Seventeen years ago he took his life

Sometime between 2:00 AM and time to head for work in the morning of April 9, 2008, Leif ended his life. We only know that because he was with a friend until around 2:00 AM, and he didn't show up for work. His supervisor called me to see if I knew whether he was all right, because Leif was a dependable employee. We tried to reach him all day, hoping he was either off somewhere (since it originally had been planned for a day off for him), sleeping, ill, or something. No one could reach him. The next morning we drove to Tampa to his apartment. The manager let us into his locked apartment, and we found him dead on his kitchen floor.

I've never written, or even told, all the details of that morning, and I probably never will. It was devastating. The man who lived only until the age of 33 grew from this darling child. This photo was taken in Sachsen bei Ansbach, Germany, in October 1979 when he was four years old. I have to smile at the boy almost perpetually needing a haircut. I was the one who cut his hair, and he resisted it until I insisted. But, I loved his soft brown hair, which became a much darker brown when he was an adult, and in high school, when he didn't have Mommy trying to give him a haircut, he let it grow long and luxurious. Unfortunately, as he grew through his twenties, he started to get bald and then decided to shave his head. He was a handsome man with or without hair. 

This is the first year since his death that the years have crossed the threshold; he has now been dead for more than half the years he lived. Seventeen years doesn't seem like such a long time. I can still see him sitting in the kitchen, or at the dining room table, or driving up to the house in his RX7 with the stereo system blaring. I can still hear his chuckle, and his teasing about my driving, "Mom, you've always driven like an old lady."

I miss him, every day of my life. 

 

Leif the RC Car Builder Appeared in my Dream

I wonder how often I dream about Leif. Like most people, I rarely remember my dreams. When I do, it's almost always because something awakened me during the dream. That's what happened this morning. The phone rang and woke me from a dream about him.

I was talking to some man, no one I ever knew, about how Leif built his radio controlled cars, starting with the one when he was in sixth or seventh grade. That kit was made in China and had no instructions in English. I think it's quite remarkable that Leif was able to figure out how to put the whole thing together and make it work just fine. Later, he modified it to make it lighter and faster.

Leif had not been a very interested or avid reader, only reading what he absolutely HAD to for school until he discovered that there were magazines about RC cars and cool automobiles. He subscribed to them and devoured them with gusto.

Since he had a subscription to "Car and Driver" and some other adult car magazines, some list somewhere decided he was an adult male and started sending him credit card applications. He got a laugh out of that, and decided to have some fun with it.

One day, he took one of the applications and answered it all truthfully. Occupation: junior high school student. Income: $260 annually (his allowance), etc. He sent it back to them. Apparently, someone got the message, as he stopped getting credit card ads.

But back to the dream. Leif came into the room and I introduced him to this man, who was very impressed with him. In the dream, Leif was in high school, tall, handsome and very slender. He was wearing is trademark spiffy clothes (like he did at that time, not at the end of his life).

I wish I had been able to finish the dream and find out the rest of it, but if I had, I might not have ever known about it.

This photo was taken long before the Leif of the dream. It was in our garden in Sachsen bei Ansbach, Germany, in October 1979. He was four years old, and the hint of those charming dimples is showing here. He needed a haircut. I cut all the hair in our family, and it was usually overdue when it got done, usually because the boys didn't want their hair cut.

I don't know whether I ever saw this photo before. I hauled out some old slides and scanned them a few days ago. This darling picture was among them. I wonder how many more I will discover if I ever get the time to scan all of the slides we took.

Leif Getting a Haircut

Here's another one of those ordinary things most people don't have photos of. I always cut my boys hair, and most of the time, I also cut Peter W.'s hair. I'm not a trained barber, but I learned how to do it well enough to save us a lot of money over the years. This photo was taken by my sister, Lannay, in March 1977 in Charlottesville, Virginia. Leif was two years old. I'm wearing a jacket because it was so cold in the house. I no longer remember why, but it was very chilly.

Leif was such a cute two-year-old! His terrible twos weren't like other kids, though. The two things I remember that were difficult about him at that age were staying in bed and banging his head on the floor. I remember counting one night that he got out of bed 29 times before he finally gave up and went to sleep. I finally managed to find a "Zip-a-Babe" harness that was meant to keep a child safe in bed so they wouldn't roll out, and used that. I thought he would fight it, but he actually seemed relieved that he couldn't get up, though he could roll and find a comfortable position.

The head banging was disturbing. He would go off by himself and bang his head on the floor. I was very concerned that he had a serious neurological condition and we had him checked out thoroughly. No one could figure it out. I finally noticed that he didn't do it when we went out places but only when we stayed home all day. It turned out to be boredom and frustration, apparently. He was so incredibly smart that he was like some caged animal when kept at home all day, no matter how much time I spent with him or how many toys he had. He was fine once we got him started at Rocking Horse Country Day School.

At this age, Leif knew all his shapes, including complex ones like octagons and trapezoids, all his letters and numbers, and had memorized several long books, such as Dr. Seuss's "The Lorax." He loved any kind of outing, anything new that could stimulate that smart little brain.

He was not fond of haircuts. :)