The Destruction of One's Life's Work

I've been thinking for sixteen months about why the loss of a child is so devastating. When my father died I was twelve, a death I witnessed; it was traumatic and terribly sad. I missed him. I questioned why. It was as though the foundation of my life had been destroyed, washed right out from under me.

I was afraid to believe, to trust, to love, for fear whatever I believed in or trusted or loved would be taken away from me. It took me years to get beyond that and give myself fully to relationships. And yet, that loss was nowhere near as hard for me as Leif's death has been. I have questioned why many times.

There are many reasons I could cite. I only knew my father for twelve years. I knew Leif for thirty-three. I was closer to Leif than I was to my father. We have the expectation (though not the certainty) of our children outliving us and not having to deal with their deaths. We have such hopes for their future. We miss the relationship and seeing the unfolding of their lives. Their death changes our identity, changes our lives, changes the future.

And yet, there was always something more that I couldn't quite grasp, couldn't figure out a way to explain. Now I think I can try.

For someone like me, whose deepest and most important emphasis as an adult has been my family, my children are my life's work. They are, more than anything else, what my life is all about. There is nothing I have done or will ever do that is as important as raising my children. They are the legacy I will leave behind.

There is no analogy that is adequate, but it is rather as though a sculptor has spent years creating a beautiful and meaningful sculpture, and that sculpture represents her life's work, the sum of who she is and her creations, but this sculpture goes beyond the inanimate smoothness of stone . . . it is alive, has volition, intellect, talents, consciousness. It is a child who talks, lives, breathes. It is the ultimate creation for someone like me. It creates itself as well.

It is a delight, a privilege, an honor, and yes, it is frustrating, sometimes infuriating; it is expensive and sometimes contrary. It is not easy to spend eighteen years molding this sculpture, assisting in its creation. It isn't easy to help continue to mold it after it has grown and left one's home and arms, but that process never ends.

So much of who I am is wrapped up in my sons and who they are, who I helped them to become. Nothing else I have done or will ever do will matter as much, be as rewarding, or as heartbreaking.

And that is why, one of the deepest reasons why, Leif's death is so hard. He was a beautiful sculpture, one of only two I created and helped to learn and grow, and now that part of my life's work is destroyed and gone forever. As though someone took a wrecking ball to a beautiful marble statue and crushed it to dust. Half of my legacy to the future is gone. Half of my life's work is destroyed.

And there is the added sadness that somehow I wasn't able to form and create his life so that he could either make better choices or continue to withstand the consequences of the choices he made, that I was unable to give him better luck in life or help him to find a purpose worth living for.

There is both the sadness of losing my beautiful son, my life's work, and the sadness of knowing that I somehow did not give him the tools to continue to create his own life, one in which he could prosper and be happy.

It is a terrible loss and a profound failure.

I know that there may have been no way I could help him achieve that sense of purpose and meaning in life; there may have been no way I could have influenced his misfortunes for the better, though I tried, but it will still feel like a failure. What can be more tragic than to throw away the gift of life? What can be sadder than to have decided to die at 33?

I brought him into this world with love and hopes and tried my best to give him all the tools he needed for a good life. He blew that life away with a 45. All my life I will remember not only all the good times, all the photos, all the conversations, the love, the embraces, but also that horrifying picture in my mind of him lying there in a pool of blood, dead and still, the gun on the kitchen counter.

How thankful I am that Leif was not my only child. How thankful I am that I have Peter Anthony, my first-born son.

And it will always be true that nothing I will ever do will be as important or as all-absorbing as raising my sons.

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The photo of Leif was taken in Kamakura, Japan in May 1981. He was six years old.

Leif - The Purple Suit & The Sculptor - 1992

In high school, Leif became a snappy dresser with his own sense of distinctive style. When he wasn't wearing the the in-style ragged jeans and combat boots, he liked unusual styles, particularly two suites, one a sort of silver/gray the other purple, and he looked terrific in them.

This photo was taken in our back yard in Puerto Rico. Note the Oakley sunglasses, one of several pairs he owned over the years. I found one in his belongings after he died.

That yard was surrounded by a ring of 29 coconut palms and was very hard to mow. Leif got that job, and he didn't like it. However, I wish I had a photo of him out there, bare to the waist, long hair streaming, with his machete stuck into a coconut he had just lopped the end off of, holding it in the air with the machete and drinking the juice by pouring it down his throat. He looked like a very well-built Tarzan.

I chose this photo because of an analogy Peter made today. He said it's as though we had what we thought was a perfect piece of marble and spent 33 years sculpting it, and then found it had a fatal flaw that would cause it to disintegrate.

I thought a lot about that today, but the analogy isn't quite right. It's more as though we had about 20 years to sculpt the beautiful statue, and then had to put it out into the public garden, where vandals worked for years to destroy it and finally managed to do so.

I say that because Leif suffered greatly. He was betrayed by people he loved. He was treated with terrible unfairness and cruelty in the army because of his asthma. He suffered heartbreaking loneliness and depression.

Although the rest of Shakepeare's speech doesn't fit, the line "he loved not wisely but too well" certainly fits Leif. He had great love to give, but he chose unwisely and those he loved broke his heart.

Leif had flaws. They contributed to his loneliness and depression, but as I learn about depression, I see that many of those flaws were symptoms of it.

Yet in so many ways, he WAS the beautiful statue, the beautiful mind. He was brilliant, though he never found a focus and sense of purpose for that mind. He was handsome. He was kind. He was funny. He had a social conscience. He cared deeply about his country.

When this photo was taken, he could have been a model, posed for the cover of romance novels, but although he dressed the part, he never had the artifice to be the ladies' man . . . and indeed, what he really wanted most of all in life was a loyal, loving soulmate, the protector of his heart.

How I wish he had found her!