The Emotional Importance of Objects

I've written before about the emotional significance of things that once belonged to our deceased loved ones. I was reflecting on why certain ones are more important that others and I think symbolically, the ones that we associate with them due to our memories are the hardest ones to part with...if we ever do.

There are some of Leif's things that I don't use or see every day that I can't bring myself to part with; his photo albums, his wallet, his army uniforms and dog tags, for instance. There are also things I use every day that I don't want to lose.

A couple of times in the past few months I've been saddened to think I'd have to get a new cell phone. The one I have is almost five years old and it needed a new battery and had some sound problems. I didn't want to let it go because Leif chose it for me and brought it to me in July 2007 in a cute gift bag from t-Mobile. Although I paid for it, it was yet another example of Leif's importance in helping us with the technology of our lives. The phone I had before that had poor reception at our house, and he knew this one would be better.

I didn't want a new phone because this one I associated with Leif, but not just because he brought it to me. It was the phone on which we had so many text exchanges, sometimes whole conversations. Every day after I went swimming, I would check this phone for messages from him, and most days, it seemed, there was one. Often in the evenings he would send me messages and we'd talk about anything from politics to what was going on in our lives. I still have the last messages from him on the phone. I don't ever want to take them off. He's not there, but his last text messages are.

Leif had one of the first generation iPhones, always the one to adopt new technology. He loved it, and when he died, it was valuable for me to use the contacts he had on it for notifications to friends, his employer, and others I would otherwise not have known how to contact. I didn't want to switch carriers and pay the monthly data fees to use it as a phone, so I terminated his account and continued to use it as an iPod Touch for over three years. It was somehow a comfort to me to have it, hold it, use it.

Then one day not long ago, it froze. I couldn't get it to work no matter what I did. So I "restored" it to factory settings, thinking I could then restore the contents from a backup, but it didn't work. Then Peter dropped it on the metal rail of our bed and cracked the screen. I took it to the "Genius Bar" at the Apple Store to ask how I could get it working again. They said it was useless, in common parlance, "bricked."

I know it won't work forever, but it made me really sad to lose the use of it. I was determined to make it function again. My nephew, Rick, encouraged me to try jailbreaking it to see if that would help. Since it was long past warranty, I decided to try it. The results were frustrating. It would now at least get to the opening screen, but I couldn't get it to do anything further. My niece, Brenda, figured out that if you made screen input fast enough, you could get it to do one thing more . . . and if you were really fast, maybe a few more steps. We tried a lot of things and finally it worked for a few fast steps before freezing. Then the only way to make it work was to turn it off and back on again. Not satisfactory.

I couldn't help but wonder what Leif would have thought of to try, whether he would have had it working again in a couple of hours. I spent many hours over many days, determined but losing hope. I still don't really know what made the difference, but it's working quite well now, although it's anyone's guess how long. I'm glad. It makes me feel better, somehow, that it's working and that I can use it. It seems a little silly how something this small can make me feel a connection that really isn't there.

At his last birthday celebration on January 27, 2008, I took a couple of photos of him talking on his iPhone. I think he was taking to Justin about how to install a newer version of the Mac OS on the laptop he'd bought used from Justin. I was wishing he was paying more attention to us than his techie toys, but he was engrossed, so I took pictures. Today I decided to make the opening screen on his iPhone be one of those photos. The first photo is the unlock screen, which shows the photo in an app that gives a contact phone number in case I lose the phone and someone responsible and kind wants to return it (I removed the number for posting on this blog) and the second is just the photo alone.

There's something good about having this photo on his phone. Something that brings back memories of a good birthday evening spent together. Something that shows him using the phone I now hold in my hand, even with it's screen cracked in a spider web pattern in the upper right.

Tomorrow it will be four years since we last saw Leif alive. On April 10 it will be four years since we found him dead. It still seems as though I should expect him to come riding up to our door and take this phone out of his pocket to check his messages. I want him to.

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. 

Dismantling a Life

We were sitting in O'Hare Airport waiting a connection on our way home from India and Peter W. wanted to call Peter A. to let him know we were safely that far and discovered that he didn't have Peter's Vonage phone number programmed into his cell phone. He hardly ever uses his cell phone or keeps the phone book on it up to date. I offered to enter the number for him and decided to look over what needed updating. I found several out of date numbers I needed to change, but then I found Leif's cell phone numbers, still there after Leif's death over 19 months ago. I could have just deleted them without comment but I asked Peter if he wanted them. He didn't, and they are now gone, but the fact that I had to ask, and that it brought the sting of tears to my eyes, made me realize yet again how hard it is, emotionally and otherwise, to delete or dismantle the things left behind after a loved one's death. Each time it feels like I am deleting a part of his life, of my contact with him, of the life he built. I remembered how hard it was to turn in Leif's military ID card to the office at MacDill Air Force Base. I remembered how hard it was to sell his motorcycle and have his car repossessed, to terminate memberships and so many other details.

I remembered again how it seemed like an invasion of his privacy to "snoop" through his papers and computer files for the information I needed to handle his affairs, how it felt wrong to dispose of his belongings, as though he would be coming back for them and be upset that they were gone. Of course I knew that wasn't going to happen, but taking someone's personal property and selling it, giving it away or throwing it away seemed so wrong, like taking apart the life he had built for himself and destroying its identity, removing it from the earth.

I think how little is left of his life, the photos, the memories, a few belongings, and yet how large the memories and the emotions are in my life.

I still have boxes of papers and possessions, like his army uniforms and boots, and wonder what will become of them, whether I will part with them or they will still be here when I die, with no one to pass them on to. It doesn't seem right.

I met a woman today who told me about a friend whose son died in a car accident over twenty years ago and they still have all of his clothes and belongings in his room, still as he left them. They even buy him birthday and Christmas presents. I cannot imagine that level of denial, but I understand their emotional need to pretend that he is in some sense still with them. I don't think it's a healthy response, but maybe it's what it takes to get them through the days. I wouldn't want that, but there are some things I want to keep, and others I don't want to see.

Leif's name is still in my phone book, on my computer and in my cell phone, not because I have an emotional need to see them there, though I confess it is hard for me to delete them, but because I still occasionally have a need to enter his address or phone number on some document and it's easy to find and access them where they are, but it still shocks me sometimes when I'm looking through the listings to see him there, as though somehow I could still magically give him a call.

How I wish I could!

I talked with a man in my neighborhood recently who grew emotional and had tears in his eyes when he said that when our parents die we realize our own mortality, that "we are up next" and that he would give anything for just one more hour with his father. I understand his feelings. I also know the feeling of losing my son, and how I'd give anything for one more hour with Leif.

Love does not go away. Sadness and grief grow softer, less acute, but they do not end. They do not go away, either. Deleting a phone number or selling a car doesn't make it any easier; it just reminds us of the loss.
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This photo of Leif was taken on June 13, 1990 in Greenbelt, Maryland where we were visiting my sister, Leif's Aunt Lannay, on our way from Chicago to Puerto Rico for Peter W's new military assignment there. Leif was 15 years old.

The Passing of Time - The Shaping of a Life - Leif - Japan - October 1982 - Age 7

I've been thinking again tonight about time, about how we measure time, our human perception of it and how it shapes our thinking. How time exists without human thought, on earth measured in days, months, years dependent upon the motion of the earth and moon, but the meaning of those measurements is assigned only by us. Some anniversaries are happy occasions. Some are sad or even tragic. We are approaching the first anniversary of Leif's death, and the details are still so raw and fresh in my mind. How much of the truth do I tell? How many details? Why is that anniversary so significant? Why is marking one year, and then another, so fraught with emotion? It's just another day . . . and yet that day signifies that a boundary, an emotional and temporal boundary, has been crossed.

Remember how we looked forward to birthdays when we were children, anxious to grow another year older, craving the status we thought came with being older and more mature, the added privileges. Remember as parents how we celebrated our children's birthdays, made the day special and memorable with parties, gifts, friends, photos. How different it is to anticipate the arrival of the anniversary of a loved one's death. To know you've been without that person for a year. There are no traditions to make those anniversaries unless we make our own.

In 16 days, that anniversary will arrive, sixteen days until we've been a whole year without Leif. Yet he was such a Colossus in our lives that he towers over us still. There isn't a day we don't talk about him, think about him, wish we had him back. Not a day we don't remember some detail of his life, many details of it, not a day I don't picture him walking in my door. Not a day I don't remember his hugs, his voice, his laugh.

When I started this blog nearly a year ago, I said it was to remember the good times. That was what I thought I was going to do and I have, in words and pictures, but that was not enough, and was not true to his life and death. I've also bared my feelings, revealed my grief, and even tried to let Leif's words speak for him. I can't pretend that memories are all good, or that they are enough to sustain me or relieve the sadness. It's not enough to have memories. It's not enough to have photos. It's not enough to have a few paltry keepsakes, or to have some of his gadgets. None of it fills the hole his death made in our lives.

And yet, that is all we have, that and our love, with nowhere to put it, so we must be grateful for every photo, every memory, each a gift to preserve his life as long as we can see them and remember. Every day of his life was a gift. Leif lived. Thirty-three years, far too short, and without the measure of happiness he deserved. But he lived, and I want his memory to go on.

So where does this blog go from here? For how long? I feel as though on the coming anniversaries of his death and memorial services, I need to tell those stories, the ones I couldn't tell last year. And after that? Memories are still with me, so for a time, the blog will go on, past the first year, as long as I can. Will the day come when I have no more to say? Will the day come when I forget the sound of his voice? Will the day come when I no longer see his smile? Will the day come when I can let go?
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The photo above was taken somewhere in Japan in October 1982. Leif was seven years old. He always loved climbing in trees.

A Bittersweet Homecoming - Leif When He Lived Here

I couldn't face Thanksgiving here, with just me, Peter W., and my mother, without Leif, so I talked Peter W. into a trip to the DC area to visit our nephew, Rick, and his family, my sister Lannay and her family, and Peter A., Darlene and Marcus. It was a good trip, and I really enjoyed seeing everyone. The kids (Rick and Mac's daughters Kimmy and Christina, and our grandson Marcus) were great to be with, along with all the adults, and we had a wonderful Thanksgiving feast prepared by Doug at Lannay and Doug's house.

Even with all the happy times, I still had some tears and missed Leif, but it was easier there to be distracted from that because I wasn't used to expecting to see him there.

Coming home today was harder. As we traveled south on I-75 past Tampa, when we passed the exit we would have taken to go to see Leif, I choked up, realizing I'd never do that again. It got worse when we got home, and I saw his mountain bike hanging up in the garage, his motorcycle helmet on the dining room table, his uniform in my closet, and all the other reminders, his portrait on my desk. I remembered how he lived here, in this house, slept in what's now our guest room, had his computer and stereo in what is now my office, for a year. How the guest bathroom was his, how he used to park his car and cycle in the garage, and then how, when he moved out, I could look forward to him driving up to visit, seeing him at my kitchen or dining room table, sitting in the living room.

I will never see him in those places again, and it hurts. It makes me deeply sad and brings tears to my eyes. I see photos of his life cycling through my iGoogle slide show and I hope, oh, how I hope, that in the last days of his life he was able to remember that once he had good times with us, with his friends, that he was loved.

This photo was taken March 13, 2005, right after we moved Leif and Peter W. to Florida. He set up his computer desk in the room he used for a year and spent so much time in playing online computer games, searching for companionship on eHarmony and March.com, and looking for jobs. Leif was a true technophile and loved computers. The one you can see on the right side of the desk is the one he built himself.

He was only here with his dad for 11 months, but I will always see him in this room of our house in my mind.

I'm home, Leif, but you are not, and my heart is heavy.

A Sad Week

I haven't posted anything for a whole week. It's been too busy with Leif's inurnment, memorial service, a lot of company and family staying at our home and in town, and there hasn't been time, but many of us have been remembering him, at each event and gathering.

Yesterday we finished cleaning out his apartment and today I turned in his keys. That was hard for me. Even though he hasn't been there since April 10th, and I know there is no reason for us to go back there, there is something sad and final about leaving it behind and turning over the keys.

I made a slide slow of his life for the evening gathering after the memorial service, 439 photos from birth to his last birthday, and it turned out very nice. It was good to see all the photos of the good times, and not just think of the last sad day.

Now, it's time to turn a lot of my attention to settling his affairs and figuring out what to do with all his things. It's a sad task, dismantling someone's life possessions, things that meant something to him, though there is also a lot of it he just threw in a box.