Leif in Pacific Grove, California - July 1980 - Age 5

In his 33 years, Leif traveled many places as an army brat and many he saw only once, but a place he visited more times was the Monterey-Pacific Grove area of California during the years his Oma (paternal grandmother, Ellen Garretson) lived there. These photos were taken on one of those trips, in July 1980 when he was five years old and Peter Anthony was eleven.

The boys liked to go walk on the beach and play in the sand. There wasn't much for them to do at Oma's house except watch television, so we tried to get out of the house and go places together. Oma liked the beach, too, especially at sunset. We also took a lot of walks along the seashore path where there was no beach, only rocks, like these at Lovers Point. That was a great place for the boys (and Peter W.) to climb around like mountain goats.

Sometimes we went to visit Ellen at Christmas time and then we would drive or walk around looking at all the Christmas lights. There were some beautiful and elaborate displays we all enjoyed.

We visited Ellen before we moved to Japan, which was when these photos were taken. We were on our way, moving from Germany to Japan, and wouldn't see her again until we lived in Hawaii and she came to visit us about four years later. We weren't back in Pacific Grove with Leif until the summer of 1985, but we visited her every year at least once, sometimes twice, between 1986-1990 and then 1992-1997 when we moved her to the 710 N. 9th Street house in Manhattan, Kansas. Leif knew his Oma much better than Peter Anthony did, because Peter didn't see her on the trips we took after he left for the Air Force Academy. He did see her when he came to visit us in Kansas with his family after 1997.

Leif was a good traveler, adapted easily, or at least it seemed so, and enjoyed seeing new places and things. Looking back, though, I think he felt in some sense cut off from the world except for his dad and me, because we were the constants, always with him, and everything else kept changing. Because of our moves, he had to leave friends behind and those connections were broken. I wonder if it made it hard for him to make friends and commit himself to friendships because of the sense of loss when leaving them.

The sweater Leif is wearing in the photo where he's climbing on the rocks is the one that Peter W's Aunt Käthe made for him.

Oma died in Kansas in September 2002.

Leif and His Aunt Lannay - Greenbelt MD - June 1990 - Age 15

We had such a good visit with my sister Lannay and her family before heading to Puerto Rico. Lannay and Leif had always had a special relationship, and it seems amusing to me now to see him towering over her after seeing all the photos of him as a toddler snuggled up in her arms. It looks like he could just pick her up and walk off with her.

The playground the took his five-year-old cousin Jacquie to (see the last post) was not only fun for her, it was great for him. He was young and powerful and had enjoyed testing himself.

I wonder now how he felt about the move to Puerto Rico. In the end, it turned out to be a place he loved with friends he felt comfortable with and cared about, but at this time, we were all heading into the unknown. Leif never displayed any concern about our military moves, but I later found out from him that he did have worries about adjusting, leaving behind friends and wondering if he would make new ones, and whether he would be accepted. It would have been even harder as a high school sophomore.

Leif was fifteen when these photos were taken.

The Lack of a Home

It struck me as I was recounting all of the places that Leif lived in his 33 years, and came up with 24 of them, that such instability of a home wasn't a good thing, either. As a military family, we usually had three years in one place, sometimes four, and only once, two. That meant that for the first 20 years of Leif's life, he lived in 9 places with us, and one of them was the old stone house that remained a kind of rooted base for us, that he lived in two out of the nine times I'm counting. It was after her left home that he really became peripatetic, and each time he moved it was either to find a better or cheaper place. Probably the nicest place he lived in his adult life (other than the houses we owned at 710 N. 9th Street in Manhattan or our home here in Florida) was the apartment he and Nikko had in the army housing area in Watertown, New York, but it was also one of the places he was unhappiest.

The stability in his life was always us. Nothing else remained constant or anything he could count on. I hope he felt he could count on us, but I know as a grown man he didn't want to have to.

Living in 15 places in 13 years is too much change, even if he initiated the moves. It means there is no real home, no identity or the sense of place.

Once of the things he and I once talked about was that when I was growing up and in earlier generations, girls and young women were taught that it was their responsibility to make a house a home. I know there are those who would now say that was sexist and is outmoded, but I don't think so. I do believe that it is also a man's responsibility to be a part of that, making a house a home, and I don't think what I'm talking about has much to do with whether one sex or the other does the cooking or the laundry. Household chores ought to be divided equitably and by who does them best . . . or is most willing to do them. But making a house or apartment FEEL like a home is something I still think a woman needs to do. Otherwise, a man and a woman living together are really just roommates, regardless of whether they are married or having a sexual relationship. A home is different than just sharing living space. I don't think Leif ever felt he had that kind of home. The PLACE one calls home is less important (even with a lot of moves) than the atmosphere within it.

A part of that (not the most important part, but a part) is housekeeping. As I've mentioned, Leif was a terrible housekeeper if left on his own, but would willingly work WITH someone else to clean and straighten a place up. I have a threshhold of clutter that drives me nuts and makes me depressed if I don't do anything about it. I think Leif would pass way beyond that to the point where he was depressed and it looked like such a horrible task to try to tackle the mess that he just ignored it unless he thought a new woman in his life might be coming over and then he would clean it up.

I once gave him a certificate I made up on the computer for his birthday, which was good for eight not-necessarily-consecutive hours of housework cleaning up his place. He laughed, but he made good use of it, and he did work while I was there working. We got a lot done.

Each time he moved into a new place, he would fix it up pretty nicely and had some pride in how it looked, but it didn't take long for clutter and apathy to take over, and without a mate to either clean it up or engage him in doing it with her it just looked like to enormous a task. Leif would insist he didn't even see the mess, that he had a male "target mentality," so that he only saw what he was looking for or working with. Maybe, but I don't think so. i think he just ignored it and lived with it, but I can't believe it was the way he wanted to live or would have if he'd had the right companion.

It makes me sad to think that he never really had a home as an adult. Places to live, yes, and brief periods where he liked them and was happier, but living with someone you aren't getting along with, or living alone and being lonely, is not having a home. How I wish he had had at least that. It might have made a difference.
----------------------------

The photo of Leif was a self-portrait taken on April 26, 2003 at the 710 N. 9th Street house in Manhattan, Kansas.

All the Ways We Helped Each Other - Leif & Peter & me

One of the reasons that my relationship with Leif was so close was because we needed and helped each other, and it was clear to both of us that we respected each other and enjoyed the intellectual exchanges and challenging conversations.

Leif didn't ask for help, but he often needed it, whether it was financial, bureaucratic, emotional, or legal advice. Peter W. helped him replace the transmission in his used RX7. We assisted him financially several times, sometimes because he spent unwisely, sometimes because he was a relatively poor student or soldier. I spent many hours helping him by writing letters for his signature, dealing with legal issues on his behalf, tutoring him in math, Spanish or German, and other occasional things like folding laundry or helping him clean his apartment.

But this was not one-sided. Leif helped us, too, sometimes willingly, sometimes out of necessity (on our part), and sometimes, reluctantly, but he did it. Some of the things he did were to help Peter W. construct fences at our houses in Manhattan, Kansas, work on fixing up both houses (painting, sanding floors and the like), mowing the lawn (from Puerto Rico to Florida), helping Peter W. work on our cars, like changing the shocks in the Honda and Maxima wagon. He was very, very strong, and could help us do things we couldn't manage ourselves. He was a whizz with electronics, too, and helped set things up for us, and he helped my mother with her computer several times.

When we decided to move to Florida, Leif was a truly integral part of the move. Without his strength and problem-solving skills, it would have been a lot harder. It was a complicated move. First, we moved Leif and Peter W. to the house in Florida. Meanwhile, I was still in Kansas trying to reduce the load of accumulated possessions for us, my mother, and even Leif. Because we were selling the 804 Moro Street old stone house first, and Leif was moving out of the 710 N. 9th Street house the plan was to move me into that one. In preparation, we had to decide what was being moved to Florida immediately, what I would need to live with on 9th Street, and what we needed to sell.

Initially, Peter W. thought we should move the German "Schrank" (wall cabinet) to the 9th Street house and move it to Florida later on when we made the final move and sold that house. Therefore, we had to take it all apart and would have move it over there ourselves. This was no easy feat. It was over 11 feet long and over 6 feet tall, and it didn't come apart in sections. The long boards were over 11 feet long, and all of it was heavy! Leif was very good at figuring out how to take things apart and put them back together. It seemed to come instinctively to him. Peter W. and I couldn't have taken it apart without him, and certainly couldn't have out it back together or moved it back against the wall.

As it turned out, after we had it all disassembled, which you can see Leif doing in this photo taken August 8, 2004, he pointed out that it would be smarter to move it directly to Florida and not have to carry it over to the 9th Street house and assemble it, then take it apart again in a year to move to Florida. That's what we did, but because we had taken it apart ourselves, the movers would not put it back together in Florida. It's a good thing we had Leif to help us!

He was strong as an ox and was agile enough to climb ladders safely, and that helped with packing other things, but most of all it helped when we got to the Florida house and we not only needed him to put the Schrank together, but put paintings, tapestries and a Japanese wedding kimono high on the cathedral ceiling walls of the new house.

He helped Peter W. find the buried sprinkler system in the yard, which had become totally covered with sand, grass and weeds before we bought the place, in a rather unorthodox manner . . . by stabbing into the ground with one of his swords.

When Peter was back in Kansas periodically helping me get more things ready to move, or we were traveling, Leif kept our lawn mowed.

When I got a new computer monitor, he set it up for me.

Wherever I look in our house, I see things that Leif either put up, installed, or gave us.

He lived here in this house with Peter W. for a year after the two of them moved here before he moved to an apartment in Tampa, a time when they gave each other both help and companionship.

After he moved out, we had frequent contact and saw each other at last once a month.

I think that is unusual for most grown children to have that much contact with their parents unless they live in the same town, and we were fortunate to have it.

Leif knew we worried about him but I hope he also knew how much we loved and appreciated him, and now, how much we miss him.