Getting Through the Holidays

We celebrated our fifth Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years without Leif. You'd think it would get easier, but it doesn't. It still hurts. I still cry. It still feels as though there is a big, unfilled hole where he should be.

I'm happy, with our son Peter and our granddaughters with us. I enjoy those moments, but when I don't keep my guard up, the sadness and the tears come back. Why can't he be here to share it all with us? Why couldn't he be here with his own children?

I haven't written anything for a long time, mostly because I've had no time. For two months I spent nearly every extra minute I had taking care of my mother after she fractured another vertebra, and when I did have a few minutes, I had so many other things to do. I couldn't bring myself to write on the blog, didn't want to face my feelings any more than I could help it.

Then, yesterday morning, Peter W. turned on the music. He has all his music on Leif's old iPod, and plays it on a iPod player. He played Queen's "Who Wants to Live Forever?" I completely broke down. I associate that song so deeply with Leif and his death, with his memorial service, with his sadness and demise, that I can't listen to it without the floodgates opening. It is an incredibly beautiful and sad song, one of the most beautiful I've heard, so poignant and full of emotion.

                                                      "Who Wants To Live Forever"
There's no time for us,
There's no place for us,
What is this thing that builds our dreams, yet slips away from us.
Who wants to live forever,
Who wants to live forever.....?

There's no chance for us,
It's all decided for us,
This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us.
Who wants to live forever,
Who dares to love forever,
When love must die. 

But touch my tears with your lips,
Touch my world with your fingertips,
And we can have forever,
And we can love forever,
Forever is our today,
Who wants to live forever,
Who wants to live forever,
Forever is our today,
Who waits forever anyway?

Who Wants to Live Forever (0fficial Queen Video)

Leif loved this song not only for its music but because it was from the movie "Highlander," which was one of his all time favorites. Here's a link to a history of the song, from Wikipedia:

Who Wants to Live Forever (about the song)

I want him back. I will always want him back.

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This photo was taken December 25, 2006. Little did we know we would only have him one more Christmas. He seemed pretty happy that 2006 Christmas. How terribly things went downhill over the following year.

The MIssing Stone

On November 9, 2008, I posted a picture of this ring intact, with Leif's birthstone on the left, and November 29, 2008, I wrote about how I had lost the garnet stone that was Leif's birthstone on the left side of the ring. I found it and replaced it in the ring but oddly, it fell out again. I had it repaired again but had to have the stone replaced that time, since I couldn't find it.

Now, it has disappeared again. Last Monday, December 10, I noticed it was missing. I couldn't find the stone.

It seems so strange to me, that only Leif's stone falls out. It's as if it's trying to prove that he is gone and won't stay here. I am not a superstitious person, but it is a very odd coincidence. Even the jewelry company that made the ring from Peter Anthony's design, and has fixed the ring twice, can't seem to make it stay in.

It's sad. I can't wear the ring like this, and I don't know whether it makes sense to replace the stone yet again. I wonder if it would stay. Somehow I doubt it.

I fell doubly sad about it because I haven't been able to take time to write anything on Leif's blog for a month, and not much before that. I've been completely involved with my mother's affairs, since she suffered another fractured vertebra and has been in the hospital and rehab. I've spent a lot of time with her and taking care of her affairs, and been most grateful to my two sisters for coming, each of them for ten days, to help and be with her, too.

I've thought of Leif every day, many times a day. I've missed him at Thanksgiving, our fifth Thanksgiving without him. I still want to see him driving up the driveway, fell his warm bear hug, hear his laugh.

The holidays will always be bittersweet, sweet with the family we have and the memories we've kept, bitter without Leif there to share them with us. It's so hard to realize he will not be here for the fifth Christmas. We will miss him so.

“Youth offers the promise of happiness, but life offers the realities of grief.”  ― Nicholas Sparks

How true that is. We have to be glad for the years of happiness, though even those memories are now bittersweet.

Remembering Never Ends

Memories are triggered by almost anything, at any time, even when least expected, and they bring with them so much emotion. Not only the emotion of the time they happened, but all the emotions that are associated since that time, including happiness, love, wonder, nostalgia, longing, and grief.

For us, like so many others who have grieved for loved ones, especially those who have lost a child, the holidays will always hold those memories of the happy days gone by, all we shared, and bring to the fore all we will miss this holiday season. I am trying to keep focused on gratitude that we HAD those wonderful days, those years we enjoyed so much with our sons during the holidays.

Today I was doing some straightening up in my home office and came across something I don't remember even seeing or noticing at the time I received it. It's a pamphlet for parents about the death of a child called, "The Saddest Loss," written by Jane Woods Shoemaker. It was sent to us in a packet by USAA, the company that Leif dealt with for his car loan, vehicle insurance and a checking account, after I notified them of his death.

It's probably just as well that I didn't read it then. I don't know whether I would have been in any condition to really appreciate its message. It won't change anything, but reading it now is like an acknowledgement of all we have been through. I haven't read it fully, but these phrases stood out:

"The death of one's own child is so devastating you may not feel like reading this booklet right away."

Perhaps that's why I didn't. Perhaps that's why I don't even remember seeing it before.

"When a child dies, parents grieve harder and longer than with any other loss."

I can't know whether that is true, as I haven't experienced every other loss, but I do know it is the most devastating thing that has ever happened to us.

"The ties of love and hope that bind parent and child are the most powerful in human relationships."

I've written about the role of our hopes for our children, and the bond between me and Leif, and how I wonder if deep in us somewhere, even our DNA knows of the loss; certainly our bodies and brains respond to the loss in deep and profound ways.

"The suicide of a child leaves parents with so many unanswered questions. It is the most difficult loss to accept."

The questions will always haunt us, as long as we live and are capable of thinking.

The booklet deals forthrightly with the emotions surrounding what to do with your child's possessions, and how parents hold onto their child by keeping possessions. How well I know that feeling . . . and also the sadness that comes from disposing of them, which feels somehow disloyal.

"Memories are the worst and the best aspects of grief."

Yes, and that is the crux of it. We WANT to remember. We WANT to keep our child alive in our hearts and minds, but as the memories come, the grief comes along with the happiness, so many times.

There is a section on "Memorials," ways to memorialize one's child. Here, I have perhaps fallen victim to my own feelings of grief, for she writes, "A memorial should be a celebration of the child's life, not an expression of your grief."

She gives some examples, but my memorial for Leif is this blog, and it cannot be truthful without acknowledging grief. I found that out as I wrote it. If you have followed this blog these three-and-a-half years, you may remember that when I started it, the day we found him, I said I wanted it to be about the "remembering the good times." But it was and is not a biography that progressed in linear order through his life. It is not just a series of stories about him. It is a collection of thoughts, stories, emotions, which all intermingle, just as life does.

Here is a sentence from the last paragraph of the booklet, "Recovering from grief does not mean that you get over the death of your child."

Yes, every parent I've talked to who has suffered the death of their child says this. You never get over it, but you learn to cope. You learn to go on. You learn to handle the occasions the sadness and nostalgia return. You learn to be grateful for the years you had. You learn to treasure every memory and every photo. You learn to be thankful for them.

And you will never, never forget.

Leif will not be with us this holiday season, not in person, not on this earth, but he will be in our hearts.
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This photo was taken of Leif in Hawaii in July 1984. He was nine years old. He looks happy, confident, adventurous. 

Our Fourth Thanksgiving Without Leif

I am grateful today for my family and friends, for the life I have, for my home and my country, and to be fortunate to have enough to live well. I am thankful for my husband and best friend, my sons and my grandchildren, especially.

Today is our fourth Thanksgiving without Leif, a holiday he shared with us most of the years of his life. It will never seen right or complete without him, and even with the gratitude I feel there will always be sadness that he is not with us.

I am thankful he was our son, is our son, that we had him for 33 years. It's hard to say that and not add, "but it was not enough." I can't do it. It wasn't enough. I miss him.

Like all parents who have lived through the death of a beloved child, that longing never goes away. After a time, for many hours, many days, the pain subsides. Life seems normal, until something opens the door and lets the longing and sadness out.

Holidays are such a mixed blessing. They are still a time to celebrate, to be thankful, to enjoy our families and friends. They are still a time for traditions and love. They are still a time to treasure.

But they will always be bittersweet, tinged with loss.

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This photo of Leif was taken when we lived in Japan, probably in 1981 when he was six years old. The USA patch on his blazer is so appropriate. He grew up to be passionate about his country, served it in the army, studied its Constitution at the university. The thoughtful pose is appropriate, too. When Leif was young, he wasn't a talker like his brother. He was a quiet one, a thinker, and we usually didn't know what was going on in his bright mind. Later, once Peter A. left home, the floodgates opened and he began to talk and talk and talk, as though he had stored it up for the opportunity when he didn't have to "compete" for the "floor," but I also think during those years, when he was close to his brother, he spent a lot of time carefully listening, learning and absorbing what his brother (and the rest of us) were saying.

Leif had an incredible memory for just about everything he heard, and a special talent for being able to multitask, even as a very small child, where he appeared to be absorbed in doing something on his own but was very intently also listening to everything that was going on around him. Later, after he had thought about it and formed his own ideas, he could not only "parrot" back just about word for word what he had heard, even imitating the inflection of the speaker, but explain it accurately and add his own conclusions or further thoughts.

This photo must have been taken around or on Thanksgiving, I think, because I don't have Christmas photos of him wearing this blazer. We always took Christmas photos, but for some reason, rarely or if ever took photos at Thanksgiving. Peter W. says he took this picture. Perhaps he did, but it looks like a professional print to me, and I don't think he ever posed any of us when he took photos. Leif's elbow is resting on what appears to be an upholstered stool, and that curled fist under the chin, while beautiful in this photo, is not a typical pose for Leif. We both love this picture, and it's one of few we have framed and displayed in our house.

While I was writing this, Peter W. came into my office and said he wished we could go back to that time, the time of the photo, but that he didn't know what we could have done differently to help Leif find a better outcome in his life.

That's the trouble. No matter how often we go over it all in our minds, there's no resolution. We can't go back, and if we did, how would we do things differently? We will never know. That's one of the things that continues to eat away at people like us, even on this day of celebration.

Yet we will celebrate, and we will be thankful, just not with unalloyed joy.

Father's Day

Another women who lost a son to suicide was talking to me a few days before Father's Day and she said, "Why is it that these days like Mother's Day or Easter are so much harder? They're just another day."

The trouble is, they aren't just another day. They are days with significance, a significance we have been taught all our lives. They matter because humans measure time, and they designate certain days as having some kind of importance.

She said they only get "two months off," meaning that every other month has either a holiday or a family date like a birthday in it, so they are always anticipating those occasions when their son won't be with them.

I know how that feels now. We are into our third set of birthdays, Mother's Day and Father's Day without Leif, and soon it will be the Fourth of July (one holiday he really liked), then in the fall, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Each one of them is another day we will realize he won't be coming, something we had an expectation of over the years, because except for such rare instances, he always WAS there. He was an integral part of our joy and celebration of those holidays, and now having to experience them without him seems saddened and partly empty. We have other family members but they haven't been with us for these times over the years, so their absence is not so keenly felt. The expectation isn't there.

I find that my subconscious starts anticipating the holiday without Leif and I become sad. It happens to Peter W., too. We both feel that Mother's Day and Father's Day are diminished, that we have only half our children (for we had only two sons) still there. Does that mean we are half the parents we once were? It's hard to be happy on those days.

It's impossible not to think about Leif's death on those days set aside specifically for mothers and fathers, for that's what we were to him, and those were days he shared with us.

I found myself fighting tears.

I made a card for Peter W. and had a hard time deciding what photo to put on it. It doesn't seem right to put a photo of our family without Leif, though he is no longer here, and that's what I did on the card last year. I chose a photo of our boys in Germany when they were small, beautiful little boys! Those days are gone now, are just fond memories now made all the sweeter because we know they not only will never come again but Leif will never be with us. I had tears in my eyes when I made the card, but I didn't expect Peter to have them in his eyes when he looked at it. He was affected, too, saddened again at the loss, asking why Leif shot himself, how he could do it.

And we will never know.

The thoughts and the feelings go beyond that. I rarely turn on the car radio but I did a day or so ago and there was some sweet and slightly melancholy love song playing, and the words just made me sad, both because, as I've written before, love songs can be interpreted as other than romantic love, and because I was sad that Leif never had the romantic love he so desperately sought and hoped for.

Coming home from a wedding on Friday, we crossed the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, and I think we will never cross it without thinking and talking of Leif. And at the wedding, which was beautiful, I thought why couldn't Leif have found a love like this?

The memories are everywhere. The feelings are still so strong and deep. The sadness comes back in waves. It has burrowed into my heart.
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This photo of Leif, Peter W. and Peter A. was taken in April 1987 in the area of Fort Sheridan, Illinois. Leif was 12 years old, and acting goofy because he didn't really want to be posing for a photo. There were others taken at the same time that were better than this one, but these are my three guys, the ones that mean the world to me.

"How Many Children Do You Have?"

Such an innocent question, one we all ask when we meet someone. Usually, we are all proud and happy to answer it, but it poses a difficult situation for those of us whose children have died. Do we answer with the number that are still living? (Even sadder for those who have none left.) Or do we answer how many we had?

It would be easier in some ways to answer that we have one son. That prevents the inevitable questions that lead to having to answer that one of our sons died, and then the questions about how, and having to answer that he shot himself, which always leads to a shocked silence. People don't know how to respond. Would you?

But it's not easier for me, because I cannot ever forget Leif, that he was and is a big part of our lives. He always will be. We had TWO children, not one, even though Leif is no longer with us. So, I always answer that we had two sons but one died. And I answer the questions truthfully. It may not be as comfortable as just telling about Peter A. and his family, but it's the only way I can do it. I cannot deny Leif's life, and I also think that avoiding the subjects of death and suicide is not right. People have tried too hard over the years to deny the reality of depression, mental illness and suicide. We have to be open about it or people will never feel it's all right to get treatment.

And how should someone who is confronted with the answer that the person they have just met lost a child, however they died? I don't know whether all bereaved parents would feel the same as I do, but I think the easiest thing to deal with is a simple, "I'm sorry. That must be very difficult for you." Just leave it at that unless the person seems to want to talk more about it. If they do, and you want to (that's another important consideration - don't feel you must if it is too difficult for you), then just say, "If you'd like to tell me about it, please do." If not, just say something like, "I'm know this is terrible blow for you. I hope you have someone to talk with about it," and go on to something else.

Don't be surprised at the emotional reaction of the grieving parent (and make no mistake, they will grieve all their lives, though in different measure at different times). Sometimes a parent who has lost a child can talk about it quite matter-of-factly and you might think they are "over it" or even callous about it, but that's not the case. It's just that at that moment, they are in control. Another time, the same parent might tear up or even burst into tears. It depends a lot upon what's been happening in their lives at that time. It's a lot harder, for instance, when milestones are close, like their dead child's birthday, Christmas, New Years (it's always hard to start a new year without a beloved son or daughter; New Years brings it home that another year without them has gone by and another one is coming), Thanksgiving, or other special days relating to their family. Sometimes they have had some significant reminder of their child that has made them feel especially vulnerable.

It's embarrassing to cry in front of other people, especially someone you've just met, so don't act like they are breaking down or get all flustered about it. If you feel so inclined, just give them a hug. Let them regain control. Believe me, they are fighting for it!

How many children do I have? TWO. The answer will always be TWO. Leif lived. He will always live in my heart.

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This photo of the four of us was taken by my sister Sherie in our old stone house in Manhattan, Kansas in July 1976. Leif was 18 months old. Peter Anthony was seven-and-a-half years old.

No More Christmas Presents for My Leif

This January 1976 photo of Leif playing with the rocking horse he got for Christmas 1975, his first Christmas when he was eleven months old, and so many other Christmas photos of him opening presents or joking around with the family through the years, bring it home to me so forcefully that he won't be here to open any gifts this year, or any year from now to the end of our lives. I don't look for presents for him any more, though I can't help but notice and remark upon things I know he would like, things I wish I could give him.

The holidays and his birthday are particularly hard, as are the monthly reminders, each 9th and 10th, of his death and the day we found him. Tomorrow it will be 20 months since we found him in his apartment. Today it is 20 months since he died. Sometimes I wonder how long I will mark the months that have passed since his death, wonder if I will ever pass those days of the month without remembering. How can the months fly by so fast, taking the time we were with him ever farther into our past, yet the memories seem like yesterday, like he could still just walk through our door.

At a party a couple of nights ago, I hugged a neighbor who lost two children. She asked me how I was doing and I truthfully answered that I was all right most of the time, but not all of it. She said, "It never really gets any easier. You just learn to cope with it. The holidays are the hardest. Even though I have my living son and grandchildren, I will always miss the others. You just have to put on a smile and go on."

Sometimes the smile is real. Sometimes it's a good act.

I'm grateful to have a lot to do, to be busy with real work. It doesn't take away all the sadness but it does keep it at arm's length a good part of the time. It does make me feel useful.

But, it doesn't stop me from thinking, in the interstices, of the eternal question, why? of what we might have done to save him, of what he might have done to save himself, of what we are missing, of what he is missing, of what might have been.