Twenty-Two Years Ago Today - Leif's Graduation Dinner

The last time I posted, using the envelope on my head as an example of Leif's silly humor, I didn't realize what the occasion was. I found another slide my mother took that evening, and discovered it was his family graduation dinner. It was taken exactly twenty-two years ago, June 3, 1993, in our old stone house. Both Leif and the house are no longer.

And now I know what was in the big white envelope . . . and giant graduation card, which you can see in this photo. I'm not sure what Leif was looking at with his head at that angle, but it was after he plopped the envelope onto my head and then stuck my straw hat atop it.

It's hard to realize that twenty-two years have gone by, and now our second granddaughter is graduating from high school this weekend. How could the years slip by so quickly? How could Leif not be here to share the occasions with us?

We are also celebrating our fiftieth wedding anniversary this weekend, and Leif's absence is a heartache for me. I am delighted to be able to share it with Peter A. and our granddaughters, but how I wish we could have our whole family around us, including Leif and Marcus.

If find that it seems to be the days leading up to holidays and special events that trigger a lot of sadness, and I miss Leif most then. It's the anticipation of the coming event without him, I guess. Usually when the actual event happens, I'm over it . . . or maybe I'm just distracted by the good things happening then.

I miss his laugh. I miss his smile. I miss his bear hugs. I miss his silliness and teasing. He would have added so much to all those occasions he has missed in the seven years since he died. 

Whimsical

Leif was funny. He was whimsical. He was silly. He was a cut-up. At least, he was all of those things when he wasn't morose, withdrawn or depressed. How well I remember the times when he was enjoying himself and having fun acting silly.

These days, I seem to alternate between sadness and missing him, and smiling over memories like this one.

He graduated from Kansas State University in May 2003, ten years after he graduated from high school. It took him that long because he spent a part of those years in the U.S. Army.

He came home from the army in 2001 a depressed and broken man, but by the time he graduated from KSU, he was so much healthier in mind and body. He was looking good, feeling good, felt he had a future. I think he was at his handsomest in that year of 2003, and my favorite photos of him are from that year.

It was also the year in which he met J. and was so very much in love, and I'm sure that also helped account for his happiness and glowing good looks that fall, though in this cute picture, he had not yet met her.

It was taken in the back yard of our old stone house. He was acting silly with the tassel on his graduation cap, blowing on it and letting it settle on and tickle his nose. I love the look on his face, looking at the tassel as he gently blows on it, the ends of it splayed around his nose, and that hint of a smile with the cute dimples just showing. How I WISH he could have continued to be that happy, whimsical, silly man. 

Graduations

This week, our granddaughter, Madeleine, Leif's niece, will graduate from high school. I was thinking today about all the graduations that have taken place in our family, beginning with my parents, and how much hope, pride, gratitude and expectation are part of all that surrounds the event.

When Leif graduated from Manhattan High School in 1993, he was already taking classes at Kansas State University. He was the "cool dude," the one with the RX-7 (used) sports car, the one with a cell phone (very unusual at that time, and he paid the bills himself), the one with the long leather coat and the long luxurious hair that the guys hated and the girls loved.

High school was not an easy time for Leif. He had many ups and downs, as so many teens do. He was shy, but had to adjust to three different high schools. He fell in love, deeply, but it was not reciprocated. He had parts in two musicals and found he could sing and make the girls scream, but he couldn't get and keep the one(s) he wanted. He had his first job and earned his first paychecks, but squandered the money. He managed to get through school with minimal effort but not know what to do with his life.

But that day in 1993 when he graduated from high school, he was happy and we were proud. I think he thought life was going to get better, and be easier, and he would shine. I wish that had happened for him.

False Dichotomies - Happiness versus Unhappiness

When we are growing up and learning language, we are not only learning to understand and communicate, we are being programmed, learning how to think and what words to use to think about concepts. We have to learn that to be able to use language appropriately, but if we learn it rigidly, our thoughts, too, will be trapped in rigid thinking.

Today while I was riding with Peter W. on our daily bike ride, I thought once again to myself how when I took this ride in 2006 and 2007, I was happy. I remember thinking how beautiful it was, enjoying the sunshine, the clouds, the flowers and landscaping, the lovely homes. I remember enjoying the breeze and being with Peter.

And I thought how changed that became when Leif died and other family problems intervened, how our perspective changed, our feelings differed.

Then I wondered how one gets back to that place of happiness and what happiness means. Does a level of mild depression become a habit? Does lack of happiness become habitual and defining? I think it can for some people, and they don't know how to break out of it. For those who have severe clinical depression or bipolar syndrome, or brain injuries, brain chemistry or damage betrays them and prevents normal feelings of happiness or satisfaction from returning or staying. For the rest of us, slow healing usually brings back a level of happiness or at least contentment.

But what if it doesn't? Can we consciously work to bring it back? I think we can.

We are taught that the opposite of happiness is unhappiness . . . or sadness, as though the two have no shades or states in between. We "are" either one or the other, as though our attitude and thought patterns and actions have no real effect on those emotions. We are taught that if we are happy, we cannot simultaneously be sad, but I don't think this is true.

I began to think about this and the thought patterns we cultivate in ourselves some months ago and I particularly focused on my feelings about being Leif's mother. I asked myself the question whether I was happy I was his mother, and whether his death overshadowed that happiness. The answer I came to was that I was overwhelmingly glad he was my son and that I had him in my life for 33 years, even though there were many problems during those years. I look at all the photos of his life and at one and the same time I am happy to have them, happy to see his smiling or serious, or sometimes silly face, happy for the good times we shared, happy for all we taught each other and learned from each other, happy for the family life we had; and yet I am sad for his pain, for his problems, for his death, for our loss. The two will always be inextricably mixed.

It's normal after a death to focus on the loss, for it is painful and the impact is life-changing, but it's healthier at some point to make a conscious effort to stop focusing on that loss and focus instead on life. This is not easy to do. It takes courage and determination. It's easier to stay focused on loss. It is monumental. It becomes habitual.

I also learned that happiness and unhappiness, or sadness are not exact states. They are a continuum along which many other emotions can be charted, from contentment and pleasure to annoyance and anger. There are so many more nuances to our emotions, and the other negative ones can become just as habitual if we let them. Emotions can be like any other habits in our lives.

We learned as children that somehow happiness, unhappiness, sadness all come from outside us, from external influences, and surely, everything in our lives does impact and influence those feelings, but just as surely, in many cases, we are internally influenced by how we choose to think about them, by our attitudes.

That I learned from listening to my Great Aunt Victoria wail about things in her past for years that other people wouldn't have felt were worthy of remembering, and learning to joke about situations in which we could take things with good humor or understanding, or "be like Aunt Vic" and cultivate our hurts and unhappiness. I think unhappiness can even become one's identity, or a part of it, and then it is even harder to let it go.

There are times when we are plunged into the depths of unhappiness, sadness, grief, whether from the death of a loved one or the end of a relationship, or some other catastrophic change in our lives, from interpersonal problems or difficulties in work or career, and then we experience the full measure of what unhappiness means. At that time, at least for a time, attitude doesn't matter. We cannot escape it or climb out of the black hole of despair, but we can try to find other connections, other things to believe in, focus on.

With time, we can climb out of the black hole, if we choose. And perhaps this is part of the meaning of letting go. We have to let go of grief and unhappiness itself, not just the person we are grieving for. It's not a quick process. It's not easy. There is even a part of us, of me, that somehow, sometimes, feels it's wrong to be happy after such a tragic blow, that we have to pay the dues of sadness, that it's necessary to prove our love. But how long does it take to do that? When can we allow ourselves to move ahead? At some point, if we decide we want to be happy, choose to find happiness, then we have to realize just as consciously, that we have to give up the identity of unhappiness and reach for a new attitude and focus. I am trying, and I accept that I can be happy and still feel sadness.
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This photo was taken in our living room at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, when Leif was graduating from Northwood Junior High School in Highland Park, Illinois, May 1989.

Why Some Days are Sad

It doesn't take much to bring on sadness on some days. I've been having spells of it for three days now. I wondered whether it was because my birthday is coming and Leif won't be here, or whether coming home and realizing full force that Leif wasn't with us for Mother's Day did it, or whether it's just being home again and not as distracted by travel and other things. Maybe that Memorial Day is coming soon. Maybe it's all of those, plus the associations that so many daily things bring.

For instance, this morning I chose to wear a t-shirt from our 2003 family reunion. It has the logo of the family tree brooch on it that Darlene designed, and she made the shirts, too. Thanks to her, Peter A. and Donovan, we had this beautiful brooch made for Mom in Thailand. I didn't think that putting on this shirt would make me sad, but it did. I reminded me that Leif was there then, with us, hopeful for his future, having just graduated from KSU. He enjoyed the reunion, and these photos of him are with the gifts he received from his brother, Peter A., for his graduation. It made me think of the 2008 reunion, which took place only two-and-a-half months after his death, and how hard it was to have the whole family there except for him, and now, to know there will never be a family reunion with him present, nor will I ever have a family reunion like my mother has had with all her children present.

That made me think how she has a way of telling people what a worrier I am and about my "Worrier's Anonymous" t-shirt (my own design. She doesn't call it that, just describes how I worry about everything. I haven't worn that t-shirt since the day we found Leif dead in his apartment. I wore it there that day, partly because I WAS worried . . . and with good reason . . . and partly as a joke so that if we did find him alive, I could tease him about how my worrying was justified. I just can't bring myself to wear it any more. Too many sad memories of that day. And I can't bring myself to tell my mother, either. I'm not normally a compulsive worrier, though I am a planner and "speculator," but at the time I designed that shirt and put it on CafePress.com, I WAS terribly worried about Leif, and it seems like a harmless and amusing outlet for my worries. I had fun wearing it. The "Worrier's Manifesto" was designed and written to be way over-the-top, but I guess Mom took it seriously, even though I had good reason to worry in her case, too, when I told her I worried about her getting in and out of the bathroom on a cruise ship. I was worried she would fall . . . and she did, and broke her back. So, maybe my worries are justified in too many cases.

So, thinking about these things, with my reunion 2003 t-shirt on, I went into the living room where Peter W. was watching a movied called "New York City Serenade." I only saw snatches of it, but the last scene made me so sad. Two friends were meeting after a long time and one had a little girl and the other apparently had done well in business but was alone and depresed. He left alone in a cab and the father walked hand-in-hand with his little girl talking about the future until he lifted her onto his shoulder. I could just see Leif in that, both sides . . . the man who left, lonely and sad, and the father Leif wanted to be, with the little girl whose mother he wanted to marry. Would he have lived if he'd had something to live FOR?

That brought me back to thinking about the deep sadness I felt Thursday night, when I was again crying, "Why? Why then? What tipped the balance? Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you leave a clue?"

Yes, he left that philosophy essay of his and the photo on this laptop, but that's not enough. It doesn't spell it out.

Then I thought, even if he HAD left a note or explanation, it would just raise more questions . . . . more whys. There's really no way for someone to comprehend it who didn't experience what he did.

But today a revelation of sorts came to me, because of that scene in the movie and connecting it with the email from Leif in November 2007 when he said that life held far more pain and agony for him that pleasure and that he basically had nothing to live FOR, no PURPOSE. That IS the answer. Nothing to live for. How ultimately sad.

Peter W. was affected by the movie, too, in the same way I was, and we were also hit by the West Point graduation, which should be a time of rejoicing and triumph, and yet we both wondered how many of those young men and women will die or be maimed in the wars we are fighting . . . and for what? For how many years? Why are we doing this to these wonderful young people? Is it worth it? Not to me.

Peter W. and I drove out into the country past Wimauma to pick blueberries and on the way he said he was sad today. We discovered we were both experiencing the same sadness. He said he missed my blog about Leif, missed looking forward to reading memories of Leif and seeing pictures, and to knowing what I was thinking. I miss that, too, but it's not something I can write every day, and where are the photos going to come from? I can't make more of them. Leif is not here for that. Every photo I have now is precious. It's both wonderful and terriby, terribly sad to see his handsome face looking earnestly out at me, life-size, from my computer screen. How I wish I would reach in there and hug him! I miss him so!

Picking blueberries in the sunlight was good for us. Seeing the green of the countryside was good for us. The best antidote to sadness and depression is work, action, distraction, yet so often those are the things we don't feel at all like doing. We make ourselves do them. We have to. Tears and sadness can't be the only thing in life. We can't let them take over.

I Will Remember Him Always

What will I remember about my Leif? Everything.

I will remember the beautiful child that none of us realized was as vulnerable as he was. I will remember the tall, strong boy and his wonderful smile. I will remember how frustrated he could get when he wasn't able to make his hands do what his mind envisioned.

I will remember the brilliant mind and incredible memory my son had, and how we recognized it when he was so young.

I will remember the soccer player who could boot the ball three-fourths of the way down the field.

I will remember the teen who was tall and slim, a black belt in judo, a guitar player, a singer. I will remember his as Kenicke in "Grease," with all the girls screaming for him. I will remember him graduating from high school.

I will remember the handsome young man who married when he was only twenty years old and the devastated man who nearly took his life when his marriage failed.

I will remember the proud, tall soldier who graduated from infantry basic training and who was proud of his ability with a machine gun, and the broken soldier who was medically retired from the army when he was only twenty-six years old.

I will remember the recovering man who graduated from college and was proud of his new car.

I remember how happy he was when he fell in love again, and how utterly devastated he was when she left him, how I was worried he would not survive.

I remember him on his motorcycles, the three different ones he owned in his lifetime, the ones he drove far too fast, and I remember him in the hospital after the accident he had.

I remember how he loved cars and his RX-7s and RX-8, especially the RX-8, how he drove like a race car driver, what he really always wanted to be.

I remember him helping us with the house and yard, helping us move. I remember him helping my mother with her computer.

I remember him playing chess with Madeleine and being silly with Aly.

I remember him being in debt and spending money foolishly.

I remember him being in dark moods and fearing for him.

I remember his guns, his music collection, his passion for technology and science fiction.

I remember his hugs, his smiles.

I remember how desperately he needed and searched for love.

I remember how Leif wanted to be the hero, that he was the gentle giant who would fight to defend his family, his friends, his country. I remember his personal code was to never show weakness, and how he kept his deep and towering emotions inside. I remember how he wanted to be needed, to be respected and loved.

I remember bringing him into the world full of hope for him. It is hard to accept that our dreams for Leif will never be realized, that he will never find his purpose and defeat his demons, that he will never have a family, that he will never be there for a birthday or a Christmas, never be there to teach us about the latest technology and set things up for us, never again tease me about driving like an old lady.

it will always be hard to know and remember that our love was not enough to save him, that no matter what I tried, I could not help him be happy, or take away his pain.

I remember that in many ways, he lived a life rich in experience, and we tried hard to provide some of those riches of experience, but I also remember that his life was drowned in depression and loneliness.In the end, he was overwhelmed.

I remember how he wanted to be a hero, wanted to be needed, wanted to be strong. I rememberhow, through so many disappointments and crises, he held his head high and did not let others see his pain and frustration. Finally, it was too much. I will remember how he bore that burden until the end.

Most of all, I remember how much I loved him. I love him still. I will always love him.
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This photo was taken of Leif on Bellows Beach on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, one of his favorite places. It was in August 1989 when he was fourteen-and-a-half. It was then he was reading Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" with such deep and avid interest.

He Dreamed a Dream

Leif was a dreamer who dreamed of being a hero, a warrior. Someone who discovered him on Facebook or in this blog and asked to befriend him after death wrote to me that Leif would have liked this blog, that Vikings wanted the songs of their deeds and lives to be sung, to be remembered.

Leif's persona in the Society for Creative Anachronism, SCA, was a Viking pirate. For years SCA was an important part of his life, and he reveled in dressing in his garb, improving his armor and weaponry over the years. He made rattan weapons to fight with and fought many a Sunday battle in the Manhattan City Park (in Manhattan, Kansas), wearing an incredible amount of weight, especially toward this end of the time he lived there when he had the fifty-pound chain mail shirt he made. Several times I went to watch him and take pictures.

He dreamed of being the kind of hero he could perhaps have been in an earlier age, and surrounded himself with both ancient and thoroughly modern weaponry.

I was looking online for information about the Viking songs and sagas and was surprised to discover that they have fragments of ancient Viking songs written in a kind of musical notation using runes, and one site showed both the old runic notation and a modern translation of it. The title of the songs was so completely appropriate, "I Dreamed a Dream," so I decided to try to record it with GarageBand. I wish I had the time and talent to add accompaniment to it, though I have no idea what the Viking sound would have been, beyond the tune. I wonder, too, what the rest of the words were, and whether they, too, would have fit Leif.

The photos I put with the song are ones Leif took of himself on August 7, 2003 when he had just purchased his new armor. He was posing in the living room of the house at 710 N. Ninth Street in Manhattan, Kansas, where he was living at the time. It was a good time for him. I think he had at least somewhat recovered from the breakup of his marriage, he had graduated from Kansas State University that May, and was looking forward to a brighter future. He has just gotten a job at Sykes, which no longer has a call center in Manhattan. Little did he know how his life was about to change, first for the better, as he was so ecstatically in love beginning a couple of months later, and then dashed to pieces when the she left him. I think the period from about May 2003 to February 2004 was one of the happiest of his life, and it shows in his looks. He was so handsome then.

So, my Viking son, although I do not sing your exploits, I do write them and give them to the world.

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

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

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

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

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

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

How do we endure the pain they leave behind?

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

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

Leif & the 2002 Black Dodge Stratus Coupe - February 2003 to December 2005

While Leif and Nikko were at Fort Drum, they also owned a used white sports car that Nikko drove, and later Leif did manage to find and purchase another used RX-7, which was what he had when he came back from the Army in May 2001. He drove it until it "died." That is, it wasn't drivable and would have required more expensive repairs than were feasible. Leif didn't have the money to either fix it or purchase a new, or even used, car. He was in his senior year at KSU and living on his GI Bill stipend and the small amount he earned as a school crossing guard. He sold the RX-7 to a father and son who were looking for a project car they could work on together. I think he got about $600 for it.

Leif needed a car and would soon need one to get to and from another job. He was looking into trying to get a loan and finance purchasing one. We had inherited some money from Peter W's mother and we decided that rather than have Leif go further into debt (he still owed us a lot of money and was still paying off debts he also incurred while in the army), we would loan him the money to buy a car, with some limitations on what we would be willing to pay for. Leif was very appreciative and went car shopping at all the dealers in Manhattan. When he had some ideas of things he might like, we went to see them with him.

The one we all liked best was a new 2002 black Dodge Stratus Coupe. It was a very stylish car and seemed to fit Leif well. That was when Peter W. went into his best bargaining mode. He was so good at it that he had Leif really fooled that he if he didn't get the price he proposed, he was going to either go elsewhere or get something used and cheaper. However, he managed to get exactly the deal he wanted and we left the lot with the car for $19,999 including taxes and registration. Leif looked great in that car.

While he was proud of having his first new car and liked the looks of it as well as the cushy interior, he said he missed the handling and rear wheel drive of the RX-7 and still vowed that someday he would have an RX-8.

When Leif moved to Florida in March 2005, he drove the Stratus to Florida in a caravan with us and parked it in our garage. He only had the Stratus for less than three years and hadn't really even begun to pay us back much on it when he had an accident on his way to a date in Tampa. He called me from the scene. I was in Kansas at the time and about to get on a plane in a day or two to head for Florida for Christmas. I think the accident was on December 23, 2005. Luckily, he wasn't badly injured, but he did have some whiplash injury from it and his neck continued to bother him the rest of his life.

As I remember, the accident happened because another car swerved into his lane just as he was coming to a traffic light. To avoid getting hit, he hit the accelerator and shot into the intersection, but instead managed to hit another car. Since he had gone through a red light, he got a citation for that and it raised his insurance. He struggled with high insurance rates all of his adult life due to the accidents he had.

I didn't see the damage to the car, but it was totaled. He hadn't even had it long enough to pay for it and it was gone.

The photos of the car were taken by him in 2005 in Florida. The one of him by the car I took of him in front of 210 N. 9th Street in Manhattan, Kansas the spring of 2003. Since we made the loan to him as one of his graduation presents, I've included a photo of him after the Commencement ceremony at KSU on May 18, 2003, with Peter W. and me. The top photo is a self portrait of him in March 2003.

Leif - Graduation from Kansas State University - May 17, 2003 - age 28

On May 17, 2003, just about exactly six years ago, Leif graduated from Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas with a B.A. degree in general social sciences. He had started classes at KSU while still a high school senior at Manhattan High School, taking psychology and sociology in the spring of 1993. He never did manage to make up his mind which of the social science disciplines he favored most, so he created a program that included courses in psychology, sociology, history and political science.

Leif had an incredible memory. He remembered nearly everything he heard and saw. As a result, most of school, including college, was ridiculously easy for him. He didn't have to expend much effort and if he had, he could easily have earned all As, but he hated studying and wasn't particularly interested in academics. He did like to learn, and what he could learn by sitting in a classroom listening, he learned. He didn't take notes and didn't do homework, except for graded assignments that counted a lot toward a grade such a a theme paper or report. Some of his teachers thought he wasn't "getting it" just as his preschool Montessori teacher thought, but he demonstrated that he was. He once admitted to me that he probably got a college degree with less effort than anyone else he met.

This watch and listen method didn't work for him when it came to foreign languages and math. He could understand what was being shown on the board or spoken in class, but since he didn't want to do homework, when it came time to work college algebra problems on a test or pass a Spanish or German test, he was in trouble. He not only wasn't used to studying, he didn't want to do it. He flunked college algebra (a graduation requirement) twice before he quit school and enlisted in the army.

He quit school in the fall of 1997 because he couldn't keep it all together. He was married, to Nikko, since October 20, 1995, and had been trying to work and go do school (with our help for the school expenses and and $600 a month toward living expenses), but he couldn't make ends meet, in part due to his spending and his motorcycle payments. He worked longer and longer hours at Aggieville Pizza, not getting home until 3 a.m., too tired to get up and go to class, too tired to keep up. He enlisted in January 1998 and spent the next three-and-a-half years as an infantry machine gunner. I've already written about those years.

He came back to Manhattan, Kansas in May 2001 a depressed and broken man in a dark funk, having lost his health, his career and his wife, but he pulled himself together and went back to school using his GI Bill, supplemented with a small income from working as a school crossing guard. And I offered to play the same role I played when he was in high school and tutor him in Spanish, German and algebra. He accepted and tolerated my tutoring pretty well. At least he got through the courses all right.

Leif loved his philosophy classes, too, and the talked a lot about them, his political science classes, and history classes.

He had a brilliant mind for science, and admitted when he was older that he probably should have majored in science, but the stumbling block was math. He didn't want to take more of it, and he didn't get the kind of career counseling that might have shown him that there were careers in science other than being a "lab rat," which he wasn't interested in.

From the way he felt and looked in May 2001 to the vibrant, handsome, mischievous man who graduated in May 2003 was a world of difference. He looked great. He was a rascal. He had achieved his goal.

Leif didn't want to go through the graduation ceremony, like a lot of college students. I told him he "had to," because I wanted to go. I told him that while he didn't think it was important at that time, in the future he would be glad he had "walked" to get his diploma, and that since his dad and I had paid for his education, that was the price. He laughed and said something like, "Silly mommy," and did it to please us. I'm so glad we have these pictures. I particularly like the silly one of him blowing the tassle.

It was a gorgeous and very warm spring day and the graduation ceremony was held at Bramlage Coliseum at KSU.

I think Leif must have had the idea that getting a college degree would automatically mean a better job and a more lucrative career, but just as he wasn't interested in burning up the academic charts, he also wasn't interested in working hard to find a good job. Partly that was due to his lack of focus, not knowing what he really WANTED to do for a career, because if he had, I am sure there would have been no stopping him. However, there wasn't anything he wanted badly enough to spend a lot of time to pursue it. We were disappointed that the summer after graduation, instead of looking for a job, he went to summer school. He enjoyed the classes, but since they weren't aiming toward a graduate degree, from our point of view, it was just running up more tuition to pay, more loans, and postponing a job hunt.

At the end of the summer school classes, he got a job in Manhattan working in a Sykes call center doing telephone customer service about DSL internet service. He was there only about two-and-a-half months before finding a better job in the next building working at a call center for Western Wireless, which was eventually purchased by Alltel. Even when we moved to Florida, Leif continued to find similar jobs, which didn't require a college degree. He always hoped he would move up the ladder through promotions, but it never worked out for him. It must have been very discouraging.

But that day, May 17, 2003, he was on top of the world and so were we. We were so happy to see him graduate, so happy to see him looking healthy and full of mischief and fun, so hopeful for his future.

Leif - Graduation from Manhattan High School 1993 - Age 18

It was a beautiful late spring day when Leif graduated from Manhattan High School in the Class of 1993. He was happy, exuberant, looking forward to his future. He was tall, slim and good-looking, and was excited that he was getting a trip back to Puerto Rico to see his friends there and be at the Antilles High School graduation, where he had spent his sophomore and junior years of high school. He had a great trip, and in August of that year, we took him with us on a cruise in the Western Caribbean on a Norwegian Cruise Lines ship. He was excited about continuing college in the fall.

Leif only attended Manhattan HIgh School during his senior year, and he wasn't really there for a full senior year. Although his fall semester was a "regular" semester of high school classes, Leif had fulfilled nearly all his graduation requirements by December, so he started taking classes at Kansas State University during the spring semester of his senior year. He did well taking classes in psychology and sociology.

Because of his shyness and reserve, and his coming to the school as a senior, Leif didn't have a lot of friends at MHS, and he didn't participate in activities as I wished he had. He tried out for a part in the school musical and didn't get a part, which was hard for anyone in our family to fathom since he had done such a terrific job of playing Kenicke in "Grease" at Antilles High School the year before. Leif felt it was because he was new and hadn't "earned" his place with the director. We will never know, but I know that hurt him. He didn't go out for sports, either, after being out of soccer for two years in Puerto Rico. Instead, he got his first job at Idelman Telemarketing. We certainly learned a lot about what telemarketing was all about from the inside. Luckily for Leif, the accounts he was on involved contacting customers who had a particular credit card already and offering them new goodies, not some kind of hard sell to people without a relationship to the company.

We wee so happy for Leif on the day he graduated, so full of hope and expectations for him. It was a wonderful day, as I know it is for most parents.

Leif - Graduation from Infantry Basic Training - April 1998 - Fort Benning, Georgia

Leif chose infantry as his army MOS (occupational specialty) and that made his training that much harder physically, but it was made even harder by having to do it with a broken bone in his foot. Ironically, during first aid and medical training, another recruit tripped and fell on Leif's foot, breaking a bone. Leif was determined to complete basic with his unit and managed to walk and run on that broken foot to do it.

We went to Fort Benning with Nikko for the graduation ceremony, and watched the demonstrations and marching with pride. Leif was the tallest man in his unit, and his military bearing was outstanding. The first photo was taken right after the graduation ceremony, on the parade field.

The second one was taken a day or so later, when we had to take Leif back to his barracks and say goodbye. Most of the class was leaving that day, but he had been selected for further training in armaments and had to stay another couple of weeks. That training also included learning to use and fire a new, very expensive weapon. I don't know the name of it, but he was the only man in the training who actually got to fire a live round and blow up a tank. That was a big thrill for him, and he calculated the cost to the government of that one round he got to fire. It was many thousands of dollars.

Leif had also been selected to be a machine gunner, which pleased him immensely. More about that later.

It was beautiful, warm spring weather in Georgia, and we had a very nice time while there.

Leif - Graduation from Junior High School

It's that time of the year for graduations. Since I've been writing about Leif's junior high years, here are two photos of him posing in his bright red NJHS gown. His playful spirit was going strong. It was a milestone he looked forward to, and the day we took these photos, we also took a lot of other funny ones horsing around. NJHS in Highland Park, Illinois, was good for him. It was one of the few places that not only stretched his mind but offered students a selection of assignments that they could choose from, allowing him to find something that really engaged him.

I do remember one language arts class that didn't provide as much choice, and he was required to read books he didn't care for at all, one being the award winning, "The Witch of Blackbird Pond," and he hated having to speculate about characters' motivations. He just wanted to enjoy a good story.

It's a shame he didn't like math, because he had a truly outstanding scientific mind, and if he had been motivated to overcome the math aversion, he would probably have been a lot happier if he had gone into science.

Leif's junior high years weren't all happy, though. He suffered from a bad case of acne and some nasty kids called him "pizza face." I didn't learn that until many years later when he was an adult and told me that he was still hesitant to try to meet women because that had so damaged his self image.

He had friends in junior high, particularly Chris and Robert, but wasn't a popular kid. It's often hard for highly intelligent kids to find friends. Other kids are often intimidated, jealous, or think they are weird. Luckily Leif did have two good friends and they lived close to us on our street, so that unlike some kids who don't get to see their friends often outside of school, Leif found it easy to get together with Robert and Chris. They participated in Leif's radio-controlled car adventures.

It was in junior high that Leif also tried skate boarding, though he never became adept at it and I have no photos of him on the board.

He liked computer games, back in those days of simpler games and no internet. We had two computers, an Apple II+ and an Atari 1040STf. We had a large number of games on floppy disks, and he loved playing car racing games, sci-fi games, maze games, some role-playing games, and some fighting games. One was a very silly sword play game in which the objective was to lop off the head of the opponent. It sounds violent, but it was so silly that it was funny. Leif never lost his love of computer games and became more and more interested in them and role-playing games.

All told, Leif's junior high years at NJHS were good ones. He blossomed there, and set the stage for success and good looks in high school.