Forever Linked

I don't understand families that treat their family members badly and hurt each other. I don't understand families that don't keep strong ties. There are so many that seem to feel it's just an onerous duty to spend time together.

And then there are families like mine that love to be together and gladly travel great distances to do it, families like mine that find it an important part of their identities, that want to be in contact. The mothers in my family are always bonded to their children, as I am bonded to mine. We are forever linked not just by a family name and "blood," but by love and shared memories.

It's those memories that come back, the happy and the sad, to keep those links alive, even past death. I remember Leif every day, but there are so many different things that trigger memories. Tonight it was a show on television. Peter started watching a science fiction show that took place in space and featured a fighter pilot, just the kind of show Leif would have chosen, would have loved, and would have commented upon. The moment I saw the space ships I thought of him and how he would have liked it. I will likely never look at a sci fi show or movie again without associating it with him, or see NASA photo of outer space without remembering the NASA images he had on his computer, or see the stars and moon in the night sky without thinking of him.

While we were in Egypt we saw some "falling stars," and I've seen one more since we got home. Those I associated with both my sons, Leif, because they were in the heavens at night, Peter A. because of his interest in planetary defense against asteroids.

I am forever linked to my sons, or, at least for my lifetime.

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This "stairstep" photo of me with my sons was taken in Hawaii in the summer of 1980, when we were stopping there for a few days of vacation on the long move from Germany to Japan. Leif was five years old.

Approaching Two Years Since Leif's Death

What more can I tell you about my son, Leif Ashley Garretson, his life, his death, and our love for him and mourning his loss? I began this blog the day we found him, April 10, 2008, not knowing where I was going with this other than wanting a way to remember him. Sometime in the past six months I came to the realization that near the two year mark I would have said nearly all I want to say, although some new memories may come to me, and will have posted nearly all of the good photos of Leif I have. I resolved to close the blog, or at least the frequent posting, on the second anniversary. I had hoped to reach a visitor count or 10,000 by that time. As of today, there have been 9,854 visits since May 15, 2008, which is when I first placed the ClustrMap counting visitors, so it's likely that 10,000 has been reached, though not by the counter.

I find that I still have a few photos and a few more things to say before I close the book this has become, so I will continue for a few more days. After that, I will only post once in awhile. As with any blog, frequent or daily postings bring more visitors, so I expect visits to trail off after that, and that's all right. It's been two years of intense feelings, remembrance, introspection. I don't think I will ever be free of grief and mourning, nor will I ever be ready to let Leif go, but at least the wrenching pain has lessened and I no longer feel the need to post every single day. Probably that has been helped by the impossibility of it while we were traveling to South America and Texas this spring, when I didn't always have internet access or even time to do it. Maybe it's best that I had that break in routine.

Coming home always brings home the loss of our son. Driving through Tampa on the way home from the airport we can't help but remember how he used to pick us up at the airport, where the freeway exit for his apartment was, how we met him in town for dinner at places like Thai Tani and Mr. Dunderback's and went to movies together. Even having our sprinkler system brought memories of Leif trying to find the buried sprinkler heads after we bought the house, using one of his swords to jab through the hard-packed sandy earth to find them. So much reminds us of him every day.

I loved every day of his life, from babyhood to his death, though of course any truthful mother has to admit there were trying times, times when I was mad at him, times he disappointed me . . . and he probably felt the same way about me. But that's the thing about a strong family tie; those times are forgiven. Love goes on.

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These photos of Leif in one of our apple trees in Sachsen bei Ansbach in Bavaria, Germany, were taken in June 1979 when he was about four-and-a-half years old. They seemed to go with spring.

"Brilliant Thoughts on the Sexes #2"

This was the second installment of Leif's discourse on sex roles. I think when he talks about learning these things as a child, he was talking about his experiences in high school in particular. That was in the macho culture of Puerto Rico. He certainly didn't learn these lessons in our household.

More Brilliant Thoughts
by Leif Garretson
June 29, 2001

Ok. Now for the men talking to women thing. First a crash course in what it is like to be a man.

Lessons learned as a child:

1. Men don't cry. (exceptions for deaths of family members or women dumping them)
2. Men don't talk about their feelings (at least not to other men with above exceptions)
3. Men aren't supposed to be sensitive.
4. All men are potential enemies.
5. All men will look for weakness in other men for later exploitation (even friends).
6. You can never trust another man.
7. Competition between men, even friends will never cease.
8. You can never relax around other men for they will be watching for you to fuck up.
9. At best a man may be your comrade but never truly a friend.
10. A man may be your ally, but never forget that like with separate countries, treaties can be broken and war can always be declared.

Ok, now you know the basics of what it means to be a man. Now, how does it relate to you as a woman? Well, none of those rules apply to women.

First off, #1 crying. You can't imagine how much I envy women the ability to cry without shame. Even when we are alone we are so conditioned not to that it is difficult for us to release emotional pain. We feel so ashamed that we can't even do in front of ourselves. But a woman changes things. The ideal mate is part lover, part daughter, and part mother. In this case it is the mother that we need. The one person that never judged us or told us we were wimps when we were hurting. If a man can find a woman that he loves, trusts and is comfortable enough with that he can cry in her lap, then he has found something priceless, because that woman will not judge him harshly for it. She will be able to comfort him not only for his pain but for his shame at showing such weakness.

This weekend before the wedding S and L were fighting and the first thing I saw of her she came right to me without saying a word, put her arms around me, her head on my shoulder and started to cry. Two thoughts went though my head, other than concern. First, I was very flattered that she chose my shoulder to cry on, and while I hated to see her sad, it felt really good to know that after a year apart and after me and N splitting up S still loves and trusts me enough to come to me like that. And second, I envied her the ability to show pain and admit being hurt, not only to me but the the others that were witnesses.

#2 Believe it or not, we do have feelings. We just aren't very good at expressing them since we aren't supposed to talk about them. We often don't have the vocabulary, don't know the language. But if a man finds a woman that he can talk to and can learn to communicate then she will be the one irreplaceable outlet for his feelings.

#3 Sensitivity: men can be sensitive and they can be hurt but they will never admit that to another man. Women take for granted all the things that you can do with each other or with men. You can be yourselves a lot more than we can. You can cry. You can be hurt. You can be easily upset. We are only allowed to have one emotion and that is anger. It is ok for us to be pissed off but we can't be sad or hurt or weak, so we bottle that all up and store it. The only release we have for any of that is our mate.

#4,5,6,7,8,9, & 10 Men do not consider women to be a threat. The game, if you will, the battlefield, is populated by men. Women are not included in the rules. Unfortunately, the main reason for this is that men feel superior to women. We are all a little sexist. We look at men as being on equal ground, a level playing field. But we do not see them as equals. We are always working to establish the pecking order, to determine hierarchy, to see who is the alpha male -- which is why we can never truly be friends or truly trust and open up. Cuz, if we are the beta and we soften to the alpha, then that reinforces our subjugation to him as a superior. If we are the alpha, the softening in front of the beta will give him encouragement to assert his position over us and vie for the alpha spot. It is basic animal psychology and no matter how advanced, we are still animals. We still do what all mammals do. But a woman does not fall into this game because while I see women as symbiotic equals to men that exist in combination for common benefit, each using their different abilities to compliment the others' shortcomings, but in this sense men judge their worth in terms of strength.

And in those terms, women are simply inferior. Pay attention to what I said! By the standard of strength, women are inferior, and that is the standard men use to judge ourselves. By that standard, women are not threats because we can kick your ass. A woman is not going to oust me for the alpha spot because she neither can't nor would care to do so if she could. So what do I have to worry about showing weakness to her? And to further that point, women show weakness constantly, so even if we became blubbering idiots we would still be stronger (by the male standard) than the women.

Now please make sure that you are not reading more into this than I have written. I think that in an emotional sense women may be stronger and better equipped to handle emotional pain. In addition, women may lean on each other and draw strength from each other in times of need. Men do not. May not. You may have heard the saying "no man is an island." Well, actually we are. We are just islands that are close enough to trade, but ultimately we are alone.

Women are like seas in the same ocean. They flow together and draw strength from each other’s waves. We men, we islands, can have a love affair with the ocean but the other islands will never caress our beaches with their waves. (wow that is a cool analogy. I am proud of myself :-) So when a relationship ends, whether it is a breakup, or worst of all, death, I think it is harder on the man (unless he did the leaving). A woman can lean on her friends. She can grieve with them. She can cry on their shoulders. But if the man is left alone he is truly alone. The woman he lost was likely the only person he could talk to, the only person he could trust, the only shoulder he could cry on.

To continue my analogy, if an island sinks into the ocean the seas will still have currents between them; they will not be alone. But if
the water recedes from the land the islands are left behind and can only stare at the other lonely peaks. Ever notice that you hear a lot more stories about old men dying of a broken heart after losing their wives than the reverse? Now you know why.

This concludes my brilliant thoughts for the night. :-x Leif

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Starting when he was first old enough to notice then, Leif loved vehicules of all kinds, but especially beautifully designed machines that went extremely fast. Here he is posing by a very fancy speed boat at a lake in Japan when he was about 5 years old.

The Last Love of His Life

Although Leif keenly felt the loss of his sense of purpose in life when he no longer was living with and trying to help D, he knew the relationship was not a healthy one for either of them. He was lonely and depressed. Although he did not want to get back into the relationship, he desperately needed companionship, love and a reason to live. He continued with his philosophy classes at USF, and it was there that he wrote his final paper on happiness and morality, the one he left on the "desktop" of his laptop computer along with the sad photo of himself the night he died. He emailed that paper to me not long after he wrote it and we discussed it, but to this day I don't know whether it was supposed to be some kind of a signpost for me or not, either when he first sent it to me, or when he left it on his computer. I believe the latter one was, but whether he was trying to convey something about his state of mind to me when he first wrote and sent it, I don't know.

He was struggling financially as well, using his GI BIll to help cover the loss of household income from D. However, he was spending foolishly. He had gotten cash from insurance for his medical bills after the motorcycle accident, but instead of banking the money to pay for the expenses that didn't get billed until long afterward, he spent it. I expressed my concern about his spending the fall of 2007 but he insisted to me that he was fine and that he wasn't really spending more than he had, just "wheeling and dealing." I foolishly believed him, since he had the extra GI Bill income and was still working full time at Humana. I think he believed he could pull it off, that he would be able to gradually pay off his credit card bills and stay afloat with that extra money, but it was a futile hope, since he didn't seem to be able to stop spending and then the medical bills from the ER came in, months after the accident. Of course I didn't find out any of that until after his death.

Meanwhile, he continued his quest for love and dated several people that fall, and once text messaged me that he thought he had a crush on one of his philosophy instructors. Another time he was briefly gleeful at having met a library science student that seemed promising, but it went nowhere.

He seemed preoccupied at Christmastime and when he came for his last birthday dinner with us, didn't connect with us in the way I was used to. He was more emotionally flat and preoccupied with his laptop and phone. However, we saw him two more times after that, once in February for dinner at Sam Seltzer's Steakhouse in Brandon and then at our house on Easter in March. Those times he seemed much more like his old self, engaged, relaxed, and even happy. Although the financial rug had been pulled out from under him when he lost his GI BIll in mid-February, the financial disaster didn't hit until the end of March and the beginning of April, and in that time frame he had been on a quest to find love again and thought he had found it. I did have an inkling that he was living paycheck to paycheck (paychecks including the GI BIll checks) when I invited him for dinner the first weekend of February 2008 and he texted me back:

"Think i will stay in. Just paid rent etc broke till va check clears bank no gas for SCC trip"

When I commented about his being broke and asked about it he texted back:

"Well I am not broke broke but I don't want to tap into reserves always broke in first that is when the biggest bill is always due. Remember I had to pay tuition lastmonth extra $750 of expense I don't have most months"

Actually, he was broke, broke, with his credit cards maxed out, and having to pay tuition and car and cycle registrations in the same month had taken a bite, and I don't have a clue what "reserves" he was talking about.

However, he seemed to be so much happier and more hopeful as he started email, text and phone conversations with DT and quickly became enamored, as he so often did. She lived in another town and had children, so it took them awhile to be able to arrange a date, which gave them more time to talk. Leif actually liked that because he felt it was better to build a relationship before meeting, and before sexual issues got in the way of getting to know each other. They met for their one and only date on March 15th. He drove to her town and came home very late. He sent me a text message saying:

"Mmm so tired but so worth it"

Our text conversation when like this:

Me: Glad it was good. Glad you got back safely. Hope you can stay awake at work. So, what was so great?

Leif: Simply put. Everything. She is perfect.

Me: Ah, I'm glad she's great. Just take it easy. It's a first date. Takes awhile to learn enuf about someone, as you have seen plenty of times in the past. Would love to see you find a good match.

Leif: True but the way I operate by the time of the first date we have often had more communication than most couples have in a year

Me: That's good, excellent, but not the same as long term involvement, as past experience shows. People act differently when in the attraction phase and in the have to make it work phase.

Leif: Something just occurred to me. Remember how I always used to say with my neck I need to marry a masseuse? [DT] is a professional massage therapist.

Me: :-D interesting. Does she want to do it when she gets off work, too?

Leif: Surely not all the time but she is very giving and affectionate so I doubt she would leave me to suffer if I needed it.

Me: Boy, from first date to contemplating marriage? Whoa! (And surely you would be most appreciative and rewarding!)

Leif: LOL well that would be a ways off. Just musing over another way she is just right.

He was quite dreamy and excited about her and even sent pictures to me. Following that one date, they continued to be in contact via phone, messaging and email. They set up a second date for a week later on March 22nd, but unfortunately for everyone, her mother had a heart attack and she had to cancel it. He started texting me about the cancellation of the date and his feelings about her. In answer to something he wrote, I became concerned that he was trying to move too fast, and I sent him this, trying to be a bit silly about it to make him smile:

"Mommy Tip #4
Timing is critical. Procrastinate too long, you lose out. Jump in too fast, you may scare off the objective. This works with relationships, too, especially between men and women."

That sparked a long answer from him, one of the longest emails I ever got from him.

"from Leif Garretson
Date Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 1:27 AM
Subject Re: Timing

I am trying to balance prudence with passion with [DT]. I have told her I am in no rush with her. It's a tricky proposition to balance honesty with intelligence. Honestly, it was damn near love at first sight. Which is what I wanted. But I have not revealed that. I have mixed feelings about tonight's events. I am of course disappointed that I did not see her but I think it maybe for the best. While there was some pretty hot making out on the first date we stopped at that. I told her I kinda wanted to wait as I want her hooked on my personality before she was hooked on anything else.

I have noticed a pattern in my relationships. It goes back awhile in its history. Back to Chicago and Puerto Rico, where I had many friends that were girls. I was privy to many inside conversations with women that few men ever hear. I heard everything men were doing wrong with young women I really liked and had affection for. I decided I would never be one of those guys that would be talked about the way I heard my girl friends talk. I learned a lot and paid attention. I had several opportunities to experience sex had I chosen to do so, including practically fighting off a girl in my bedroom at Ft Buchanan. It just never seemed right for something you do just once. So I waited till it was, and it was sooooo worth it.

Care to guess when it happened? Here is a clue. It was not in PR or Kansas or any other territory of the United States. It was on that ship, the Norwegian Cruise Lines ship, where I met that gorgeous British casino cashier, JF. That last night of the cruise I did not come back to the room, not only was I doing what you likely suspected but I was doing it for the first time. The fun fact about that is that afterwards I told her it was my first time and she did not believe me, as surely a virgin could not have been that good.

At this point I had a major ego boost and an egotistical requirement. Now that I knew I was good I HAD to be good. Not just good but great. And if I am to believe every woman I have ever been with, I am.

So where did this lead? Well, it ties into other traits I have and the effect that the combination has. I find that first of all, sadly, most women have had very poor experiences with men. Many women are happy just to have a man that doesn't hit them and think that is a find. That is tragic, but compared to most men I am a prince. I treat them well and am a gentleman. I am also very honest and I don't play games, and women tend to trust me readily and I don't betray that trust. Then we have mind blowing sex and they THINK they are in love with me. They feel more comfortable and secure with me than ever before and great sex feels like genuine intimacy and they are sure they are in love with me.

Then later....

once the euphoria of the beginning wears off, they start to look at day-to-day life with Leif, and then they see my flaws. I am independent. I am aloof. I am often insensitive. I also am usually stronger and need them a lot less than they need me. Thus, like with Nikko, it turns out she realizes that I do not engage her like she wants me to. Then they realize I am not what they really need.

Thus I am in no rush with [DT]. I am very disappointed not to see her but I am kinda glad I was not pressured or tempted to have sex with her prematurely, as I want much more from her and am prepared to give much more."

It wasn't true, though, that he needed them less -- he just needed them in a different way than they needed him. He suffered terribly when he lost them. It's so hard to read this and realize that here was a man thinking long term about a new relationship and yet in only 17 days he was dead.

Sadly, because of DT's mother's health and her job and family responsibilities, just as Leif had fallen in love, she had to pull away from him. He sent several text messages a day after her mother's heart attack and rarely got an answer, and if he did, it was a word or two. She did not answer his calls. Although he understood she had other obligations that took priority and was very busy, he felt left out.

He sent her a message hoping they could get together on their mutual day off, Tuesday, April 8th, but did not get a reply. He had gotten two very short messages on Saturday, April 5th, and sent seven messages over the course of four days to her:

":-( ok. Miss you what about Tuesday day"
Sent on Saturday, Apr 5 2008 at 1:52:31 PM

"Smiles"
Sent on Sunday, Apr 6 2008 at 8:59:57 PM

"Miss talking to you"
Sent on Sunday, Apr 6 2008 at 10:40:15 PM

"I don't like it when I don't hear from you for days. I miss you too much. "
Sent on Monday, Apr 7 2008 at 12:52:36 AM

"You're doing that not answering me for days thing again. :-("
Sent on Monday, Apr 7 2008 at 9:30:12 AM

"Working today?"
Sent on Monday, Apr 7 2008 at 4:26:42 PM

"Thinking of you"
Sent on Tuesday, Apr 8 2008 at 10:08:39 PM

He got no replies until the this one, which arrived after he had been dead for over 12 hours. He never saw it.

"Thinking of u too"
Received on Wednesday, Apr 9 2008 at 8:18:30 PM

He had seemed so up, so happy, so hopeful about this relationship, and I was so happy for him, even though I feared he had fallen in love too fast and was worried he would get hurt again. I'd had a dream in mid-January that "something good" was going to happen to him, and when this relationship began, I hoped that was what my dream had foretold.

It is so hard to reconcile Leif's death with the man who was in love again, who seemed so happy for the last couple of weeks of March, who talked to finding a job in her town and moving there to be near her.

I can only think that the combination of his financial collapse, which must have made it look impossible to continue a courtship, especially one requiring long drives and a lot of monetary outlay for gasoline, and her withdrawal must have made him feel that love was once again out of reach, that he would never have someone to complete his life and provide the intimacy he craved so much. He would certainly not have wanted to reveal his financial situation to her. It would have been humiliating, but even knowing all of that, I can't put it all together. I can't get from the man who was participating in a lively email discussion earlier the evening before he took his life, the man who was partying with his friend until the wee hours of the morning, to the man who, after they left, shot himself.

DT was his last love. I'm sorry it didn't develop into something wonderful for both of them. I'm sorry he never found the love and intimacy he needed, but I'm glad he had that one date, something that made him happy for a time.
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This photo of Leif was taken January 7, 2008, three months before he died. It was three weeks before his 33rd and last birthday.

The Rollercoaster Ride of Romance and Disappointment

Leif's relationship with D continued to be a whirlwind of a rollercoaster ride. It was only a few months into their relationship when he began to see a pattern of behavior that was to to be the biggest problem between them. Things would go well for awhile and he'd be content with their life together. Then things would go downhill, usually after a drinking bout when D would lose control. They'd only been together for less than four months when she attacked him on one of those occasions and he called the police to keep things from escalating out of control. Although he broke up with her, like later occasions when similar situations occurred, Leif didn't have the heart to tell her to leave when she had nowhere to go, and despite the problems and what he called the "drama," he didn't want to be alone and he also didn't think he could afford the apartment by himself. As time when on, and as he always did until the end, he took her back. He cared about her despite the many issues that often made him miserable, and even afraid of what might happen to him. He came to believe that she had bipolar disorder and felt things would be improved with treatment, which he helped her to get. For some months, things got much better and he was enjoying life and her company.

He realized he loved her when she didn't come home one night. By the next morning, he was frantic, but found she had come back, and that she had been in an accident and at the hospital. At one point, he took her to visit her family in Georgia and it was then he told her that he loved her. I don't know whether D ever fully believed that Leif loved her. She's had such a harsh life and had been treated so badly that I don't think she felt she deserved love and happiness, though certainly she wanted them. She loved Leif and wanted him to marry her, but he was wisely cautious. As he wrote,

State of our Union
Saturday, March 3, 2007 1:28 PM
From: "Leif Garretson"

Hey D,

I think it's time for us to talk about where things stand in our relationship and where they are going. Things have changed a lot lately, some good, some bad. Some need to change again. Some I have already talked to you about. Some I have not. Here we go.

First, I love you, and I dare say I an IN Love with you. That is a good change. At least I hope it is. In the past I merely had affection for you. I had liked you. I had enjoyed having you around. In a word, I was content. But I was not in love.

I eventually realized I loved you and that you were my best friend but that I was not actually in love with you. I stayed with you because you gave me what I needed; sex and companionship and rent money. That is what I need. I wanted Love but I had not found it. I was ready to leave you a few times because the drama and strife outweighed the benefits.

So what has changed? Well, you did. You, at least for awhile became a happy person. This was around the time you started treatment. You were being responsible and happy and silly and fun.

You say you would take a bullet for me but then you break promises to me all the time. That is a big deal to me. I have been let down left and betrayed so many times. Loyalty and reliability are a big thing to me. Aren't they to you too? Given how many people have f#%&& you over, isn't one of the best qualities about me the constancy of my reliability? Isn't that what makes you feel safe and secure? In fact, isn't the only real insecurity that you have centered around whether you can trust your heart to love me? Well, I have that fear, too. I have resisted falling in love with you consciously because I didn't want to get hurt again like I did with J by opening up my heart to a person that has let me down over and over again and can't keep her promises to me.

You want me to marry you. That is the ultimate promise. You are promising to be my beloved partner and guardian of my heart for all time. Do you expect me to be able to trust you enough to do that when I can't trust you not to buy a bottle of Bacardi on a bad day and put us both in danger and pain? Seriously. How can you expect me to make that leap of faith and not only make but accept and trust that promise from you when you can't keep a little promise like not drinking liquor. I am not even asking you to quit drinking, just stop drinking THAT! Can you ask yourself that question? How can I expect Leif to promise me his heart and believe me when I promise to love and be the guardian of it when I have broken so many other promises not to hurt him? Ask that of yourself. Use it as a way to look at yourself and decide who you want to be. Then decide to become that person.

Remember the last BSG when Baltar claimed to be a far boy from Aralon? Remember how he changed who he was to become the Virtuous Caprican right down to his voice? We that is what you can and must decide to do. Not nearly so drastic as to change your voice, though it would improve things if you stopped cussing like a sailor in public around nice people. Just decide that you are going to rise above your past and become a polite professional Classy lady that people can count on.

It really not as hard as you think. You just have to decide who you want to be and become that person. Wanna know the secret? You reinvent yourself. You decide that the person you are is not the real you. It's who you were forced to be to survive your past. The real You is better, stronger, more reliable, polite, punctual, classy; you pick the adjectives. Just decide that if you are not happy with who you are today, decide who you want to be, and become that person tomorrow.

So when I did I know that I loved you? Well I think it was about a month ago when I started to realize it. In january things were getting better. We were having more fun, really having a good time. Then it all came down.

Ok, so you f$(*& up and lost your job. That is another thing you need to embrace honey. Excuses are like assholes. Everyone has got one and they ain't good for nothing but shit. Being responsible goes right along with being reliable. You keep up your obligations no matter what setbacks you have and you keep those obligations in mind and don't do things that will make it impossible to fulfill them.

I get that you are depressed and tired and you know what? So what? It's time to be a grown up and do what you got to do. That means getting your ass out of bed no matter how shitty you feel and doing what a grown up does to survive. And to remind you, it's not just about you anymore. You want me? You got me, and I come with bills and responsibilities. You want to marry me? Show me that you are going to be there for me and have my back, and not just on your good days.

When did I know I loved you? When you had the crash. When I thought I had lost you, worried that you were gone. I was truly afraid you could be dead or raped, or who knows? I was terrified about what might have happened to you. I could not sleep. I finally left very late to get some beer to help me sleep. I was miserable with worry. When I woke up I was deeply saddened that the bed was empty and you had not slipped in in the night, safe. I woke up with a pitiful sad look of worry on my face as I prepared to go to work and keep my obligations while my heart was dead with worry.

Then I heard a sound and called out to you and you answered. I felt a rush of emotion. I didn't know if I should be mad at you, relieved, happy, all I knew was you were alive and you were home and I ran to you. I held you and tried not to crush you because I wanted to squeeze you so tight. I was so happy you were all right I just wanted to cling to you. It was all I could do to eventually pull away and go to work. I was so happy you were back and safe. It was that night and morning that I knew that I am in love with you. As they say, “You don't know what you got till it's gone.” And I want you to know when you are in your down stages that it would destroy me if I lost you.

I can't explain to you why I love you other than that you give my life meaning. You give me purpose. I read somewhere that that is what men really need. to have a purpose and to succeed at it. Well, my purpose is to help you. To save you. To love you. It's the one thing I can do that matters to someone. It's the only thing that I do that matters to anyone. You say that the world wouldn't miss you if you were gone and that no one cares. Well, I feel the same way. Other than my parents, who would mourn my passing? Would the world even notice if Leif Garretson didn't show up for life tomorrow? Doubt it would. I am not a cop, a soldier, a paramedic, a doctor. What does my life mean to anyone but you? What good am I to anyone but you? This is the question that every man battles with; what value do I have? What meaning does my life have? What is my purpose?

It's the same reason why horses carry their mounts. It gives them purpose. They know their place and that they belong there. It's the same for all men. It's the same for me. You give me purpose. A man sees his mate much like a woman sees her child. If it seems I act like a father to you at times, that is why. My purpose in life is to take care of you, to protect you from the world and yourself. It's hard. It's a battle, but it's what I do. It's what gives my life meaning, because if my life means nothing to anyone else, it matters to you. You give me meaning in my life. But the other part needed is success, and lately I haven't felt very successful in helping you. But then, all I can do is help you help yourself.

I am here to take care of you but I am not purely a charity. I have needs and I have expectations. I have responsibilities. And you have been neglecting me lately. I know I have already exhausted your attention span so I will shut up now. Felt good to write it. I just hope you read it and take it seriously.

I love you,
Leif

I don't know exactly what happened after this email (which I have heavily edited), but things did not get better. There was another breakup, despite the love he had professed, and over the same issues, but once again, Leif did not force her to leave the apartment. They came to our house for Mother's Day 2007 and D told me she was upset and hurt that Leif was dating again. He told me that he had finally come to realize that whether they loved each other or not, the relationship was dysfunctional and destructive, and he said he was trying to help her see that they did not have a future together, but to help her find one without him. I asked him how I should treat her and he said, "As a good friend of mine and my roommate." It hurt D that he was dating others and though he had broken up with her, since she was still living in his apartment, it felt wrong to her that he was seeing other women. She finally got upset enough to go to stay with a friend. I was hopeful that both of them would get on with their lives and that the relationship would be over because I was very worried about the consequences of it continuing.

However, not long after D left the apartment, on July 12,2007, Leif had the motorcycle accident and was taken to the ER. I no longer remember exactly how D found out, but she took buses from where she was staying to the apartment, packed fresh clothing for him in a backpack, and took buses to the hospital. She loved him and came to be with him. When he was released from the ER, I wanted to take him to our home so I could take care of him, but he wanted to go back to his apartment. He could not take care of himself without help at that point, and D wanted to be there to help him. I was concerned about the consequences of that, because it put the two of them back together and I feared that was not a good idea.

D did take good care of Leif for a a time. He had surgery on his shattered collarbone and was in far more pain than he expected. During that time, he enrolled in the University of South Florida, which was not far from his apartment, in an effort to use his GI BIll benefits to help out with his expenses, since he wasn't going to be able to count on D helping out with the rent.

We were going to take a trip to China and needed transportation to the airport. We knew Leif was short on cash so we figured it would help him out if we paid him to take us there rather than paying some other transport service, and asked him to come stay overnight at our house on September 15th and take us to the airport on the morning of the 16th. We left for our three week trip, not knowing until we returned that when he got home from the airport, D had been drinking again and attacked him. He took a photo of himself all scratched up, and said she had tried to grab a sword to use on him. He called the police. That was the end of them living together, but he keenly felt the loss of purpose he had found in trying to help her better her life. He again felt useless and had no focus. It was two months later in November when he sent me that email that life held more pain and misery than happiness and he had no purpose in life.

However, true to Leif's past, he continued a friendship with D and played Dungeons and Dragons with her and others just two nights before he died.

I think it's terribly sad for both of them that they couldn't have found happiness together, but this relationship is such proof that love really doesn't conquer all, that love is all too often not enough.

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The photo of the contemplative Leif was taken on a PT boat taking us from Olongapo to Grande Island in the Philippines, in August 1982. Leif was seven-and-a-half years old.

Reconciling the Life of the Boy and the Man

I need to get back to finishing the series of posts on Leif's loves and relationships but it's hard, hard to write about them, hard to be fair about them, hard to give a picture of his life and not hurt others, and in the meantime, I'm trying to deal in my mind with the conflicting pictures of my beautiful, brilliant little boy, who clearly was much more vulnerable than any of us realized, and the tall, strong, brilliant but unhappy man who ultimately took his life. So many of the photos of the last years of his life make me sad, realizing I could see the unhappiness there, realizing there will be no more chances to find the love and happiness he missed, but at the same time, trying to understand that there were moments of happiness among the days of misery.

Coming to terms with Leif's life and death is not easy, not for me, not for his father. I realized tonight that we had him in our home for the best years of his life, the happiest ones, though of course they were not universally happy. That at least makes me glad, that we were able to give him a good home life with loving parents.

I still think nearly every day that I want to just hold him and comfort him, and that will never happen. Even in death I wanted to hold him, to touch him, even though I knew he would not feel it. I would have.

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This photo of Leif was taken in our quarters at Fort Sheridan, Illinois in May 1987 not long after he had picked out "Scamp," the kitten in his baseball mitt. Leif was 12 years old.

What Does He Reveal?

The "Live-In Girlfriend Job Description" I posted yesterday reveals as much about Leif and the relationship he was hoping for as it does about the situation he found himself in. The fact that he referred to a "promotion" to wife shows that he was hoping and thinking that things would work out and go in that direction.

Leif was attracted to women that he felt needed some kind of male protection, someone who aroused his protective instincts, but someone who also was physically attractive and alluring. It was a kind of classic "damsel in distress" that gave him purpose. However, once he had "captured" this damsel, he invariably felt he needed to change or improve her, whether it was a simple matter of dyeing her hair red or a more thorough makeover including teaching her how to dress and behave like a lady, for Leif DID want a woman who behaved like an elegant (but sexy) lady in public. He wanted to be the knight with the beautiful lady that everyone else would look at and envy him.

However, though Leif wanted to change his woman, much like Professor Higgins in "My Fair Lady," he also didn't want to change himself and resisted all efforts to make him change. This created plenty of friction, as his ladies didn't see that as fair and didn't like some of his faults, particularly his intemperate spending.

D really did need Leif's protection and voice of change. She had had such a difficult life that she had never had the opportunity to live the kind of life Leif grew up with or could offer her. I think part of his attraction for her was that he felt he could teach her a different way of life and new ways of interacting with the world, and probably that was one of his attractions for her as well. The "job description" refers to going to school and bettering oneself, and helping each other to curb destructive vices. Leif tried hard to get D to go back to school and get a degree so that she could find better jobs, but during their time together, she wasn't ready to try it.

He didn't go into detail about the destructive vices, but one he must have been referring to was over consumption of alcohol, something which wasted a great deal of money, caused him to put on weight, and caused D to lose control of her actions at times. They both needed to stop drinking, but they couldn't seem to do it. Another was smoking, which he does refer to. I don't know whether Leif ever really clearly realized how destructive drinking was for him or not. I do know that once or twice he admitted to me that he needed to cut down and even toyed with the idea of joining AA if he could convince D to do it, too. I don't know whether Leif was an alcoholic or not but I do know that he drank far more than he should ever have.

The "job description" was one of Leif's many attempts to refine the gold he saw in D. There was much that he found endearing and appealing, but they both had many complaints about each other as well. Unforunately, although they both cared about each other, it was not a good match and they were in for a rollercoaster ride with many swift turns and ups and downs before the relationship finally ended.

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This photo of a silly Leif up in an apple tree was taken in the yard of our house in Sachsen bei Ansbach, Germany, in June 1979. Leif was four-and-a-half years old.

The Romantic Correspondence Continues

Leif had trie to get together with LA but things kept interfering with their meeting in person. She lived in another town, which complicated things further. However, they continued to talk on the phone and communicate via instant messaging and email. Leif continued to reveal more and more about himself and his feelings about the relationships between men and women. LA's prolific and tantalizing letters elicited more writing from him. In this one, he explains his attraction to women, theorizes why he is attracted to thin, clear-skinned women, and what kind of dominance he wants to have. He tells us how important it is to a man to have an attractive wife and why. As he says, people don't say these things out loud, but he is willing to put a lot of faith in LA's understanding of his male viewpoint.

Sadly for him, he lost the weight battle. I wonder whether he would have felt any differently in early 2008 than when he wrote this in July 2005, though I doubt it.

At this point, he and LA had been corresponding for about a month.

Saturday, July 23, 2005 11:38 PM
Subject: more babbling please

Hello My sweet.

I love it when you babble. It's cute. One thing that I may not have told you before is that unlike many men I actually find your peculiar, irrational, feminine emotionality rather appealing. Don't get me wrong; if you start to get neurotic and irritating I might get annoyed, but I am extremely rational and perhaps a little emotionally repressed. I love the fact that women are so much more emotional. I find it fascinating. In fact, I find women utterly fascinating period. And the more archetypically female the better. Women are so beautifully alien to me. I just cant get enough of them.

On one hand I understand women well, better than most men, but that understanding is like the sort of understanding a biologist has of the way a bird flies. You understand how it flies and the reasons it flies but that does not mean you understand what it would be like to fly, and that is fascinating, like watching a bird and trying to comprehend what it might be like to be one of those beautiful creatures. That is kinda how I see women, as beautiful alien beings which, no matter how much I study them, remain irresistibly inexplicable.

I also like the fact that you feel comfortable talking to me about your emotions. I like that. It means you trust me.

I guess I have an unusual idea of what dominance or power means to me. Many simply enjoy the idea of simple power, the ability to do what one wants and to get other people to do what one wants. And yes, that has a certain appeal. However, I am reminded of a saying I heard in the military when it comes to leadership. It says that POWER is described as the ability to make people do something they do not want to do. There are many means to power; bribery, coercion, fear, etc. By contrast, LEADERSHIP is defined as the ability to make people want to do what you want them to do.

There are many powerful people. They can say, “you will follow me into battle because if you don't I will burn your homes,” but the true leaders are the ones whose people follow them willingly because they are just that cool and noble, whose people follow them because it is to their advantage, not just to their detriment not to.

To me, achieving dominion over a woman like you is not so much about being able to force you into submission. Rather to me it more like the ability to tame a wild animal. Sure, any brute can lasso a horse, put it in a corral and then, with help from others, tie it down and mount it and force it into submission, but how many can walk up to one in an open field and over the course of a few days or weeks get close to it, touch it, and earn its trust to the point that the horse will let him on its back without coercion? How many could make that horse a loyal friend that would actually protect its master? That is a true accomplishment.

I see the winning of a woman the same way. Any man can rape a woman, beat her into submission, force her to comply with his desires or suffer pain and degradation if she doesn't. That is no challenge. There is no satisfaction in that. But how many men could get a woman to voluntarily open herself to him? Let him in where he pleases? How many could obtain her willing subjugation? How many men could have a woman on her knees pleasuring him willingly and eagerly and thankful for his presence? Not many. That is the power I seek.

And while any man can claim a woman and “say she is mine because I say so,” how many can say she is mine because SHE says so? I can tell you that if you are desirable, as you must be, getting hit on all the time, that there is no greater feeling of pride that a man can have than to walk into a room with a woman that every man in the room wants and desires and have them all know that she is his by choice and chose him above all of them. It is the greatest status symbol a man can have, to have the woman that they all want.

This is another important insight you should have when it comes to your own appearance. Men compete in everything in life. And we compare everything. The quality of a man's woman is part of that competition. The man that shows up with a "catch" is held in very high esteem. "Wow, he must be a real man if he got her" kind of thing. A man who has a fat ugly wife that doesn't take care of herself looks very badly for the man. Now we would never say any of this aloud, but for example I have a customer that I consider to be a good looking guy. He is of decent height, is well built, and has a winning smile. I would think he is a good looking guy. His wife is not very pretty, is fat, and she doesn't seem to make any attempt to look good for him. I see them and I pity him. I think not only that he could do better but that he must have little self respect to stay with her, and I think that she is disrespecting him by not having the decency to try and look good for him. It shows a lack of respect for him.

Ultimately, be it power, wealth, or whatever, all male competition comes down to the pursuit of quality mates. The man with the quality woman is held in higher esteem even over the rich and powerful. A lot of that is tied to her appearance, and while you can't control everything about your looks or weight, a woman that "lets herself go" and doesn't even attempt to stay fit for her man is disrespecting him in the worst way. She is saying, “I don't care about you enough to look good for you and I would rather eat a pint of ice cream a day even if it makes me look unattractive to you and lowers your esteem among your friends.” I hate women that do that to their men. It is so insulting. Sure, while everyone get a little out of shape with age, some women don't even try to look nice. Sweats, T-shirts, pony tails with no make up. It's like they just stopped caring about their husbands now that they got the ring. That is one thing I have always respected about my mother, is that she believes it is herduty as a wife to do her best to look as good as she can for my father, within reason, not only for his sake when they are alone but for the way it effects him publicly.

In fact, this can even affect a man's career, as a boss that sees an employee with a beautiful, loving, happy wife sees a man worthy of respect. By contrast, if he has a crude, ugly, overweight, unkept, wife that is rude, he will think less of that man. On some level he is thinking, “man, if that is the best you could do, you must not be much of a man.” A very sad thing when a woman changes like that. he not only disrespects herself, she disrespects her husband.

Also, it can affect how the man treats you. A man that is proud of his wife wants to show her off, wants to buy her pretty things and take her out on the town and show her off. He wants everyone to see his beautiful wife and think how lucky he is to have her. He wants to keep her happy because she makes him happy. By contrast, if she is unattractive, particularly due to things she can control like her weight and her grooming, and her behavior, then he wants to hide her. He is ashamed of his wife and does not want anyone to se her. He resents her and does not want to do anything for her as she is not doing anything for him. It can be a vicious circle as she does not want to do anything for him and he does not want to do anything for her.

There is no greater feeling than to be proud of your mate and wanting to show her to everyone, like “Look and me and the gorgeous creature I was able to tame,” as opposed to having to go out and know that every one is thinking, “look at the horrid bitch that poor slob is stuck with.”

Anyway, just some stuff I thought you should know. I think it goes for men, too. I struggle with the genes myself and don't have the will power to stay in as good a shape as I would like.

That is also one of the reasons I am so attracted to thin women. I think that people naturally try to find the person that will balance them and make the best children. I am big and strong and fight with being overweight. I also had bad acne as a child, so thin clear-skinned women are very attractive to me. I guess I think mating with one of them would save my kids the same demons and balance them out.

Anyway, there is a bit of my own babbling for you.

You asked about “chemistry.” Chemistry is when you BOTH feel a strong desire, a level of excitement, and euphoria around each other, and feel very comfortable. I have been on many dates where things were forced, a bit flat. You might even like what you see but the person just doesn't seem right. Chemistry is when you just like each other a lot and get along effortlessly, and you want to be close and touch and kiss and can't get enough of each other. Basically, it comes down to if you feel good around each other and if it seems natural or forced. And it must be mutual or else it's just one person's desire.

I must say that chemistry, in my experience, is almost always immediate. You feel it and then it is confirmed over the course of a few hours. A first meeting can be a bit awkward but you feel a desire to get closer and then you wait to see if you can tell if the other person feels the same. Then once you get past the guarded stance and acknowledge that you both like each other, then you just feel really good around each other. It is largely a feeling of validation that happens when two people like each other and they know that the other likes them back. I like you and you like me and all is well with the world.

Well, anyway, I will chat with you some more. Since I am not going to see you I, am going to be a bad boy and drink some beer and play some games and I will sleep in. I hope to talk to you tomorrow. Gimme a call some time. I miss your voice.

----------------------

Sadly, I have few photos of Leif during the last three years of his life, because I didn't see him as often in those years. I've posted most of the good ones already, sometimes more than once. I liked to post photos that were taken at about the time of the events I'm writing about, but in this case, I don't have a good 2005 photo to use, so I'm posting one he took of himself in August 2003, actually two years before he wrote this email to LA. He took it in the living room of the house where he was living at 710 N. 9th Street in Manhattan, Kansas, a couple of months after he graduated from Kansas State University. I think that period from 2003-2004 was his handsomest period during his post-army years.

Another Short-Term Love Begins

In June 2005, at roughly the same time Leif was writing to J about the end of their relationship and to his friend about his wild ride around Tampa Bay on his motorcycle, he struck up a correspondence with LA, a woman he met through an online dating service. I say "met," but they didn't actually meet until they had corresponded and talked on the phone for well over a month. This was to be Leif's new mode, spending a lot of time getting to know a woman before he was willing to meet her in person. This woman was a very prolific correspondent and he seemed to love it. The email between them was by far the most I saw him write to anyone. She brought out a willingness to express himself that I didn't see with anyone else, at least not to that extent. And, he quickly began to hope for a real love and romance again. After only corresponding for about a week, he wrote the message below to her.

July 3, 2005

Now its my turn to babble at you while a bit out of my mind. I have had a a few drinks and am tired and am freed of my inhibitions and logical nature. This will be one of the times you get to hear my thoughts without the filter of goal oriented, logical reasonisng. Enjoy and and try not t hold it against me or take too much advantage.

I know I have been telling you not to get your hopes up but I should be telling that to myself instead. I am not sure what it is but I have an instinct about you and I think we may have something. Despite my better judgement I am getting my hopes up. I have waited so long to meet a woman I could be happy with. Have I told you that I think that the most brilliant symbol in the universe is the Yin Yang? That is such a profound sybollic image for me, a full circle made of two parts, each flowing into the other, each one half of the whole; complete opposite, but each having a little of the other inside them so they can understand each other. But therwise opposites. Neither is complete alone.

That is how I have always felt. Like I was a Yang looking for a Yin. I am a brilliant man, tall, strong, and some say good looking. I am very smart and educated. Talented, and from what I hear, pretty good in bed. I am on one hand one hell of a guy.

On the other hand.....

I am a complete mess.

I am a horrible bachelor. I hate cleaning. I am totally inept at all things domestic. My bedroom is covered with piles of clean clothes that I will likely never fold. My kitchen will always be full of dishes that need to be done. I am on one hand very independent and impressive, and on the other a completely hopeless mess that needs a woman to take care of me.

I like the idea that two people can take care of each other, that a man can care for and support and provide for a woman and she can make a home for him and their children. I have much more respect for a woman that can be a good wife and mother than one that can be a CEO of a company. Not that women can't do such things, and not that I wouldn't respect a woman that chose to or doubt their capability, but I believe that the feminine tasks often considered "Women's work" are some of the most noble and valuable tasks in society.

I believe that the most perfect relationship we could hope for is one where each person takes care of the other, performing all the tasks that the other is not suited for.

Yes, he should have been telling himself not to get his hopes up, but as I've written before, once something "clicked" with a woman, he was racing ahead in his hopes and dreams, wishing so hard that he'd found the one who could be the person he was writing about above, the one who could make a home for him, give him something to come home TO, someone to work for, someone to complete him.

One of the other things he discovered in the course of this correspondence was how fulfilling it was to find a woman who was intelligent and literate. Here's what he had to say about it:

I never used to think that was a priority to me, having an intelligent mate. Friends told me it was what I needed but to be perfectly honest, and a the risk of sounding a bit arrogant, I am *($(%*&ing brilliant. I think I already told you that I test at between a 120 and 140 IQ, so I am used to being smarter than everyone around me. The only woman I have ever known that can match my intellect is my own mother, which in combinaton with my father's very strange and different sort of brilliance, produced my mind.

I never made finding a smart woman a priority because intelligent conversation was not something that I necessarily needed from a mate, if you can understand that. I can get philosophical discussion from a platonic friend. What I need from a woman is physical and emotional intimacy.

The problem I did run into, though, which I didn't foresee, is that on some level I did not have the same respect for women that I felt to be my intellectual and educational inferiors. While I never did anything to deliberately make any of them feel inferior, I would just be myself and some women, including my ex wife, would not understand what I was talking about, and as she said to me, "I feel stupid when I am around you," which is not something I want to hear. I don't want to hear that me being myself makes my significant other feel bad about herself.

By July 17th, he was falling in love with a woman he had never met, thinking already about a future together. In typical Leif fashion, he wrote things to her when he was drunk, when his inhibitions were loosened. Leif was a mellow drunk. Even when he'd had a lot to drink (and at his size and with his history of drinking, he could drink a lot without appearing drunk), he was lucid. I think one of the reasons he drank so much was to lower his inhibitions . . . and also to help himself sleep, to chase away the demons and the depression, but in the end, so much alcohol was terribly bad for his health, made him gain a lot of weight, and probably increased the depression he was trying to escape.

However, in July 2005, he was still hoping for love, falling in love fast, and writing this to LA after corresponding and talking just over three weeks. The subject line on this email was "Slightly Drunken Ramblings."

Hello My Sweet.

It is late, not  really late, but kinda late, and I am not really drunk, but kinda drunk. Just cracked my 6th Corona, which is enough to have me feeling mellow and a bit less inhibited.

Somehow I feel compelled to talk to you, though I am not sure I have anything specific to say. What does that mean? That I crave contact with you for no reason in particular. The truth is, I missed you tonight. That is a strange and bitter-sweet feeling. I have not even met you, yet I already am missing you.

Tonight I am filled with incomplete thoughts, things that are going on in my heart and mind that I can't necessarily articulate. I do have one thought in my head that is bouncing around. I seem to remember saying it to you, but then it may just be deja vu and I only thought of saying it to you.

That thought is that I want to tell you things that some other part of me says I should not. It is that the part that remembers all those stories saying how you do not reveal to much and never admit to anything so that you can maintain power etc., all those bullshit games that people play to get what they want according to what players of the dating game tell us what we are supposed to do. Don't reveal to much. Don't give up control, don't be too enthusiastic. I HATE THAT!!!

I have always hated the game. Hated the bullshit maneuvering, manipulation, and defense mechanisms that people use to try and get what they want without ever exposing themselves or relinquishing control. Never give up the advantage. I am sick of it. Does no one know how to be honest anymore? Does no one have the courage? I suppose not. I have been guilty of romantic cowardice on many occasions.

So that part of me is trying to tell me that I should keep my mouth shut and maintain the advantage. That may be the way to play things if I was looking for a piece of ass but I feel something different with you. The very thought of not being honest with you disgusts me right now.

Pause, sorry if I am rambling or if this is a bit random and disorganized, but as I said, this is not a coherent thought. I am just typing what comes to me.

Anyway, what I am getting at is that I feel a real connection to you. My rational mind tells me I am nuts and that I should not put much stock in this but my heart is in another place. You said you had a feeling about us. Women's intuition. I, too, have a feeling, a feeling I often try not to indulge.

I suppose that after my last relationship with J, where I got my heart broken so badly, I am wary of getting my hopes up. I don't ever want to feel that way again. Yet I can't deny what I am feeling with you and that my instincts tell me there is really something here.

So anyway, I am rambling again. What I am trying to say is that I have a powerful feeling about you. I am, despite myself, very hopeful about what may become of us. I have often dreamed and hoped that I might one day meet that perfect girl that could complete me, that could fulfill me and give me everything I need and want, and who needed and wanted everything that I could give. But now I am on one hand elated that I just might have found her, and terrified that this could just be a cruel joke played by the fates.

I hope this is not a dream that will not be. On the other hand, I have many thoughts that are quite premature and things that few men would ever acknowledge. I picture moments in our future. Moments men are trained not to get into and images we never seem to want to admit.

I find myself lying in bed, or alone and tired and bored at work, and I have images come to me that are beautiful and wonderful but of which I have no guarantee they will ever be. When I am in bed going to sleep, I often find my arms around a pillow, imagining it is you, and imagining we have been together. I imagine what it would be like to tell you that I loved you and to have you tell me so also. I miss saying those words and meaning it. I love the thought that if we do work out that someday I might be saying them to you everyday. Of course I imagine making love to you but I also imagine our lives later. Imagining our wedding. Imagining you pregnant with my child.

This may be a little much. Now I worry about scaring you off. I am not insane. I am telling you things because I am conflicted between my practical self and my hopeful self.

I am suddenly fading fast. Beers gone, very sleepy. Bottom line, LA, is that you are special to me and I have a very strong feeling about you. I want to write more but I must crash. I hope that you will value this uninhibited glimpse into my mind.

Leif.

Despite all his love of gadgets and guns, his need for speed, his cars and motorcycles, deep inside Leif was an old-fashioned romantic looking for an old-fashioned relationship, one of love and rather traditional roles . . . but he would have wanted a woman who could tolerate those aspects of his personality that would have been challenging, and I wonder if he could have curbed them, or moderated his drinking. Perhaps. Sometimes it is love that makes things change. We will never know.
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The photo of Leif was taken May 31, 2003 in Dover, Delaware at his brother's home where we were holding a surprise family reunion in honor of Leif's grandmother's 85th birthday. He had just graduated from Kansas State University and was opening his graduation gift from his brother. He was 28 years old.

Love That Stands the Test of Time

Leif never really let go of any of the women he loved and continued to be in contact with them as long as he knew where they were. He was realistic enough to know he wasn't going to get them back but their friendship was important to him despite the fact that he had insisted in writing and in conversations that was impossible for men and women to be friends because if they were attracted enough to each other to be friends, sex would always get in the way. I know of seven women that Leif said he loved. Of those, three never worked out to a real love affair, two left him (devastated), one broke it off leaving him bewildered and lonely, and only once that I know of did he end a relationship.

In a sense, he carried a torch of differing degrees for all these women and I think, given the chance, he would have tried again to have a relationship with them, except that he had learned not to trust some of them and would have been afraid of the consequences in a new relationship no matter how much he might have still loved them.

But looking back on how he reacted, it seems to me that the ones that hurt the most were the two that left him because he had committed deeply to those relationships and he wasn't the one walking away. I've just been writing about how much he loved J and how he never stopped. The women he was involved with after J were all to painfully aware of his love for her hanging over them as a shadow, no matter how many times Leif told them it was over, that he was not getting back together with her, and that he didn't trust her with his heart any more. Those facts didn't diminish the love he still felt for her, and it was hard for them to accept.

Thinking about this, I started wondering whether, if J hadn't left and given back the engagement ring, the relationship and his burning love for her would have survived. When someone leaves and the other person in the relationship is still so much in love, where is that love to go? Some men would have become bitter and hateful. Leif said he was angry and hateful for a time, but then he forgave her and went on loving her the rest of his short life. I think in a sense it's much easier to love someone who isn't with you, because you can idealize them, remember the good times, minimize the bad ones or forget them altogether, and pine away for their presence without having to deal with the problems of living together, finances, children, and everyday life. No worries about who's going to take out the garbage or put the kids to bed. No one making demands. I think because J left Leif at the height of his love for her, a week after he proposed to her, for the rest of his life he was thinking about what might have been, what he was missing, but never had to deal with what it would have been like to try to build a life together.

Would his love have been strong enough to last through raising a little girl and maybe more children? Would it have lasted through the inevitable financial difficulties Leif always seemed to have because of his impulsive spending? Would it have lasted through the daily grind of work, deciding who had to do the wash, cook, wash the dishes? Would it have lasted through after months or years of the times when Leif would be doing his own thing on the computer for hours on end and not want to pay any attention to anyone else?

I don't know. It might have, but Leif's lifestyle would have had to change enormously if he were to become a good husband. What about the risky motorcycle riding? The impulsive spending? The drinking and guns? What about staying up way too late and perpetually being short on sleep? What about his terrible housekeeping? Would he have changed? Would J have demanded it of him? She was so young and he was so dominant.

I wonder whether he would have stayed in love, whether it would have worked out, and whether it would have saved him, but another part of me says that it's probably better that J left before there was a wedding, before they built a life together that might have then fallen apart. She may have been right to leave, though it would have been better not to tell him she loved him so, better not to accept his proposal in the first place.

The proposal was a a beautiful idea to Leif. He was so pumped up about it, so ready, and so proud of the beautiful set of rings he bought for her. If she had said no, he would have been crushed, probably not any more so that a week later, though, after he had announced his engagement to the world.

In a sense, though, the proposal was a symbol of Leif's being in a hurry when he was in love. He dated so many women with whom he didn't click that when he found one with whom he did, he fell in love fast and was ready to move to a more permanent relationship, even marriage, very quickly. He talked about taking it slow, when I would talk to him about his romantic involvements after his marriage ended. I was very worried that in his need for love and companionship, he would jump into a relationship too quickly and be hurt again. He could agree with me theoretically, but once he found a woman he wanted, he no longer saw any potential problems, until they were staring him in the face. In one sense, I had to admire his renewed optimism and willingness to take a chance on love. On the other, I worried that he wasn't sufficiently cautious.

His friend Michael told him that he was "in love with being in love," and wanted that feeling of magical closeness and desire so much that he built it up in his mind.

Today Leif's dad and I had another of our endless conversations about what might have helped him live, whether a continuing loving relationship might have given him that gift, but we will never know. Maybe depression would have taken him even so.
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Leif took this photo of himself with the camera on his computer in November 2007, one of the times when he was depressed. It was taken in his apartment in Tampa. He was 32 years old.

The Love of His Life

Leif dated many women that he liked but did not fall in love with, but when the chemistry clicked, he fell in love fast. He wanted love more than anything else and looked for it with passion and zeal.

The relationship with L. apparently didn't develop and he had a period when he wasn't involved with anyone other than casual dating from late 2002 until August 2003. In May 2003 he graduated from Kansas State University and in August he started working at the Sykes call center in town. There he spotted J, a 5' 7" redhead, the perfect height and hair color for him, and she looked quite a bit like Gillian Anderson (Scully on the X Files), a actress he was crazy about. She was separating from her husband and had a two-year-old daughter from a previous relationship. She was having a hard time making ends meet with a child to support and a low wage job, and Leif's protective instincts came to the fore. Again he wanted to rescue the damsel in distress. He feel deeply in love with J and moved her and her daughter into the house at 710 N. 9th Street. I think the months he had J in his life, from August 2003 to March 2004 were some of the happiest of his life. He glowed and beamed.

I came across an email I wrote to him about living with a two-year-old and how to handle it, in response to something he asked me. He was trying to learn how to be a parent, and he cared a lot for that little girl, too.

J professed to love him deeply, and said so in person and in emails. He bought her a beautiful ring and proposed to her on February 27, 2004. She said yes. Then, a week later, she got cold feet and left him, going back east to her family. At first he insisted she would be back, that they would get back together. Then they were going to meet in another city. Then finally she didn't answer his calls or email. She had left with a phone on his account and ran up bills he couldn't pay, and she didn't send him money for them, saying she didn't have it. I'm sure that was true, but it was another hurt on top of losing her.

Leif was in a deep depression a second time. We were very worried about him. It was one of the reasons we started making trips to Florida and trying to find a place to live here. We had planned to do that anyway, but we did it sooner than we had anticipated partly to get Leif out of Kansas and give him a new start, hoping to counteract his depression.

For a time, it worked.

It would probably have been better for Leif if he hadn't had any further contact from J in email, IM, on MySpace or by phone. He hadn't had any nearly a year, and then, in May 2005, almost three months after he moved to Florida, she contacted him. They had several emails stretched out over a month before she disappeared for another three months. She contacted him again in October 2005 and they talked on the phone, Then she disappeared again and didn't answer brief emails from him asking if she were still "there" in November 2005, January 2006, June 2006 and July 2007. I think the last time she sent an email to him was in October 2005 and the last time he tried to contact her was in July 2007. I know they had a few conversations during those years. However, he never stopped loving her or thinking about her, though he realized they would never get back together and indeed, he didn't trust her at that point.

Leif was very open with the women he was involved with after J, and told them about her. They could see he still cared deeply for her, loved her, and found that a threat. Leif told them repeatedly it was over, which was true, and that they were not getting back together, which was also true. He told them that he didn't trust her, which was true . . . but it was also true that he still loved her, and they felt that.

Leif wrote a lengthy email to her on May 26, 2005, after she had contacted him, explaining how her leaving had affected him. Some of what he says was modified later, in the last three years of his life, but he never stopped loving her.

Leif not only forgave the women who hurt him, he continued to be in contact with them, or tried to reestablish it. He needed their friendship, their love, and their affection. He reached out, but knew he could not trust, knew he would never have the relationship he really wanted.

Here is what he wrote to her (edited):

Date: Thursday, May 26, 2005, 2:34 PM

Hey Jessie, It's late. Been a very long day. I am a bit drunk and have had a bit of fun playing Planetside. Game is losing it appeal as the short hours of sleep and long ours of work catch up so I thought, what better time to write you? They say a drunk man's words are a sober man's thoughts. So this must be the real skinny.

So what has happened since you left? I assume you might want to know. At least I hope you would want to. I am curious what happened to you myself.

After you left I was crushed. I am sure you remember the phone calls, the break downs and the heartache, and a fight or two. The last one was the last I ever heard from you.

There are some things I want you to know. Some things you need to know if you are to understand what transpired after your departure.

The first thing you need to know is that you were and likely still are the only woman I have ever really been in love with, at least that returned or professed to return that love. You need to know that I was sincere in my intentions to marry you and I honestly loved you so much that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. Regardless of any hardship or difficulty, I still recall the months from August 2003 to March of 2004 as the very happiest of my entire life. I try to remember that and the joy I felt rather than the pain that came after its loss. As much as I sometimes want to hate you for hurting me, I can also thank you for giving me hope that such a feeling is possible, even if I couldn't find it with you.

After you left and cut off communication I became very depressed. My parents were rather worried about me and were concerned I might sink into suicidal depression, as I had once experienced when stranded in the army in NY after Nikko left me. I was really bummed, but not that bad off. In my typical fashion I managed to hide the pain from all but the most intuitive and closed myself off from others.

As a distraction I finally picked up that online game, Planetside, and got addicted. I did little else but work, sleep and play for a long, long long time. That game is now both my salvation and my curse, as I am still very addicted to it.

For the next 6 months after you left I was so hurt I could not even think of dating. Any woman I met got compared to you. Frankly, they still are compared to you and few measure up in the ways that matter, at least that matter to my heart. Many have had fine qualities that make them good people but I have not felt any affection for them.

Bottom line is, for 6 months after you left I couldn't even think about dating anyone. You took a piece of my heart with you and until it grew back I couldn't imagine giving any of it to anyone else.

After that I realized that I was terribly lonely. I missed you terribly and had no real friends left in Kansas. I went out now and then but either was terribly disappointed by the uninteresting Kansas women, or if one was interesting, losing you had so destroyed my confidence in myself that I hadn't the balls to approach a woman to ask her out.

So, for the next 3 months or so I was just a pathetic lonely wuss that spent his life playing video games and drinking a lot because they were the only things that I could enjoy.

After that my parents found this house down here and decided to buy it. That is a whole nother story, but bottom line is, it got me to Florida. At that point I decided I did not want to date anyone because I might get attached to them and then decide not to move.

So, I basically spent the last year of my 20's alone and miserable. I did not want any attachments that might make me hesitate about moving to Florida.

Since then I have arrived. I have gotten a good job and the new bike and am doing pretty well. I started dating again. Dating is weird and a pain in the ass.

I must say that I have a rather different outlook now. I am much happier overall here in Florida and have much less need of a woman to fulfill me. At this point having a woman in my life is kind of gravy and the few I have dated seemed to like me and I am now rather selective. I date when I have time and nothing I would rather be doing, and have someone I like enough to go out with. For a while I was juggling like 3 girls, none of which really interested me, so I decided it wasn't worth the trouble and stopped seeing 2 of them.

Later on I will be going out with the one that remains. Her name is R. She is 25, professional, divorced, has a baby girl, is tiny, at like 5'2", but with big D cups. Fun, chic, good taste in stuff. I like her a lot but I doubt I will ever be in love with her. That is the sad truth. There are lots of women out there with great qualities and personalities but I have never felt such attraction to them like I did to you.

So this leaves me with rather conflicted feeling towards you. On one hand I have never found anyone I was so compatible with sexually. Every woman I have been with since felt a bit awkward and unfulfilling. I know how to push their buttons but few know how to push mine. I so miss the sex we had as it was magical. My mind tells me I am better of without you as I don't think I can rely on you and that you have some growing up to do yet. And my heart is torn both ways.

They say the opposite of love isn't hate, it is indifference. I know this to be true. I loved you deeply and you made me happier than I had ever been. When you took that away from me I hated you intensely.

I eventually had to forgive you. I know that what you did you didn't do out of malice. I know you didn't want to hurt me, that you weren't trying to be mean. I know that it was your own weakness, not maliciousness that made you do what you did. You disappointed me greatly and while that is very disappointing it is much easier to forgive someone for weakness than it is for just being mean.

So, while you don't want to spend the rest of your life knowing that people you loved hate you, likewise I don't want to spend my life hating the person I loved most. So while I want you to know exactly what you did to me, I also want you to know that I forgive you. You don't have to be afraid of talking to me. I will not try to punish you or make you feel bad any more than you will likely do to yourself after reading this.

I must admit that I still love you. I am sure that part of me always will and unless I find what we had with another, part of me will always want you back. I just don't know if I could ever trust you again.

Well, that is all I have to say for now and until you respond. Other than I could still gripe about the phone bill you left me which from the sound of things you won't be paying me back for anytime soon.

So there you go Jessie. Ball's in your court. You decided what happens next.

I am gonna ride the bike up to Tampa and get an estimate to fix it, then go get some Japanese food with R. Maybe see a movie.

Take Care of yourself

Leif

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This photo of Leif is a self-portrait he took on June 22, 2004 in the bedroom he couldn't stand to sleep in for months after J left. He looks so sad and serious.

Looking for Love After the Divorce

We moved from Puerto Rico to Manhattan, Kansas at the end of the summer in 1992 when Peter W. retired from the army. We were very sorry to have to move Leif between his junior and senior years of high school, just as we'd had to do with Peter A., but Peter was more outgoing and made the transition more smoothly and happily than Leif did. Puerto Rico was the first place he had blossomed socially and it was hard for him to leave behind a great group of friends, and hard to leave K., his first real love, too, even though the romance between them had not developed as he had hoped.

When he entered his senior year of high school at Manhattan High School, he found more disappointments when he tried out for a part in the musical and didn't get one, after his triumph as Kenicke in "Grease" at Antilles High School. He was naturally reserved and shy like I was at that age, so he didn't make friends at MHS, other than Jason Palenske. The second semester, he was already taking classes at Kansas State University part time so he spent little time on campus and never really became a part of the social scene there or did much of any dating.

As a student at KSU, though, he did find women to date and I can remember several of the ones he dated. However, it was Nikko, who he met at the SCA Lilies War, that won his heart. He has later written that he didn't have the same kind of overwhelming love for her that he later felt for J., but it was clear that the two of them were in love and were like two frisky puppies together. I've already written about their courtship, marriage and divorce and continuing friendship, and that he was terribly hurt and broken up over the end of their marriage, which lasted from October 1995 to October 2002, though they were separated the last two years of that time.

Back in Manhattan when he was medically retired from the army, he was initially too depressed to date, but eventually he did get back into the dating scene, which he hated, and he found it hard to find women his age and with his level of experience in that town, which was full of young college students.

However, in 2002, he was in love again, this time with someone who had been a friend for some years. I never met L. and Leif only talked to me about her once or twice and only sent any comments about her in email to me once. That email is below.

Leif professed in email to several women over the years that he wanted a marriage like Peter W. and I have, one with love, affection, loyalty, commitment, and being there for each other for a lifetime. He said he wanted a woman like me, which I found very flattering. However, he was not willing to do what Peter W. and I have done to make a relationship like that work. He wanted to continue to be aloof when he pleased, spend as he liked, drive dangerously, drink too much, and not make himself the kind of long-term mate prospect a woman like me would look for. He seemed to think that if he just found the right person, it would all fall into place. I once asked him what he was willing to make it work. Sometimes he seemed to think he would make changes, and other times he basically said a woman would have to accept him as he was (which is probably the truth), yet those things about him made it harder to find someone who could love all of him and not just the wonderful qualities he did have.

As with others, the romance he hoped for with L. did not happen. I never found out any more about it.

And the time from when he came back to Manhattan from the army so terribly depressed and when he was in love with L. was a time we were terribly worried about him because of his depression. The email below was one he wrote in response to one from me,.

Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 23:37:18 -0500

My Dear Son,

Maybe I'm just worrying for nothing (a common problem among mothers), but I am concerned about you when you say that nothing much matters to you or that there isn't much you care about. If I take that literally, it means there is little in life that you enjoy or find worthwhile, and that's a very sad thought, given all there is to enjoy and be thankful for. Sure, there are also lots of things in life that, to use a phrase you might use, "suck," but I hope there is some joy in your life, that there are things you care about and some goals or dreams you care about achieving. If you really are depressed to the point where you have
little interest in all the things available to you, or the possibilities life offers, it really is time to get some help. I love you and care about you and your happiness with all my heart. I am happy when you are animated and seem to be enjoying something. I hope for the best for you in life.

Love, Mom

His reply on May 22, 2002:

I suppose it is just that I have become very jaded. It is not that there is nothing in life for which I have any passion but rather that I have been consistently disapointed by the impossibility of attaining any of the things that I have had any passion for. So I suppose as a defense mechanism I have just stopped dreaming of things that cannot be easily attained. There are some things I have passion for but this is where you would find yourself in a position of conflict because the things I have passion for are the things that, in yours and Dad's min's, I should avoid. Things like new motorcycles and computers and Playstation Twos. All the things that I am interested in or have any passion for are the things I am constantly getting shit about from you or dad because it is not smart financially.

I think I told you once that I would be homeless before I would sell my motorcycle. That is still true. And I really couldn't care less how financially irresponsible it might be to buy a $10,000 motorcycle when I am still paying off debts from other toys. You want to know what I have passion for? There it is. The few dreams that I have left that are not so farfetched that they are not worth pursuing, and things like those motorcycles are tangible dreams. Screw delaying gratification till it makes good financial sense. You can't imagine how tempted I was to go down and buy one of those bikes now during their spring sales event. They are sending bikes out for $49 a month. Sure, in the long run you get screwed financially, but to me, even if I paid $20,000 for that $10,000 bike I still wouldn't have felt like I got ripped off because there is no amount of money that is too much to pay for a great motorcycle. I am sure you cannot understand that but that does not surprise me. Trying to explain a motorcycle to a non-rider is like trying to explain sex and orgasm to a virgin. You simply can't understand.

But other than that I do have a few things that I care about. I care about gaming and I care about Zaon. It is a very promising and interesting thing. Sure, I will likely never see a cent out of it but I am contributing to the creation of a product that I value. I also dig the computers. I am sitting here typing this on one of my 3 monitors or my "global domination center" of a PC. I dig the PS2 and I am getting into fixing up my car.

I am passionate about driving. Fortunately I have the sense to hit the backroads when I get the urge to really push it. There is nothing liek the sensation of having the car slide on all 4 tires at the very edge of adhesion, and you know the tires have got to be screaming like banshees but you can't tell because you can't hear anyhting over the 1500 watt stereo. Or leaning into a curve at 135 MPH with the throttle wide open, still accelerating as the bike rockets along a deserted Kansas highway.

I have passion in my life but it is not the sort of thing you generally would want to hear about.

On a tamer note (but don't tell her that) I have passion for L. I shouldn't, but I dare say I love her. Probably have for years. But like so many other dreams I fear that she will be yet another to slip through my grasp. Hopefully not. And I have certainly not given up, quite the contrary. I am playing my cards slowly and with great calulation but I am nevertheless going for broke.

But anyway, there you have my answer to your concerns. It makes me wonder which would trouble you more, me not expressing any passion, or me expressing passion for all the dangerous, expensive, and irresponsible things that you disapprove of and can't understand.

Leif

That is a portrait of a depressed man.

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The photo of Leif was taken in our old stone house in Manhattan, Kansas on February 16, 2002, three months before he wrote this email, in one of his more sociable and silly moods.