, and it will be a lifetime of sadness, regret, questions and missing you.

Think about it and get help. Don't fall for the suicidal thinking that they will somehow be better off without you. They will not.

Two years ago we faced all this when we opened the door to Leif's apartment. What we saw is burned into our brains. What happened changed our lives forever. What we had to do was hard and sad.

My brother said that Leif didn't really want to be dead, "he just wanted all the shit to stop." How many people who kill themselves really want that, not death, but don't see any other way out? What a horrible price to pay, for everyone.

Life is precious but it doesn't feel precious to someone who is in misery and torment. Taking one's life ends that torment but it blocks any future and torments others for lifetimes. Some of them may never forgive you for it.

I've been confronted with people who think that there will always be warning signs of a possible suicide, that someone contemplating it will threaten to do it, and that those who do it always leave suicide notes. Not so. Many times there are no warning signs, except perhaps depression and withdrawal, but even those are often well hidden. Sometimes it's planned, but many times it is a quick decision in desperation. And most of the time there is no explanatory note, though even if there were, it would not bring much comfort.

Depression is dangerous. Depression with a gun in your hands is even more dangerous. Depression with a gun in your hand and getting drunk is lethal. Don't do it.

My family is broken. It will never again be complete. I will miss Leif all my life.

And I will always love him.

Two Years Since Leif Died

I was always worried about Leif having guns, worried about some accident happening, worried about his depression. He laughed at my fears and tried to teach me about guns. He got his concealed carry license here in Florida, which scared me still further, but my concern was primarily about accidents. I worried about his fast motorcycle and car driving, too.

I had never liked my sons playing with guns and never bought toy guns for them, but like most boys, they were fascinated with them, particularly Leif. He had some Japanese air guns he loved as a kid, and his father liked posing like James Bond with those "toy" guns. Leif did, too. The image was something they both appreciated, debonair, powerful.

But Leif had always liked guns, toys or real, and this photo is of him playing with one and pretending when he was in Tokyo, Japan on October 1982. He was seven years old. Little did I know when I took this photo that someday he would shoot himself in the head, that guns would no longer be fun, but the instrument of his death.

He died in the wee hours of April 9, 2008, two years ago, alone in his kitchen, drunk, after spending the evening with his friend Michael and another fellow. He gave no hint that he was thinking of killing himself and we will never know whether he was planning it or whether it was a spur of the moment decision.

We will never know whether he might still be alive but for the terrible combination of a new pistol and too much rum and Coke.

We will never know what made him unhappy or desperate enough to do it.

We will never even know whether it could have been some terrible, stupid accident (though I doubt that).

We will never know what his life could have become had he lived.

We will miss him all our days.

The Rollercoaster Ride of Romance and Disappointment

Leif's relationship with D continued to be a whirlwind of a rollercoaster ride. It was only a few months into their relationship when he began to see a pattern of behavior that was to to be the biggest problem between them. Things would go well for awhile and he'd be content with their life together. Then things would go downhill, usually after a drinking bout when D would lose control. They'd only been together for less than four months when she attacked him on one of those occasions and he called the police to keep things from escalating out of control. Although he broke up with her, like later occasions when similar situations occurred, Leif didn't have the heart to tell her to leave when she had nowhere to go, and despite the problems and what he called the "drama," he didn't want to be alone and he also didn't think he could afford the apartment by himself. As time when on, and as he always did until the end, he took her back. He cared about her despite the many issues that often made him miserable, and even afraid of what might happen to him. He came to believe that she had bipolar disorder and felt things would be improved with treatment, which he helped her to get. For some months, things got much better and he was enjoying life and her company.

He realized he loved her when she didn't come home one night. By the next morning, he was frantic, but found she had come back, and that she had been in an accident and at the hospital. At one point, he took her to visit her family in Georgia and it was then he told her that he loved her. I don't know whether D ever fully believed that Leif loved her. She's had such a harsh life and had been treated so badly that I don't think she felt she deserved love and happiness, though certainly she wanted them. She loved Leif and wanted him to marry her, but he was wisely cautious. As he wrote,

State of our Union
Saturday, March 3, 2007 1:28 PM
From: "Leif Garretson"

Hey D,

I think it's time for us to talk about where things stand in our relationship and where they are going. Things have changed a lot lately, some good, some bad. Some need to change again. Some I have already talked to you about. Some I have not. Here we go.

First, I love you, and I dare say I an IN Love with you. That is a good change. At least I hope it is. In the past I merely had affection for you. I had liked you. I had enjoyed having you around. In a word, I was content. But I was not in love.

I eventually realized I loved you and that you were my best friend but that I was not actually in love with you. I stayed with you because you gave me what I needed; sex and companionship and rent money. That is what I need. I wanted Love but I had not found it. I was ready to leave you a few times because the drama and strife outweighed the benefits.

So what has changed? Well, you did. You, at least for awhile became a happy person. This was around the time you started treatment. You were being responsible and happy and silly and fun.

You say you would take a bullet for me but then you break promises to me all the time. That is a big deal to me. I have been let down left and betrayed so many times. Loyalty and reliability are a big thing to me. Aren't they to you too? Given how many people have f#%&& you over, isn't one of the best qualities about me the constancy of my reliability? Isn't that what makes you feel safe and secure? In fact, isn't the only real insecurity that you have centered around whether you can trust your heart to love me? Well, I have that fear, too. I have resisted falling in love with you consciously because I didn't want to get hurt again like I did with J by opening up my heart to a person that has let me down over and over again and can't keep her promises to me.

You want me to marry you. That is the ultimate promise. You are promising to be my beloved partner and guardian of my heart for all time. Do you expect me to be able to trust you enough to do that when I can't trust you not to buy a bottle of Bacardi on a bad day and put us both in danger and pain? Seriously. How can you expect me to make that leap of faith and not only make but accept and trust that promise from you when you can't keep a little promise like not drinking liquor. I am not even asking you to quit drinking, just stop drinking THAT! Can you ask yourself that question? How can I expect Leif to promise me his heart and believe me when I promise to love and be the guardian of it when I have broken so many other promises not to hurt him? Ask that of yourself. Use it as a way to look at yourself and decide who you want to be. Then decide to become that person.

Remember the last BSG when Baltar claimed to be a far boy from Aralon? Remember how he changed who he was to become the Virtuous Caprican right down to his voice? We that is what you can and must decide to do. Not nearly so drastic as to change your voice, though it would improve things if you stopped cussing like a sailor in public around nice people. Just decide that you are going to rise above your past and become a polite professional Classy lady that people can count on.

It really not as hard as you think. You just have to decide who you want to be and become that person. Wanna know the secret? You reinvent yourself. You decide that the person you are is not the real you. It's who you were forced to be to survive your past. The real You is better, stronger, more reliable, polite, punctual, classy; you pick the adjectives. Just decide that if you are not happy with who you are today, decide who you want to be, and become that person tomorrow.

So when I did I know that I loved you? Well I think it was about a month ago when I started to realize it. In january things were getting better. We were having more fun, really having a good time. Then it all came down.

Ok, so you f$(*& up and lost your job. That is another thing you need to embrace honey. Excuses are like assholes. Everyone has got one and they ain't good for nothing but shit. Being responsible goes right along with being reliable. You keep up your obligations no matter what setbacks you have and you keep those obligations in mind and don't do things that will make it impossible to fulfill them.

I get that you are depressed and tired and you know what? So what? It's time to be a grown up and do what you got to do. That means getting your ass out of bed no matter how shitty you feel and doing what a grown up does to survive. And to remind you, it's not just about you anymore. You want me? You got me, and I come with bills and responsibilities. You want to marry me? Show me that you are going to be there for me and have my back, and not just on your good days.

When did I know I loved you? When you had the crash. When I thought I had lost you, worried that you were gone. I was truly afraid you could be dead or raped, or who knows? I was terrified about what might have happened to you. I could not sleep. I finally left very late to get some beer to help me sleep. I was miserable with worry. When I woke up I was deeply saddened that the bed was empty and you had not slipped in in the night, safe. I woke up with a pitiful sad look of worry on my face as I prepared to go to work and keep my obligations while my heart was dead with worry.

Then I heard a sound and called out to you and you answered. I felt a rush of emotion. I didn't know if I should be mad at you, relieved, happy, all I knew was you were alive and you were home and I ran to you. I held you and tried not to crush you because I wanted to squeeze you so tight. I was so happy you were all right I just wanted to cling to you. It was all I could do to eventually pull away and go to work. I was so happy you were back and safe. It was that night and morning that I knew that I am in love with you. As they say, “You don't know what you got till it's gone.” And I want you to know when you are in your down stages that it would destroy me if I lost you.

I can't explain to you why I love you other than that you give my life meaning. You give me purpose. I read somewhere that that is what men really need. to have a purpose and to succeed at it. Well, my purpose is to help you. To save you. To love you. It's the one thing I can do that matters to someone. It's the only thing that I do that matters to anyone. You say that the world wouldn't miss you if you were gone and that no one cares. Well, I feel the same way. Other than my parents, who would mourn my passing? Would the world even notice if Leif Garretson didn't show up for life tomorrow? Doubt it would. I am not a cop, a soldier, a paramedic, a doctor. What does my life mean to anyone but you? What good am I to anyone but you? This is the question that every man battles with; what value do I have? What meaning does my life have? What is my purpose?

It's the same reason why horses carry their mounts. It gives them purpose. They know their place and that they belong there. It's the same for all men. It's the same for me. You give me purpose. A man sees his mate much like a woman sees her child. If it seems I act like a father to you at times, that is why. My purpose in life is to take care of you, to protect you from the world and yourself. It's hard. It's a battle, but it's what I do. It's what gives my life meaning, because if my life means nothing to anyone else, it matters to you. You give me meaning in my life. But the other part needed is success, and lately I haven't felt very successful in helping you. But then, all I can do is help you help yourself.

I am here to take care of you but I am not purely a charity. I have needs and I have expectations. I have responsibilities. And you have been neglecting me lately. I know I have already exhausted your attention span so I will shut up now. Felt good to write it. I just hope you read it and take it seriously.

I love you,
Leif

I don't know exactly what happened after this email (which I have heavily edited), but things did not get better. There was another breakup, despite the love he had professed, and over the same issues, but once again, Leif did not force her to leave the apartment. They came to our house for Mother's Day 2007 and D told me she was upset and hurt that Leif was dating again. He told me that he had finally come to realize that whether they loved each other or not, the relationship was dysfunctional and destructive, and he said he was trying to help her see that they did not have a future together, but to help her find one without him. I asked him how I should treat her and he said, "As a good friend of mine and my roommate." It hurt D that he was dating others and though he had broken up with her, since she was still living in his apartment, it felt wrong to her that he was seeing other women. She finally got upset enough to go to stay with a friend. I was hopeful that both of them would get on with their lives and that the relationship would be over because I was very worried about the consequences of it continuing.

However, not long after D left the apartment, on July 12,2007, Leif had the motorcycle accident and was taken to the ER. I no longer remember exactly how D found out, but she took buses from where she was staying to the apartment, packed fresh clothing for him in a backpack, and took buses to the hospital. She loved him and came to be with him. When he was released from the ER, I wanted to take him to our home so I could take care of him, but he wanted to go back to his apartment. He could not take care of himself without help at that point, and D wanted to be there to help him. I was concerned about the consequences of that, because it put the two of them back together and I feared that was not a good idea.

D did take good care of Leif for a a time. He had surgery on his shattered collarbone and was in far more pain than he expected. During that time, he enrolled in the University of South Florida, which was not far from his apartment, in an effort to use his GI BIll benefits to help out with his expenses, since he wasn't going to be able to count on D helping out with the rent.

We were going to take a trip to China and needed transportation to the airport. We knew Leif was short on cash so we figured it would help him out if we paid him to take us there rather than paying some other transport service, and asked him to come stay overnight at our house on September 15th and take us to the airport on the morning of the 16th. We left for our three week trip, not knowing until we returned that when he got home from the airport, D had been drinking again and attacked him. He took a photo of himself all scratched up, and said she had tried to grab a sword to use on him. He called the police. That was the end of them living together, but he keenly felt the loss of purpose he had found in trying to help her better her life. He again felt useless and had no focus. It was two months later in November when he sent me that email that life held more pain and misery than happiness and he had no purpose in life.

However, true to Leif's past, he continued a friendship with D and played Dungeons and Dragons with her and others just two nights before he died.

I think it's terribly sad for both of them that they couldn't have found happiness together, but this relationship is such proof that love really doesn't conquer all, that love is all too often not enough.

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The photo of the contemplative Leif was taken on a PT boat taking us from Olongapo to Grande Island in the Philippines, in August 1982. Leif was seven-and-a-half years old.

What Does He Reveal?

The "Live-In Girlfriend Job Description" I posted yesterday reveals as much about Leif and the relationship he was hoping for as it does about the situation he found himself in. The fact that he referred to a "promotion" to wife shows that he was hoping and thinking that things would work out and go in that direction.

Leif was attracted to women that he felt needed some kind of male protection, someone who aroused his protective instincts, but someone who also was physically attractive and alluring. It was a kind of classic "damsel in distress" that gave him purpose. However, once he had "captured" this damsel, he invariably felt he needed to change or improve her, whether it was a simple matter of dyeing her hair red or a more thorough makeover including teaching her how to dress and behave like a lady, for Leif DID want a woman who behaved like an elegant (but sexy) lady in public. He wanted to be the knight with the beautiful lady that everyone else would look at and envy him.

However, though Leif wanted to change his woman, much like Professor Higgins in "My Fair Lady," he also didn't want to change himself and resisted all efforts to make him change. This created plenty of friction, as his ladies didn't see that as fair and didn't like some of his faults, particularly his intemperate spending.

D really did need Leif's protection and voice of change. She had had such a difficult life that she had never had the opportunity to live the kind of life Leif grew up with or could offer her. I think part of his attraction for her was that he felt he could teach her a different way of life and new ways of interacting with the world, and probably that was one of his attractions for her as well. The "job description" refers to going to school and bettering oneself, and helping each other to curb destructive vices. Leif tried hard to get D to go back to school and get a degree so that she could find better jobs, but during their time together, she wasn't ready to try it.

He didn't go into detail about the destructive vices, but one he must have been referring to was over consumption of alcohol, something which wasted a great deal of money, caused him to put on weight, and caused D to lose control of her actions at times. They both needed to stop drinking, but they couldn't seem to do it. Another was smoking, which he does refer to. I don't know whether Leif ever really clearly realized how destructive drinking was for him or not. I do know that once or twice he admitted to me that he needed to cut down and even toyed with the idea of joining AA if he could convince D to do it, too. I don't know whether Leif was an alcoholic or not but I do know that he drank far more than he should ever have.

The "job description" was one of Leif's many attempts to refine the gold he saw in D. There was much that he found endearing and appealing, but they both had many complaints about each other as well. Unforunately, although they both cared about each other, it was not a good match and they were in for a rollercoaster ride with many swift turns and ups and downs before the relationship finally ended.

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This photo of a silly Leif up in an apple tree was taken in the yard of our house in Sachsen bei Ansbach, Germany, in June 1979. Leif was four-and-a-half years old.

Another Short-Term Love Begins

In June 2005, at roughly the same time Leif was writing to J about the end of their relationship and to his friend about his wild ride around Tampa Bay on his motorcycle, he struck up a correspondence with LA, a woman he met through an online dating service. I say "met," but they didn't actually meet until they had corresponded and talked on the phone for well over a month. This was to be Leif's new mode, spending a lot of time getting to know a woman before he was willing to meet her in person. This woman was a very prolific correspondent and he seemed to love it. The email between them was by far the most I saw him write to anyone. She brought out a willingness to express himself that I didn't see with anyone else, at least not to that extent. And, he quickly began to hope for a real love and romance again. After only corresponding for about a week, he wrote the message below to her.

July 3, 2005

Now its my turn to babble at you while a bit out of my mind. I have had a a few drinks and am tired and am freed of my inhibitions and logical nature. This will be one of the times you get to hear my thoughts without the filter of goal oriented, logical reasonisng. Enjoy and and try not t hold it against me or take too much advantage.

I know I have been telling you not to get your hopes up but I should be telling that to myself instead. I am not sure what it is but I have an instinct about you and I think we may have something. Despite my better judgement I am getting my hopes up. I have waited so long to meet a woman I could be happy with. Have I told you that I think that the most brilliant symbol in the universe is the Yin Yang? That is such a profound sybollic image for me, a full circle made of two parts, each flowing into the other, each one half of the whole; complete opposite, but each having a little of the other inside them so they can understand each other. But therwise opposites. Neither is complete alone.

That is how I have always felt. Like I was a Yang looking for a Yin. I am a brilliant man, tall, strong, and some say good looking. I am very smart and educated. Talented, and from what I hear, pretty good in bed. I am on one hand one hell of a guy.

On the other hand.....

I am a complete mess.

I am a horrible bachelor. I hate cleaning. I am totally inept at all things domestic. My bedroom is covered with piles of clean clothes that I will likely never fold. My kitchen will always be full of dishes that need to be done. I am on one hand very independent and impressive, and on the other a completely hopeless mess that needs a woman to take care of me.

I like the idea that two people can take care of each other, that a man can care for and support and provide for a woman and she can make a home for him and their children. I have much more respect for a woman that can be a good wife and mother than one that can be a CEO of a company. Not that women can't do such things, and not that I wouldn't respect a woman that chose to or doubt their capability, but I believe that the feminine tasks often considered "Women's work" are some of the most noble and valuable tasks in society.

I believe that the most perfect relationship we could hope for is one where each person takes care of the other, performing all the tasks that the other is not suited for.

Yes, he should have been telling himself not to get his hopes up, but as I've written before, once something "clicked" with a woman, he was racing ahead in his hopes and dreams, wishing so hard that he'd found the one who could be the person he was writing about above, the one who could make a home for him, give him something to come home TO, someone to work for, someone to complete him.

One of the other things he discovered in the course of this correspondence was how fulfilling it was to find a woman who was intelligent and literate. Here's what he had to say about it:

I never used to think that was a priority to me, having an intelligent mate. Friends told me it was what I needed but to be perfectly honest, and a the risk of sounding a bit arrogant, I am *($(%*&ing brilliant. I think I already told you that I test at between a 120 and 140 IQ, so I am used to being smarter than everyone around me. The only woman I have ever known that can match my intellect is my own mother, which in combinaton with my father's very strange and different sort of brilliance, produced my mind.

I never made finding a smart woman a priority because intelligent conversation was not something that I necessarily needed from a mate, if you can understand that. I can get philosophical discussion from a platonic friend. What I need from a woman is physical and emotional intimacy.

The problem I did run into, though, which I didn't foresee, is that on some level I did not have the same respect for women that I felt to be my intellectual and educational inferiors. While I never did anything to deliberately make any of them feel inferior, I would just be myself and some women, including my ex wife, would not understand what I was talking about, and as she said to me, "I feel stupid when I am around you," which is not something I want to hear. I don't want to hear that me being myself makes my significant other feel bad about herself.

By July 17th, he was falling in love with a woman he had never met, thinking already about a future together. In typical Leif fashion, he wrote things to her when he was drunk, when his inhibitions were loosened. Leif was a mellow drunk. Even when he'd had a lot to drink (and at his size and with his history of drinking, he could drink a lot without appearing drunk), he was lucid. I think one of the reasons he drank so much was to lower his inhibitions . . . and also to help himself sleep, to chase away the demons and the depression, but in the end, so much alcohol was terribly bad for his health, made him gain a lot of weight, and probably increased the depression he was trying to escape.

However, in July 2005, he was still hoping for love, falling in love fast, and writing this to LA after corresponding and talking just over three weeks. The subject line on this email was "Slightly Drunken Ramblings."

Hello My Sweet.

It is late, not  really late, but kinda late, and I am not really drunk, but kinda drunk. Just cracked my 6th Corona, which is enough to have me feeling mellow and a bit less inhibited.

Somehow I feel compelled to talk to you, though I am not sure I have anything specific to say. What does that mean? That I crave contact with you for no reason in particular. The truth is, I missed you tonight. That is a strange and bitter-sweet feeling. I have not even met you, yet I already am missing you.

Tonight I am filled with incomplete thoughts, things that are going on in my heart and mind that I can't necessarily articulate. I do have one thought in my head that is bouncing around. I seem to remember saying it to you, but then it may just be deja vu and I only thought of saying it to you.

That thought is that I want to tell you things that some other part of me says I should not. It is that the part that remembers all those stories saying how you do not reveal to much and never admit to anything so that you can maintain power etc., all those bullshit games that people play to get what they want according to what players of the dating game tell us what we are supposed to do. Don't reveal to much. Don't give up control, don't be too enthusiastic. I HATE THAT!!!

I have always hated the game. Hated the bullshit maneuvering, manipulation, and defense mechanisms that people use to try and get what they want without ever exposing themselves or relinquishing control. Never give up the advantage. I am sick of it. Does no one know how to be honest anymore? Does no one have the courage? I suppose not. I have been guilty of romantic cowardice on many occasions.

So that part of me is trying to tell me that I should keep my mouth shut and maintain the advantage. That may be the way to play things if I was looking for a piece of ass but I feel something different with you. The very thought of not being honest with you disgusts me right now.

Pause, sorry if I am rambling or if this is a bit random and disorganized, but as I said, this is not a coherent thought. I am just typing what comes to me.

Anyway, what I am getting at is that I feel a real connection to you. My rational mind tells me I am nuts and that I should not put much stock in this but my heart is in another place. You said you had a feeling about us. Women's intuition. I, too, have a feeling, a feeling I often try not to indulge.

I suppose that after my last relationship with J, where I got my heart broken so badly, I am wary of getting my hopes up. I don't ever want to feel that way again. Yet I can't deny what I am feeling with you and that my instincts tell me there is really something here.

So anyway, I am rambling again. What I am trying to say is that I have a powerful feeling about you. I am, despite myself, very hopeful about what may become of us. I have often dreamed and hoped that I might one day meet that perfect girl that could complete me, that could fulfill me and give me everything I need and want, and who needed and wanted everything that I could give. But now I am on one hand elated that I just might have found her, and terrified that this could just be a cruel joke played by the fates.

I hope this is not a dream that will not be. On the other hand, I have many thoughts that are quite premature and things that few men would ever acknowledge. I picture moments in our future. Moments men are trained not to get into and images we never seem to want to admit.

I find myself lying in bed, or alone and tired and bored at work, and I have images come to me that are beautiful and wonderful but of which I have no guarantee they will ever be. When I am in bed going to sleep, I often find my arms around a pillow, imagining it is you, and imagining we have been together. I imagine what it would be like to tell you that I loved you and to have you tell me so also. I miss saying those words and meaning it. I love the thought that if we do work out that someday I might be saying them to you everyday. Of course I imagine making love to you but I also imagine our lives later. Imagining our wedding. Imagining you pregnant with my child.

This may be a little much. Now I worry about scaring you off. I am not insane. I am telling you things because I am conflicted between my practical self and my hopeful self.

I am suddenly fading fast. Beers gone, very sleepy. Bottom line, LA, is that you are special to me and I have a very strong feeling about you. I want to write more but I must crash. I hope that you will value this uninhibited glimpse into my mind.

Leif.

Despite all his love of gadgets and guns, his need for speed, his cars and motorcycles, deep inside Leif was an old-fashioned romantic looking for an old-fashioned relationship, one of love and rather traditional roles . . . but he would have wanted a woman who could tolerate those aspects of his personality that would have been challenging, and I wonder if he could have curbed them, or moderated his drinking. Perhaps. Sometimes it is love that makes things change. We will never know.
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The photo of Leif was taken May 31, 2003 in Dover, Delaware at his brother's home where we were holding a surprise family reunion in honor of Leif's grandmother's 85th birthday. He had just graduated from Kansas State University and was opening his graduation gift from his brother. He was 28 years old.

Escapist Driving Way Too Fast

During the very same time Leif was back in contact with J and telling her how her leaving had affected him, professing his love, and seeming to us as though he were still depressed, spending endless hours online playing Planetside and drinking himself to sleep with several beers every night, he was portraying a far different picture, at least for a short time, to some others. Reading his email now, it seems almost schizophrenic.

On the one hand, he was in a new job and had hopes of rising in the company to a substantial income. He was looking for female companionship and love online with match.com and eharmony.com and other dating sites. He spent most of his off-work time at home, though he was dating, and most of his time at home online playing games and looking for women. I was still worried about him. And also worried because although he was earning a good living and basically had no living expenses living with us that year, he wasn't saving any money for his eventual move to Tampa. Instead, he bought his new super-fast Suzuki motorcycle.

We had never liked him riding a cycle, partly because we knew of the inherent danger (which he pooh-poohed) and partly because we were certain that it increased that danger immensely by driving far too fast, which he did in his car as well. It was a continue worry to us that he would smash himself up in a motorcycle crash and either kill himself or be maimed for life. I've posted exchanges between us about that before, including the account of the accident he did have, ironically at a low speed in Tampa in traffic when a car swerved in front of him. I always kept my cell phone with me in case he had to call in an emergency, or some emergency personnel called me. I will always remember the call that I did get that July 2007, from a young couple who stopped and helped him when he had the accident in Tampa.

I guess we were all lucky that he never killed himself or anyone else with his cycle or car. I am thankful for that. I'm thankful he never injured or maimed himself or anyone else. And reading the email I am going to post makes me aware just how great that danger was.

Leif wanted love, a home life, a purpose. Maybe if he'd found it, he would have modified his behavior. Maybe not. We will never know, but I do know that I told him that if he was going to continue to live like that, he'd better get a large term life insurance policy and be sure if he married he had a wife prepared to be a widow or take care of an invalid. He peppered me with statistics showing that most motorcycle accidents happen in a cycle rider's first six months when they are not experience riders, but that didn't satisfy my concerns.

Despite Leif's desire for a home life and love, he didn't seem to grasp that the kind of life he was leading was not going to help him find that. He did what he did because his life was empty and he filled it with thrill rides, hooked on adrenaline. He loved riding more than anything else in his life. As he stated to me more than once, he would rather be homeless than without a motorcycle. It really was an addiction for him. I sometimes wonder whether even that had something to do with his suicide, that because of his debts he might have to face giving up and selling his cycle . . . something his dad had urged him to do, though we didn't know the extent of his debts that final time around until after he died. He hid that from us, thinking, I'm sure, that he didn't want us to know he had gotten in over his head a third time, and this time worse than the others.

But in June 2005, three months after moving to Florida, he was still hopeful, still alternating between the hope of a bright future in a new, sunny, warm place (so that he had less problems with his asthma), the hope of meeting a new love, the joy of owning a new, super-fast cycle, and the depression that was still there after losing J. Like many men, he "medicated" his depression with expensive man-toys and dangerous, fast living. He got far too little sleep most of the time, drank too much, and drove too fast.

Leif lived like there was no tomorrow
And it became tragically true.

It took less than three years from the time he wrote this "triumphant" email (one which horrifies me at his admissions of extreme speeds) to a male friend to the suicide when riding no longer overcame the dark depression. He might not have lived as long as he did if anything had gone wrong on a ride like this one.

It seems to me there is way more than a little self-delusion here, for a man who is writing to his lost love and missing her terribly, the same lost love he was still writing to two months before he died. That man was escaping through adrenaline. He was not happy. It may have been a euphoric day for him, the one he describes, but it never lasted. This may be a portrait, the best one I've seen, of the possibility of bipolar disorder.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005, 6:01 PM

Want to know the real reason you see less people online? How's this for an excuse for absence?

So, Sunday I chill out and play PS cuz it's raining. Watch a movie for a change and finally got to bed around 2 a.m. Wake up at 5 a.m. to go to work. Work from 6:30 a.. to 1:30 p.m. Come home, post topic about Markov play. Go to doctor's office to make sure I am in good standing for when the VA audits my disability.

So, then I get out of there and decide to find out where the doctor's office road goes. OOOOh, lots of secluded straightaways for doing wheelies. Twist the throttle a few times, scare some cows at a farm I didn't even know was there and end up on Hwy 301 south. Pass the light and hit the throttle again. Roll down the wheelie and chill looking at the big puffy white clouds and blue sky and walls of green trees on either side and think to myself how unfair it is to the rest of humanity that they don't live in sunny Florida.

I glance down at the speedo and an amused smile comes over my face as I realize I am doing 103 down 301.

While I consider 103 mph a perfectly reasonable cruising speed on a nice lonely highway I sadly ran into traffic and had to slow down. Damn semis throw up so much sand. OK, drop a gear, twist the gas and zoooom right around the semi. Ah, sand free fresh air again. OH LOOK! 135mph. OK, maybe I should slow down.

By now I am way down the road. Could turn around in some farmer's driveway but why? It's gorgeous out. Why turn around? To go home and play Planetside? I think not. So, sign says 35 miles to Sarasota. Why not? I haven't rode through Sarasota yet.

So I cruise on down, hit the coast and run down Anna Maria Island through Bradenton Beach. Stop at Coquina Beach to check it out. Drooled a bit at a way to hot and probably too young Yummy Redhead in an Ursula Andress bikini.

So, back on the road. Rolled down to St. Armand's Circle and did a loop. Hopped off at Lido beach, watched some bikinis, listened to the waves crash and then headed into Sarasota in search of a beer and grouper sandwich.

Sadly, could not find a nice salty beach bar with grilled mahimahi to die for so hit Hwy 41 north to head back. Then saw the sign. "Motorcycle Mondays" at Hooters. 10% off your bill if you rode in. I'm there. Got me a big grouper sandwich and sucked down two ice waters and an Amber bock while watching a parade of hotties in tit-hugging tanks tops go by.

Paid the bill, ripped a wheelie out of the parking lot and headed back.

Was about to hit the turn for the interstate home and then impulse got the better of me. Cranked the throttle, turned left and hit the Sunshine Skyway over Tampa Bay on my way to to St Pete Beach to watch the sunset. Looked around. It's a long bridge and no cops around, so after a moment to appreciate the view, twisted the throttle and rolled up to the top of the bridge at 140 mph. Rolled it back to enjoy the view front the top of the Skyway bridge, then looked down to see a huge gap in the cars. A question entered my mind: how fast could I get this thing up to before I catch up to those cars ahead? Answer: 150 mph as it turned out. Rolled it back a bit and cruised through traffic at about 85 till I hit St. Pete Beach.

Pulled up to the "Daquiri Deck" in St. Pete Beach just in time to sip a pina colada as the sun went down. Started up around towards Tampa again and realized I was gettin tired. It was 9:30 p.m. and save for Hooters and the daq I had been in the saddle since since 4:00 p.m. So I was up around where this girl I used to date said she lived.

So I called her. She invites me over. I am all hot and sweaty. Need a shower bad. She says let's jump in the pool. So there I am floating on my back in an 80 degree pool with a chick in a bikini thinking, “Wow life really sucks. how am I going to survive?” (sarcasm)

So it starts to get chilly. We go inside and get out of the wet suits. She starts showing me the latest sex toys she has to demo at her next couples' party and we chit chat about that. {One thing leades to another . . . } Then I must say goodbye. Looks like rain is coming and she has to work early. Life's rough.

So I am riding down Adamo Drive on my way towards Brandon, making my full loop of Tampa Bay and it starts to thunder out. I am a bit refreshed from a fresh swim but I could stand to get out of the saddle for a bit and don't want to get wet.

There isn't much on Adamo but closed car dealerships but I happen to notice a sign at "Showgirls" full nude club that says "Free admission with Military ID." I think, Hmm, I got a military ID. It's right here. It's gonna rain and if I am going to be stranded inside till it blows over I might as well be surrounded by hot naked chicks.

So that was fun.

Hung out, stared at all the yummy pussy that filled the room and fought off girl after girl trying to take me upstairs for a lap dance. I kept telling them I was just chilling but they just wouldn't stop. I am like, Look, I just came in here because it was free and I didn't want to get soaking wet and freeze on the ride home. They didn't take the hint and finally one particularly well-endowed one brought a friend and they double teamed me. They keep asking, "Why don't you like us? Don't you want to go have some fun?" To which I finally replied, "Look sweetie, don't get me wrong. You a babe, but not two hours ago I had a girl that didn't cost me a cent, so why would I want to pay you $25 do do far less?" They finally let up, as did the rain.

So, I hopped back in the saddle and on the way back home decided I was sick of I-75 and there are not likely to be a lot of cops on lonely Hwy 301 at 1:30 a.m. on a Monday night. I was right and ooooh what a sight. A lone, endless, perfectly straight road into the blackness. The little devil on my shoulder peeked behind to make sure the coast was clear. Yup, not a car in sight. No traffic. Throttle twisting back farther and farther.

70 mph, 80 mph, 90 mph, 100 mph, 110 mph, 120 mph. Such speeds are routine and commonly achieved while passing or heading up onramps on this thing. But then I kept twisting. 130 mph. Wind getting intense. Don't want to take eyes off the road. Curiosity gets the better of me and I look. 145 mph and still climbing like mad. 150 mph.

I look ahead to make sure there is plenty of road before I dare to take my eyes off and look down at the speedo again. Still miles of nothing ahead. I glance down quickly. 165 MPH!!!!! and still pulling hard. This thing is beyond evil. I shut it down and coast back to the speed limit and savor the shit-eating grin on my face. Then I look behind me. Nothing. Look ahead of me. More nothing. So now what? DO IT AGAIN, but this time in a lower gear so I get there FASTER. Muahahahahahah. Some day I will see the top end of 187 mph.

After some more foolish but fun life endangerment I make it to the intersection of my home. Take a right, hammer the gas, rip a nice power wheelie and then coast to the light and turn onto my street. A nice leisurely ride past all the houses looking at the moon, into the driveway and drop my keys on the counter.

I head to the computer and see a message from this girl from match.com. The one that is a real estate broker by day and a exotic dancer by night. You should see the pictures. Tells me I shoudl come out to her club tonight so we can finally meet. I think I just might. May not see me online tonight either.

And that was a $)#*&%ing MONDAY!!!

I wish I had two accounts so that I could TK myself next time I log on for having this much fun.

Well, the bike is beckoning. Got women to meet. Some guy that wants to to give me a job at almost double my already generous salary, an ultra hot rich stripper girl to meet tonight, and two other girls that want to get together tomorrow.

Yea,h Summer in Florida.

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The photo of Leif on his Suzuki (which was stolen from his apartment complex parking lot in Tampa after less than a year) was taken as he rode out of our driveway on November 7, 2005, almost exactly two years before he wrote the email to me saying his life was purposeless and bleak. What a contrast.

The Importance of Sleep

Today I read an article about a British study of teenagers and sleep that showed that teens who had an established bedtime at 10:00 p.m. were less likely to be depressed than those whose parents allowed them to stay up until midnight or later. The speculation was that continual sleep deprivation is likely to lead to depression and a rise in suicidal thoughts and suicide. This is really no surprise, as the link between sleep deprivation and depression is well established. One of the problems with adults is finding out whether depression causes difficulties sleeping, or whether lack of sleep causes depression, though I suspect both are the case in a kind of vicious circle.

Our family unfortunately has a history of insomnia, which is bad enough when you don't have to get up early and go to work daily, but is far worse when you can't sleep later or during the day to make up for it. Leif suffered from insomnia, but beyond that, he didn't like to go to bed. He would stay up until the wee hours of the morning watching television and playing online computer games, which he loved, but that hyped him up so he couldn't sleep. Then he tried to drug himself to sleep with beer.

One reason Leif didn't like to go to bed at a decent hour despite the fact that he had to go to work was the family night owl gene, which nearly all of us seem to have, but two other factors were the just plain bad habit of going to bed really late (one that I have, too) and the fact that there wasn't anything attractive about the bed when he had to go to bed alone. Leif was a man who liked to cuddle up and there was no one for him to cuddle up with much of his adult life, and certainly not the last months of it, though he tried hard to find love.

Continual sleep deprivation has also been linked to weight gain, and Leif also had a problem with that.

Enough sleep would not have solved his many other problems, but he certainly would have felt better physically and mentally if he had slept regularly and long enough. Perhaps life would not have seemed quite so bleak or his depression so deep. The night before he died, in the early morning hours of April 9, 2008, he had stayed up visiting with friends and drinking. Lack of sleep and alcohol both increase depression and impair judgement. Could it have been as simple as him saying to himself, drunk and worn out, that it wasn't worth getting up in the morning to go to work just to try to pay his debts? We will never know, but I can conceive of it.

I look back at all the photos of his life, and I am grateful for all the smiles and joy in his childhood and teen photos, and I'm glad I made sure he got enough sleep in those years when I had some control over it.

I have been fortunate in my life that sleep deprivation has made me tired at times, but not depressed. I hope it never will. I am also fortunate that I no longer have to force myself to get up early every morning no matter how tired I am and go to work, especially since I seem to sleep most soundly after about 3:00 a.m.

-----------------------

This photo of Leif was taken at Fort Sheridan, Illinois in July 1987. He was 12 years old.

Bad luck and bad choices

Today Peter W. (Leif's father) told me that I make Leif out to be some kind of paragon, handsome, brilliant, and so on, and I countered that I have written blog posts about his poor choices and inability to manage his spending, his drinking, procrastination, terrible housekeeping, lousy record keeping, and fast driving, and that I'm quite clear-eyed about the real person my son was. It's true; I have a balanced view of him, but he WAS brilliant and handsome, and he had many wonderful qualities as well. What he didn't have was good luck . . . and in many cases, good judgement about relationships, job choices and spending money. He was a decent man who didn't harm others and showed remarkable restraint when dealing with people who were very difficult, even those who hurt him. And yet he could be exasperating, uncommunicative and evasive, or by turns helpful and generous or sullen and withdrawn.

But regardless of any of that, he was my son and I loved him dearly, and I appreciated his good qualities and regret all the times I had to talk to him or write to him about his finances or things he needed to get done. It makes me sad to look at the email and mail I sent to him, so often only filled with admonitions, financial figures, or in relation to some legal issue he had to deal with, such as the time he spun his car around near a car dealership and threw up some gravel that damaged some windshields or the time he was trying to get his apartment management to stop charging him for damage that was in the apartment when he rented it (and he had photos he had taken to them when he moved in to prove it). These were things I helped him with and we had to go over all that, but there is so little of our written communication that really reflects our relationship, all the great discussions we had, or the love we had for each other.

I not only miss what was, I miss what could have been. So much potential that was never realized. So much hope that was lost.
-------------------------------

This photo of Leif when he was super slender as a senior in high school was taken in our old stone house in December 1992 when Leif was almost 18. He would have been 18 a month after this was taken. I don't really like this photo of him. He looks sad, pained and haunted, and that's not how I remember him at that time, but perhaps there was that aspect to his life as he was kind of a loner and had been moved away from his friends in Puerto Rico. He never developed that kind of circle of friends in the brief time he was at Manhattan High School.

Set apart by a quick and brilliant mind?

A few days ago, Peter had a "House" program on television that was about a brilliant physicist who used drugs to dumb down his mind so that he could be happy with other less intelligent people and enjoy being with his "stupid" wife. In the end, he said it was more important to have love and companionship than to be smart. He felt that his high intelligence set him apart from others and made it impossible for him to be close to them.

It's terrible to think that someone would have to make such a choice, but the story rung a bell with me. I remember Leif saying something similar, that it was so hard to find people he could be with because they couldn't think or discuss things on his level and found him intimidating. He felt set apart and outside the normal human discourse except with certain individuals. On top of that, he was shy unless he felt comfortable with people and wasn't good at being outgoing and meeting others. He preferred to hang back and watch and try to get a good feel for others and the "lay of the land" before trying to make contact. It made him a loner much of the time.

Leif was desperate for love and companionship and spent much of his time trying to find it. It was all the harder because although he was willing to be friend or lover to someone less intelligent than he was, he did crave someone who could keep up with his mind, and too many people shied away from his brilliance. He was so lonely. I think he drank for many reasons; to drown his sorrows, to loosen him up, to dampen his mind and be more outgoing with others.

I loved that brilliance and loved to discuss things with him. I learned so much and I miss that. I also miss his knowledge of electronic things, computers, and his problem-solving abilities. A couple of days ago my mother's computer (one she bought from Leif in January 2008) wouldn't access the internet. She called me for help but I couldn't solve the problem and told her she would have to call her ISP. She did and spent hours on the phone with them without success. Then they send a technician and he spent a couple of hours at her house trying to figure out and fix the problem. When he was done, he had pulled out a powerful graphics card Leif had installed, saying it was very hot. I don't think the fan on it was working. He also pulled out the WIFI card, saying that was what was preventing her from accessing the internet, though this computer wasn't accessing it wirelessly. I still don't understand why he had to remove it, but Mom can get on the internet now. If Leif had been here, he probably would have had it figured out more quickly, and also be able to tell me whether the graphics and WIFI cards are still any good. I don't even know how to test them.

Then this afternoon, Peter W. wanted to put a wall hanging we purchased in India on the living room wall. It involved climbing about 5 feet up a ladder and putting fasteners on the wall a good 9 feet or so off the floor, while reaching over the television and stand. It was quite an ordeal and it reminded me again of all the things Leif did for us here, including putting up other things that high on the walls. He seemed to do things with ease that it's hard for us to do.

How could he ever have possibly thought he wasn't needed? He was needed in so many ways, the most important of which was just be together, just to love each other. I miss him, and I'm sorry he felt estranged from so much of the world, so lonely. I wish I could just hug him.
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This photo of Leif was taken April 19, 1991 in Puerto Rico. Leif was 16 years old.

Leif Fighting for the Right of Young Soldiers to Drink

Leif rarely wrote long emails or sent letters to politicians, but there were occasions when he was sufficiently aroused and incensed to do so. The day after his 29th birthday was one of those occasions when he was moved to send a long, passionate letter to Kansas Senator Brownback.

Anyone who knew Leif knows how much he enjoyed beer and Leif well knew how much his soldier comrades in arms enjoyed them, too. It was his passion about what they enjoyed, and what he felt was a demeaning injustice that moved him to write.

The photo of him with the beer stein was taken at a family gathering on July 29, 2004, exactly six months after he wrote this.
------------------------------------

From: "Leif Garretson"
Date: Thu Jan 29, 2004 23:56:07 US/Central
Subject: 18 old enough?

Dear Senator Brownback,

I am writing to you after years of stewing but have been driven by a moment of livid inspiration. I will admit that at the time I am writing this I am a bit intoxicated. However, that should have little bearing on the validity of my claim, a claim that has to do with the very right of certain Americans to enjoy such pleasures. I am Veteran. I served in the US Army infantry, 2nd batallion, 87th INF, out of Ft Drum New York. I spent time in Bosnia and the Middle East. I served my coutry with pride until I was medically retired for asthma in 2001. I still have several friends on active duty. Many of whom are being sent to Iraq.

Another important fact is that Yesterday was my 29th Birthday. This is significant in my mind because many people petition for laws or policies that affect them but few campaign for others. In this case I do campaign for others and I do so out of a matter of principal and justice not out of a desire for self gain.

So what has me writing to you tonight? Well, I was at my father's house tonight, who is also a 24 year veteran of the US ARMY and we were watching the Channel 11 News Hour with Jim Lehrer, or whatever it is. I am not sure. The point being that they displayed the Honor Roll of servicemen that died in Iraq today.

The first man listed, whose name I regrettably do not remember, yet who I Salute none the less, was 20 years old. This upset me and I will not equivocate when I say that I felt a flush of emotion that frankly pissed me off.

This was a MAN!! With a capital M. A service MAN!!! A MAN that volunteered to serve his country. A MAN that was sent to war by his president. A MAN that was old enough to VOTE for that president. A MAN that was considered old enough to carry an automatic weapon. A MAN that was entrusted with the lives of his fellow soldiers. A MAN that was trusted with thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars of equipment. Yet this MAN could not be trusted to have a beer at the local pub with his squad mates.

HOW WRONG IS THAT????

Our country considers him enough of a man to enlist. Enough of a man to fight for his country. Enough of a man to leave his loved ones behind at the will of our president. Enough of a man to carry a machinegun. Enough of a man to kill in the name of America. Enough of a man to DIE!!! in the name of America.!!!! Yet we do not consider him enough of a man to decide if he can have a drink? We trust him to decide if a living human being lives or dies in Iraq per the Rules of Engagement but we do not trust him to decide if he can have a Budweiser after work.

I am well of age to drink myself. This no longer affects me. But nevertheless I find this morally objectionable to think that MEN have died for this country that could not even have beer with their unit before they deployed. That there are men today that are lying wounded in VA hospitals that are not old enough to have a drink when they are released. But they were old enough to take a bullet for the good ole' USA.

I find it hypocritical and morally reprehensible for us to allow these men to go to war, to their deaths, for a country that claims they are not mature enough to buy themselves a beer when they are old enough to die to protect your freedom and mine. These MEN defend our freedoms to enjoy ourselves and the idea that these MEN should not enjoy the very freedoms that they purchase for us at the cost of their very lives is morally reprehensible.

Therefore I ask that you, Senator, propose a bill that would lower the drinking age to 18 years of age. If a Man or woman is old enough to go to war and to kill and die for this country, they certainly should be old enought to enjoy a drink before they do so. Those of us "of Age" that sit here safe in America can do so when we choose, thankful that we are not across an ocean sweating in the sand. Yet no small number of men over there defending our right to do so do not share that same right. And that, Dear Senator, is Wrong.

Thank You,

Leif Garretson

Leif's Twenty-First Home - Sun City Center, Florida - March 2005 to February 2006

In March 2005 we moved part of our household goods and all of Leif's, including his Yamaha motorcycle, to the house we had purchased in Florida. Since I wasn't going to be able to move there permanently with the rest of our things until September 2006, we had two extra bedrooms he could use and live with his dad while looking for a job and a place to live. He set up one room as an office/entertainment area with his computer, stereo system, television and a love seat, and the other as his bedroom. He spent a lot of time in his office area online, looking for jobs, playing online games, and searching for women to meet and date. Peter W. appreciated having someone there for company, at least part of the time.

Leif found a job working for Amscot, a financial services company that makes payday loans and offers free money orders. He had hopes of moving up in the company and was promoted to assistant manager at one of their storefront locations, but a fellow employee had it in for him and he ended up leaving the company and going to work for Alltel in their Tampa call center. Since Alltel had purchased Western Wireless, the cell phone company he had worked for in Manhattan, Kansas, he came on with some seniority and a little bit better wage than a new hire would have gotten, and again hoped to move up.

He still seemed depressed to me, but not as much so as he had in Manhattan. However, he still would get down in the dumps, couldn't sleep, and would take his back pack out on his cycle and get a couple of six packs of beer and sit in front of the computer drinking one after another until in the wee hours he would finally manage to drink himself to sleep in his chair.

During his time living in this home with his dad, Leif sold hjs Yamaha cycle and bought the fast yellow Suzuki you've seen photos of. That seemed to brighten him up. He knew that we disapproved of his taking on a loan for a more expensive cycle (he had paid the other one off) when he still owed us a lot of money, including the money for the Dodge Stratus we loaned him the money for when he graduated from KSU in May 2003. Despite the friction over that, he loved riding that new cycle around the Bay area at terrifying speeds, making us terrified that he would kill or maim himself or someone else that way.

He also totalled the Stratus in an accident in Tampa in December 2005 on his way to a date and then bought the silver Mazda RX-8, saddling himself with large monthly payments for two vehicles. He loved that car, too!

We had hoped he would be able to save up a nice nest egg while living here, since he had minimal expenses, but he kept spending money wildly, another symptom of depression. He could been in good financial shape, and we tried to talk to him about it and about how he was going to have to move out when I finally moved down to stay and would need money for a deposit on an apartment and money for more furnishings, but he insisted it would be "no problem." After he died, I found an email he wrote to someone else that said he had saved up a thousand dollars before he moved out of our house. I didn't know he had managed to save up even that much, but it was a drop in the bucket compared to what he should have saved.

In January 2006, right around his 31st birthday, he met Donna and was captivated. They knew each other barely six weeks when they decided to get an apartment together in Tampa. He moved out of our house and into that apartment in February 2006, and lived barely two years longer.
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The photos above are:
1. Leif showing his grandmother, Marion S. Kundiger, her first (surprise!) cell phone, which he and I got her for Christmas, on December 25, 2005.
2. Leif in his "office" in our house in Florida, March 13, 2005, only a few days after moving in there.
3. Our home.

What Was He Thinking on April 9, 2008?

One of the hardest things about being a family member or friend of someone who commits suicide is the endless question, "Why?" No matter how well I can outline all the misery Leif went through, the previous suicidal feelings, and the current problems he had, I still can't really fathom it. I keep feeling there is something missing, something we don't know.

When his brother read the philosophy paper, he said he didn't understand what Leif could feel so guilty about that he would take his life, since the passage he had open on his laptop dealt with guilt. That is a particularly hard question to answer because Leif claimed he never felt guilty and that guilt did not motivate him. However, perhaps he meant that to cover guilt that others tried to induce, not something he felt from inside himself. And perhaps there was something at the end that we didn't know about that he did feel guilty about, whether it was the debts or something else.

Leif also insisted he had no regrets about decisions he had made and the way he led his life. That was hard for me to accept, too. I think he probably convinced himself that was true, but it's unimaginable to me that he wouldn't regret some of the things he chose that turned out badly, even if they were the simple ones like eating and drinking too much. More likely, he chose to define regret differently than I do.

We saw him 17 days before he died and he was animated and happy, seemed full of hope and enthusiasm, and in love. What happened in those short days to bring him to suicide? Was it just the final collapse of his finances caused by the loan rejections after he lost his GI Bill stipend? Was he so ashamed that he had messed up his finances and credit rating again that he didn't want to come to us? Was his pride so high that he couldn't face a lesser lifestyle? He could have sold his cycle to help with his debts, though it would not have covered them, but that would have meant giving up something he truly loved. Was it easier for him to give up his life than it was to face the problems and give up things he didn't want to live without?

Or was there something more?

Was the trigger pulled because he had "rationally" made up his mind to put an end to his problems and his life? Or was it pulled because he was in a depressive funk that he might have pulled out of? Or, did he have a good evening with Michael and decide to end it while he was happy, not wanting to face the problems again?

Or, was he so drunk that he was careless and stupid with a new gun, played a dangerous game of "what if" with the gun against his forehead, lurched or had a momentary blackout from alcohol and lack of sleep and more or less accidentally pulled the trigger?

We will never know. What makes more sense to me, though I cannot know if it is the "truth," is that after Michael and Jaime left at 3:00 a.m., he went out to the kitchen and got those carrots and the dip, taking the gun and bullets with him. He loaded the gun and was sighting with it, checking it out, as he did with all his guns, and probably still drinking either a beer or rum and Coke. A beer bottle was on the floor near him and a bottle of spiced rum was on the counter. Standing there, drunk, exhausted, thinking about how he had to be at work at 8:00 a.m. and how crappy that was, thinking about how he worked and worked and all his money at this point was going to pay for his car loan, car insurance, credit cards, and apartment, with precious little left for anything else including gasoline and food, and he'd just blown nearly $500 on another gun. I could see him thinking that life wasn't worth it, that he had no love, no companionship, and worked just to support his debts at that point, and he didn't want to ask anyone else for money. I could see him thinking that since he hadn't heard from D. in several days, that his new love wasn't going to work out for him either. I could see him in a dark mood just making a snap decision to just get it over with and end the pain, a decision he might not have made it he weren't drunk, discouraged and exhausted. I can see him setting out the loan rejection letters, his tax return, and setting up the photo and philosophy paper on his laptop, and going out to the kitchen for another drink. I can almost hear him saying, "Oh, what the shit," and pulling the trigger.

However it happened, the result is the same. Leif is gone from us and we are left with endless questions and grief, and I don't think they will ever completely go away. We are changed and our lives are changed. We will recover. We are recovering, but life will never be the same.

But that is not all we are left with. We are left with memories of his sense of humor, his intelligence, his smile, his rascally brown eyes, his towering presence, thirty-three years of a boy and a man we loved. I am grateful for those years. We were changed by them, too.
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The photo of Leif was another one of his PhotoBooth self portraits made on November 22, 2007. He used a feature of the program to produce the striated effect called Colored Pencil.gu

Leif's Last Day Alive - April 8, 2008

It's so terribly hard to believe that this is the first anniversary of the last day Leif was alive and that what we know of that day makes it so hard to understand how he could have been planning suicide. If he was, he gave no one any indication of it.

It was a Tuesday, his day off. It's hard to reconstruct the part of the day before evening when he was with his friend Michael, and Jaime. I didn't have any contact with him except for two emails in the evening which were part of a group discussion. The only way to try to figure out what he did in the last three days of his life is from his email, text messages and bank statement. Unfortunately, the debits don't always post on the day they were spent, so although several things posted on April 8th, they may not have happened then. For instance, the Neverwinter Nights game he purchased on Sunday, April 6th showed up on his bank statement on Tuesday, April 8th. It seems that several purchases showed up two days later. Originally, we thought he purchased an expensive pair of shoes on the 8th but it might have been on the same trip to the mall when he went to the Apple store on the 6th. We found the shoe box but not the shoes in his apartment, so he must have been wearing them when he died.

He played Dungeons and Dragons with Donna and friends on Sunday, April 6th and was invited to do so again the following Sunday.

His tax refund was deposited in his bank account on April 3rd and he paid his rent for the month of April, and it debited on April 7th.

He filled up his car's gas tank, with the debit hitting his bank account on April 10th, after he was already dead.

During those days he spent money on food and alcohol, too.

But what we do know about April 8th for sure is that he purchased a 45 caliber Springfield XD X-Ray Delta pistol and ammunition with his debit card. According to Donna, it was not a spur-of-the-moment purchase, but one he had ordered and been waiting for for months. He was very glad to finally get it. A gun purchase was not unusual for Leif. He had purchased and sold many guns over the years and still had several in his possession.

That evening he sent two email messages as part of an ongoing discussion among Peter A., Dave, Darren and me ranging over topics as disparate as the "ultimate watch" and customer service. These last two messages were in response to an email by Peter A. about a YouTube video of "Das Omen").

Leif wrote at 7:38 p.m., "I just want to know WHO did the music. Sound kinda like Rammstein but more techno, less metal. Either way I want it."

At 8:19 p.m. he wrote, "Found  it. It is a German group called 'E Nomine.'  Here are some of their  videos on YouYube. Hard to find the music.  iTunes does not have it. I just put in a request for iTunes to get it. Amazon does but it's about $35  an album." (He sent the YouTube and Amazon.com links.)

That was the last thing I ever heard from him. He was part of the discussion and then he just dropped out. It didn't sound as though he wasn't planning on being around if he was asking iTunes to get music he wanted. The music was very dark and occult with lyrics in German that translated as, "You are the power, the everlasting prophecy, you are the Omen!" "Open the gates to the dark regions . . . " I sent him that translation in email in between his two posts. That music fit in well with what he liked at the time.

The reason he dropped out of the discussion was that his friend Michael arrived after picking up Jaime at the airport and they wanted to go over to the Tally Ho Pub across the street for beer. They were there for a few hours before they went back to Leif's apartment. Leif had all of his guns out of the safe and they were examining them. Michael said Leif was very proud of his new Springfield pistol. The guns were unloaded, but when Jaime pointed a gun in a manner Leif felt was unsafe, Michael says Leif lectured him on gun safety. Jaime protested that the gun was unloaded, but Leif said that he should always consider a gun in his house to be loaded and treat it safely.

Since Michael had a long drive home and they had to get on the road, he said he and Jaime stopped drinking but Leif continued to drink rum and Coke. Leif was a big man used to drinking a lot and he could hold a lot of alcohol without showing evidence of being drunk.

Michael and Jaime left in the wee hours of the morning, somewhere around 2 or 3 a.m. on Wednesday, April 9th. Leif was mobile and lucid, able to walk and talk, and seemed all right when they left. That is the last time anyone saw Leif alive as far as we know.
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The pensive photo with this post is one of a series of self-portraits Leif took on April 26, 2003 when he was living in the 710 N. 9th Street house in Manhattan, Kansas. They were taken in that house. He was 28 years old.

And yet - Leif was brave, strong and proud; resilient, stoic and honorable

After all I've written about Leif's unhappiness in his adult life, which hasn't really delved into some of the worst of it, the hard and cutting details, what remains is his bravery and resilience. He must have wondered why his life was so unlucky, which just once something didn't go right for him.

Yet he did experience love, even if he didn't get to keep it. He did have jobs, earn money and respect, though not up to his expectations, desires or capabilities. He did have things he loved; his cycles, his cars, his computers. He loved science fiction, computer games, movies. But at some point, those are not enough.

He drank too much to drown his pain, to help him sleep, to calm the demons.

But he was brave and resilient. How many of you could have endured what he endured, for a long as he did, keeping that cover of male bravado, that he was fine, he could take it? Could any of us keep getting up and going to work each day? He did.

How many times could we climb out of depression and try again?

How many of us could take it?

It was his resilience and bravado that gave me hope he would get through and find his place in life. It was the fact that he was in love again that gave me joy that maybe his life was turning around. It was his animated conversation the last two times we saw him that made me believe he was heading for better times. And perhaps he thought so, too. But what changed in a day?

I found a letter Leif wrote (email) that reveals some of what he went through alone at Fort Drum, and if you read my posts the last few days, you can see how this ties in to his bravado, his belief that he was beyond being hurt, beyond the demons . . . but how much could he take?

"You also say I have no idea what you are feeling. That I don't know what it feels like to be lost or hurt. BULLSHIT!!!!  I know exactly how it feels and I know how much it sucks. I was stuck in frigid New York. My Wife had just left me alone. My best friend just got out of the army and went home. I was completely alone. I had a #*%&^($ boss. Take  X and Y on their worst days; then make that everyday. Then give them to power to order you to do push-ups or any other sadistic cruel excercise till you puke and then keep going, and make it a federal crime for you to disobey them.  Yeah, I have no idea what  pain is. Imagine having a daily Asthma attack every morning while being forced to run 4 miles on shin splints so bad that you have tears streaming  down your face.  Then spend the rest of the day geting yelled at and told you are a piece of shit no matter how well you do the rest of your job because you couldn't keep up on the run this morning and the asthma is all in your head and you are just a lazy shitbag that doesn't want to run. Have medals you earned taken away from you because your (*^$) squad leader doesn't think you deserve them because despite being better at your job than anyone in the division you can't run very fast.  You are just lazy and the Asthma is all in your head, after all. Then you finally get a doctor to say you are f--- up and you still are a piece of shit because you are on a medical profile and now you are not out running with the rest of them, so you are still a piece of shit. So you come home every night and get drunk to kill the pain and get up the next day and do it again.  You use your night and weekend minutes to call back to Kansas to cry on the shoulder of an ex girlfreind who is the only kind voice you can reach because you are all alone in a foreign state and everyone here hates you and thinks you are worthless. You make detailed plans about how exactly you are going to kill yourself to the point of making sure that if you botch the job and the shotgun does not kill you instantly that you are far away from help and you will surely bleed to death before being found. You pick out a spot and map it with your GPS planning to leave the coordinates of where your body can be found miles in the wilderness where no one could stop you or save you in your suicide note. And finally the ONLY  reason you don't go though with it is because you know how much it would hurt your mother for her son to die and no matter how much pain you feel you can't do that to her. And so you push on day after day just looking for the light at the end of the tunnel.  There was a point where I decided it was over. I was not going to hurt anymore. I was not going to let anyone hurt me. I stopped running from my problems and faced them. After all, what have I got to lose? I was ready to die. What can they do to hurt me when I don't care about living? I let the hate roll off of me like it wasn't there. I stopped running from bills and responsibilities and I charged at them. I was going to win or they were going to destroy me.  But the fear was gone and most of the pain. I still struggled, but damn, I just survived being suicidal. I decided never to be that way again. And yes, it really is that simple. You just decide one day that you are tired of feeling that way, and when you do and you let go of whatever was hurting you, then you start over. I let go of Nikko, I let go of my own doubts. I just decided to do the best I can and let the chips fall, but I decided to do my BEST! Not to run and hide. You see, it's very empowering to survive suicide. You truly become fearless. I mean, what's left to fear when you have been at a point that you no longer feared death and wanted to die?"

He wrote this in March 2007, six years after the came back from Fort Drum and one year before he died. It wasn't as simple to just put it all behind him as he says, and I don't think he ever really let go of Nikko, either. He was a very depressed man when he came back from the army, for a long time, and he was depressed again after J. left him, and again when his relationship with Donna ended, but he survived. Think of the bravery and determination it took to go on, to keep trudging forward when the light at the end of the tunnel keeps going out.

But why, a year after he wrote this, did the darkness overwhelm him? Or did it? What really happened in the wee hours of the morning of April 9, 2008?
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The photo above was taken at our home on Leif's last birthday, January 2008, while he was talking on his beloved iPhone and playing with a laptop.

Where Lies Truth? Alcohol and guns are a bad combination!

I've missed writing for a couple of days, partly due to family needs that took precedence, and partly because I've been contemplating what I wanted to say rather than just another post about something in Leif's past. It's been a hard week and a half for me, first receiving Leif's autopsy and then talking to the detective who investigated his death.

The autopsy shows the cause of death as suicide by self-inflicted gunshot. The detective thinks the circumstances point to an accident. I thought I had resolved that question in my mind long ago, but that conversation brought it all up again and I've spent another six days thinking about it. I can see why the detective says that, because there is no clear evidence of any planning, no note, a new gun (when he had been a gun owner all his adult life), and the place of death, in his kitchen.

I think the detective also thinks that it may be easier on the family to think of his death as an accident rather than a suicide, but it isn't for me. The result is the same, but it is no comfort to me to think he died because of an accident mishandling a loaded gun, a man who knew guns as well as any man could, or because he chose to end his life. Either way, it was at his own hand, but somehow it's even more senseless if it was an accident and he would have wanted to go on living.

I don't think Leif planned this ahead of time. It may have been a possibility in his mind, but not something he had decided to act upon until that moment or shortly before he did it. Maybe it was an impulse brought on by depression and too much alcohol. Leif could hold a lot of alcohol and not show it, and I never saw any evidence that it impaired his judgement, but it may well have increased his depression and put him over the edge.

I've done a lot of research and reading since his death, and the most dangerous time for a gun owner is after purchasing a new gun, especially a first gun. It's not only dangerous for others, but MOST dangerous to the owner, because that is the most likely time for a suicide to occur. You could say that it's because they bought the gun for that purpose, but there is also the possibility that they bought it and then made the decision. Guns make it all to "easy" to end one's life, to easy to act on impulse.

The day before Leif died (he died in the wee hours of the morning the day following what I'm going to recount), he did things that someone who had decided to die would be very unlikely to do. He filled his gas tank. He bought an expensive pair of new shoes. He bought a new computer game. He bought a gun. (He did not need a new gun to commit suicide. He already had several.)

He contacted iTunes to request music from a German band he wanted to purchase. He talked about the future and plans for it. He was participating in an email discussion with people around the country that evening until he went out with friends. Back in his apartment, he and friends examined his unloaded guns and he was very proud of the new one he had purchased that day. None of these things correspond to a decision to end one's life.

However, alone in his apartment, sometime between 3 AM and 9 AM, he loaded the new gun and shot himself with it. Despite the detective's belief that it was an accident, I can't agree. Leif, even under the influence of alcohol, would not have been foolish enough to load that gun with the kind of ammunition he used, and place the barrel on his forehead and pull the trigger. However quickly he made that decision, I believe he made it.

Leif was an introspective man who kept his feelings and problems inside. He hid them well from all of us, to a high degree. He wanted to be the strong man who could handle anything.

He left us no message about what he did or why, left us to piece it together. He did leave two things on his laptop computer screen, a sad photo of himself, and the open file of a philosophy paper he wrote in December, at a place that talked about Socrates chosing death rather than a path of action he felt was wrong. That was the closest we will probably ever get to knowing Leif's thinking about what he was about to do, and like most things in a suicide, still leaves many unanswered questions.

What action did he think was wrong? Coming to us for a third time to solve his indebtedness? Living without hope or purpose? Or did something happen that we don't know about that triggered his decision?

Going through all this again has been a sorrowful and painful week, but although I can say, "where lies truth?" and know that I don't have, and never will have, the full measure of it, the many hours of sifting through it have brought me back to the same place.

And the same questions. Why, oh why, couldn't he be happy? Why couldn't he have had some measure of good luck and love in his adult life? Why didn't he reach out?

I do know the answer to that last one, though I wish it had not been his way. He didn't reach out because that was against his code. A man should show no weakness.

It's a terrible thing to know your child was so unhappy.

It is a terrible thing to know I will miss him every day of my life.

It is a terrible thing to know that I am not yet ready to let go, and that I am in some measure, trying to hold him here with my grief, senseless as that may be.

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The photo of the contemplative Leif above was taken by his dad when we were living in Puerto Rico, in about May 1991 when he was 16. He's wearing his signature Oakley sunglasses. Always Mr. Cool.