Songs with Memories of Hawaii and Florida

Music brings back so many memories. It evokes so many thoughts and feelings. I rarely listen to the radio while driving, but not long ago I did have it on, playing a local classic rock station. So many songs they played were popular when we lived in Hawaii. The brought back memories of our time there, of Leif as a young boy in third through fifth grades, of how both my sons loved music and each had ways to play the music they loved.

They were always up on the contemporary music, and I heard what they played, or what was on the radio when we were all together in the car heading for the beach or an evening in Waikiki.

One of their favorite groups was Air Supply. We all enjoyed their music. The song, "All Out of Love" seemed particularly poignant and appropriate now, looking back on Leif's adult life, though many of their songs would be so on target.

Air Supply singing "All Out of Love" at 1983 Hawaii concert

We went to a couple of rock concerts in Hawaii. One was the Norwegian group A-Ha at the Hawaii Shell on August 8, 1986, just before we left Hawaii to move to Fort Sheridan, Illinois. I remember well that open air concert and how much we all enjoyed it. The boys liked just about everything A-Ha did, but of course, the wildly popular "Take On Me" was at the top of the list, followed later by the theme for the James Bond film "The Living Daylights" in 1987. They enjoyed the music videos on MTV and Leif would certainly have found the one for "Take On Me" creative and absorbing.

A-Ha MTV Official Video of "Take On Me"

We all liked the BeeGees, too, and on my trip down memory lane with the car radio, the song "Too Much Heaven," which carries the line "Nobody gets too much love anymore," was particularly heartrending. So many songs of lost love, unrequited love, that seem so tuned in to Leif's life of loves lost.

BeeGees singing "Too Much Heaven"

Music was such a deep and important part of Leif's life. I wish he'd somehow found or made a way to be a real part of it, playing in a band, or singing in a chorus. Maybe having something positive and beautiful in his life would have helped, and maybe he would have met people he enjoyed being with, maybe met someone to love that would have stayed in his life. I know I should stop speculating on what might or could have been, but it's hard not to wish or hope that things could have been different.

Last Sunday we were at Coconuts on the Beach over on the Atlantic side of Florida, a place we first went in December 2003, without Leif, and have always wished we could take him there. It was a gorgeous afternoon and we had a bonus. They had a live band playing, The BroHams. The lead guitarist looked like he could have been Leif a few years hence, bald headed with a kerchief tied on his head, goatee like life, somewhat overweight, wearing baggy jeans and a t-shirt Leif would have liked, a kind of Leonardo da Vinci man but with a guitar. We really enjoyed the music, and I couldn't help but think that Leif might have been able to do that, if he'd had the drive to play well and found a band.

Here's a photo of the band, though you can't see the drummer behind the guitar player. That's the one I was talking about on the left.

Leif would have enjoyed the music, a beer overlooking the beach, the food, and the three young bikini-clad women who danced in front of the band and the audience, putting on quite a show. I wish we could have taken him with us.

The photo of Leif in Hawaii was taken in 1984 when Leif was nine year old.

My Little Happy Wanderer

Leif was my little "Happy Wanderer." He loved to be out, going places, just about any place, the city, the woods, the beach. When we lived in Germany, we went on lots of Volksmarches (organized hikes I've written about before). Our boys had their little backpacks to take things along with them. Leif, when he was this little, often took a stuffed animal along for the ride.

This photo was taken in the Fürther Stadtwald, the City Woods of the city of Fürth, Germany, in the fall of 1977 when Leif was a little over two-and-a-half years old.

I was looking for a photo that I was pretty sure I didn't ever have, one of me singing to my boys, or playing the guitar and singing, and since I didn't have one but wanted to post a list of songs I used to sing to them at night. Sometimes we also sang them while driving in the car. I'm sure the list isn't complete, but I'm surprised I remembered over sixty songs I sang.

This photo goes with "The Happy Wanderer," which I used to sing to them. I loved that song, which I learned in grade school. Here is the list I came up with. Happy memories come with all those songs. Some of them, many of them, I learned as a child. It was fun to teach them to my sons and pass them on.

1. America the Beautiful

2. Ants Go Marching, The

3. Battle Hymn of the Republic

4. Daisy, Daisy

5. Dixie

6. Do Your Ears Hang Low?

7. Down in the Valley

8. Edelweiss

9. 500 Miles

10. Found a Peanut

11. Four Strong Winds

12. Goodnight Irene

13. Greensleeves

14. Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley

15. The Happy Wanderer

16. Henry Martin

17. Home on the Range

18. Hush Little Baby

19. Inchworm

20. Itsy Bitsy Spider (or the Eensy Weensy Spider)

21. I've Been Working' on the Railroad

22. John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt

23. Kumbayah

24. Mary Had a Little Lamb

25. Michael Row the Boat Ashore

26. Moon River

27. My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean

28. My Darling Clementine

29. My Grandfather's Clock

30. Oh, How Lovely Is the Evening

31. Oh, Susana

32. Old Black Joe

33. Old MacDonald Had a Farm

34. On Top of Old Smoky

35. On Top of Spaghetti

36. Once Upon a Dream

37. Puff the Magic Dragon

38. Red River Valley

39. Rockabye Baby

40. Row, Row, Row Your Boat

41. Sail, Baby, Sail (The Slumber Boat)

42. She'll Be Coming' 'Round the Mountain

43. Shenandoah

44. She's Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage

45. Somewhere Over the Rainbow

46. The Sound of Music

47. Summertime

48. Sweet Betsy From Pike

49. Taps (little did I know it would one day be played at his inurnment service)

50. Try to Remember

51. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

52. Way Down Upon the Swanee River

53. When Johnny Comes Marching Home

54. When the Red, Red Robin

55. When You Wish Upon a Star

56. Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

57. Yankee Doodle

58. Yellow Rose of Texas

59. You Are My Sunshine

60 plus (And Christmas carols, of course)
And I just remembered "Frere Jacques"

Singing To My Sons

This morning as we were listening to Roger Whittaker singing "Both Sides Now," Peter W. said it reminded him of me singing to our boys at bed time. I said I never sang that song to them, but I guess the kind of song it was made him think that. I thought I had written about singing to my boys on the blog already, but I couldn't find a post about it.

I don't know if my sons remembered all the songs I sang to them once they were grown, but it was a special bed time ritual for many years. I started it when Peter A. was little and continued it for many years, long after Leif was born. I remember how, when I had two of them to sing to, I used to sit on the floor between their two bedroom doors, facing them, and sing in the dark hallway.

I think I particularly remember that place and time because of sitting on that floor. The boys were eight and two years old then.

I started singing when I was in college, accompanying myself on an acoustic guitar. For a short time I sang with a quartet. After college, for many, many years the only singing I did was at home with my guitar or singing to the boys at night. I have no photos of me singing with my guitar or singing to them. I wish I did. 

I sang mostly folk songs, oldies, and a few Broadway numbers. One of the songs the boys loved was "When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob Bobbin' Along," an old song I learned in college. Since I have no photos of me singing to them, I found this video of the melody. There are a lot of videos online with a wide variety of singers, famous and amateur, singing this song but their renditions were so different from mine that I am posting a piano version.

I also loved to sing "Try To Remember" from The Fantasticks, "Inchworm" (originally from the film Hans Christian Anderson), children's favorites like "The Ants Go Marching" and "Found a Peanut," and many folk songs.

Both boys had good voices. Peter A. began singing with the Kinderchor (childen's choir) in Sachsen bei Ansbach when he was in fourth grade and sang all the way through school and the Air Force Academy in choruses and musicals. 

Leif had a wonderful voice, but he never sang until he tried out for high school musicals and won the coveted part of Kenicke in "Grease," when his rendition of "Greased Lightning" made the girls scream like he was a rock star. I've written about that on this blog before.

When my grandchildren were tiny, I thought of recording a CD of the songs I sang to my sons for the grandkids, but I never did it. 

Singing to my sons is a special, warm memory. Bed time was good, with cuddles, stories, and songs, our time.

Evanescence - Bring Me to Life

A friend told me today that this had been one of Leif's favorite songs. It certainly fit his dark mood and wish for something to give him life and purpose. It's cry for meaning and contact, the despair of being numb and cold. So sad we could not save him. Bring Me To Life by Evanescence.

Songs that Speak

Today was one of those days that I heard songs lyrics that brought Leif to mind, not because he played those songs, but because they spoke of the life and feelings he had. Kris Kristofferson's "For The Good Times" seemed to pour out the kind of feeling Leif might have had for his lost loves, "make believe you love me one more time, for the good times." How sad those times were gone.

i don't normally turn on the radio, or even music. First of all, Peter usually has the television on so I don't like competing sounds, but I also treasure quiet and I'm usually working on something and would only be distracted by music. Music is very involving to me. it isn't just background sound. I want to really listen to it. So most of the time when I encounter songs like this, it's because Peter has turned on the radio in the car or I'm somewhere with piped in music, or it's in a television show. The pool where we swim has a soft rock radio station on all the time, so I often hear songs there that make me think of Leif and his life. So many songs are about love and love lost. They all have so much more meaning, and so much more sadness, for me now.

I have a CD of music that is supposed to help lull you to sleep. It's beautiful, haunting music, very soft and dreamy, and I like it, but for some reason, it often brings tears to my eyes because it makes me think of Leif. I have tried to contemplate what it is about this music that I associate with him, because I know he never heard it and I bought the CD after his death. I think I know what it is. There is something about the music that sounds as though it should be accompanied by beautiful photos of the cosmos, photos like those taken by the Hubble Telescope. They should be carrying us. me, though space. And that's why I hink of Leif. He had a marvelous slide show of Hubble space photos on his computer and he loved space. i associate that with him and I imagine him traveling through space, seeing at last a place his soul wanted to go. At least it's a lovely idea, whether it could possibly be true or not. The music, though, makes me miss him.

Music is so powerful.

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This photo of Leif looking so young and vulnerable was taken in Japan when he was five or six years old. I wish that I could hug him one more time.

Always Chasing Rainbows?

Another song we sang at the concert on Sunday was "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows."

This one wasn't one we rehearsed to perform, but a sing-along with the audience. I didn't even know we were going to sing it until three days before because I'd been gone to South America for three weeks. Here again, the words tripped me up.

I'm always chasing rainbows,
Watching clouds drifting by,
My dreams are just like all my schemes,
Ending in the sky.

Some fellows look and find the sunshine,
I always look and find the rain.
Some fellows make a winning sometime,
I never even make a gain, believe me,
I'm always chasing rainbows,
I'm watching for a little bluebird in vain.

Was Leif always chasing rainbows? In a way, I guess you could say that. He was chasing love and I know he had other dreams, at least until the end. He had schemes, and the always hoped things would work out, until the end. When did he stop hoping? I'll never know. When did he believe that "I never even make a gain"? It must have seemed that way to him the way his adult life seemed to go.

The photo was his kindergarten school portrait. To me he looks kind of scared and sad in this picture. It was never one I liked. Now I see the vulnerability there, the uncertainty. He may have always had it and learned to hide it well with his bravado and size.

Tonight there was a beautiful full moon. I thought of him again, about his love of the stars and science fiction, and his love of technology and gadgets, of his need for real love . . .

of the rainbows he chased, of the gains that never came his way.

Why does fortune favor some and not others?
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Photo of Leif was taken in the fall of 1980 at Camp Zama, Japan when he was 5 years old.

No Matter How Your Heart Is Grieving

Sunday I sang in the Women's Chorus Spring Concert. I had been rehearsing the songs since January and although I had thought about the lyrics of some of them with a bit of sadness, I didn't expect any emotional reactions during the concert even though I often have strong emotional reactions to music. I was unprepared.

The first song we sang was a medley of "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes" and "Once Upon a Dream" from Disney's "Sleeping Beauty." I knew the second one would make me think of Peter A. when he was in middle school and chose that as the solo he would sing in their chorus's spring concert, and I knew that would make me nostalgic. I also knew that these words from the first song would be sad ones for me:

"No matter how your heart is grieving,
if you keep on believing
the dream that you wish will come true."

It's a pretty song and a beautiful thought, but hardly true.

We started singing and I immediately got choked up with tears in my eyes and had all I could do to keep from crying. In that setting, with the sound so good and the responsive audience, the words hit me as they had not during rehearsals. I realized what they meant and how my wish would never come true no matter how I wished, and the even believing would not help or bring Leif back to me.

It's like that with grief. You never know when it's going to crawl out of whatever hole you have managed to corner it in. You never know when it's going to take over your emotions and you have to fight to keep it down.

There I was, in front of several hundred people, trying to keep the tears from falling and look like I was singing. I did manage to get control of myself, even though the "Once Upon a Dream" sequence turned out to be far more nostalgic than I had expected, and I found myself sad that I could never get Peter A's childhood back, either, though that, at least, is a normal part of life . . . to have one's son grow up.

Sometimes I think of playing music, but I rarely do. So much of the music I like evokes too much emotion.

In just 12 days it will be two years since we found Leif dead. How can it be? How can that time have passed? It's like yesterday that he was here having dinner with us, two years ago on Easter Sunday.
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The photo of Leif was taken at Kodomo no Kuni, a woods and playground near Camp Zama, Japan, in February 1981. He was six years old.

He Would Have been 35 Today

If Leif had lived, today would be his 35th birthday. It's still hard for me to realize he won't be coming for dinner, that we can't take him out, won't get him a present. It's the second birthday since his death, and it all still seems so wrong that my beautiful son isn't alive.

It's hard to look at the photos of the last year of his life and see how he deteriorated physically, how sad he looked, how much weight he gained. He looked ten years older than he was, and it happened so fast. What terrible things depression and an unhealthy lifestyle can do to a person!

Last year in January I posted a lot of photos of the birthdays in his life. This year, just today, one of him as a baby with me, and one on that last birthday two years ago. That's the span of his life, in those two photos, but there was so much in between, so much adventure and so much heartache.

Today I will go to the cemetery. Peter W., his dad, says Leif isn't there, and of course, he's right. Leif was a living, breathing, thinking human being, not a small pile of powdered bones, but it's symbolic. Where else can I go?

I was participating in a focus group today, a group of "senior citizens" who all participate in music. It was for a research project about how music affects one's quality of life and it is focused on seniors. I had never met the others in the group and it was interesting to see how they spoke about the role of music in their lives. We all talked about the joy of it.

But there was something I didn't say. Music does bring joy, but it can also bring sorrow. Music is not only full of it's own emotion, but we associate many pieces of music with things in our lives, and some of those are sad. I've already written about how some pieces make me cry so I don't listen to them any more, and how hard it is to sing some of them. One of the choruses I sing with has chosen to sing "You'll Never Walk Alone" from the musical "Carousel." I loved this piece when I was a young teen. I purchase the sheet music with my allowance and I still have it. It's normally a beautiful, uplifting song. But not now. Now I find myself thinking of Leif and how many years he walked on with hope in his heart, hoping he wouldn't walk alone, but his hopes were dashed and he did walk alone. I know the song is probably referring to God being with you but even that, it seems Leif did not have, at least not that he felt it. I have a hard time singing that song because I know there are people who do feel alone, so along, and hope is hard to keep.

Two years ago, on his last birthday, Leif was here for dinner with us, actually the night before because of his work schedule. We had a good visit, but I was a little sad that I didn't get to make his favorite foods for him because he was trying out the Atkins diet again. I took it as a hopeful sign that he wanted to lose weight, and we made filet mignon for him. Maybe things would have been different if he hadn't lost his GI BIll stipend in February, taking away his last hope of being able to pay his bills (though he didn't tell us that). Maybe hope would not have deserted him.

How glad I am that I took pictures that night he was here, the last birthday I would ever see him.

Happy birthday, Leif, wherever you are.

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The top photo was taken on January 27, 2008 at Leif's 33rd birthday dinner in Sun City Center, Florida. The second one is Leif with his mother, Jerri, on March 14, 1975. He was six weeks old. It was in Manhattan, Kansas.

My Two Beautiful Boys - Manhattan, Kansas - November 1975 - Leif age 10 months

This photo makes me smile, my two beautiful sons looking happy together on our old gold velvet couch. That couch served us many a year, from 1973 (gosh, it was nearly "new" in this photo) until around 2004, I think. It was retired to the Salvation Army.

This photo was probably taken near Thanksgiving in November 1975. Leif was 10 months old and Peter Anthony would have a birthday a month later and celebrate being 7 years old. Peter W. had been in Germany that fall on Reforger maneuvers with the Army, and I was taking graduate school classes at Kansas State University.

I am grateful for every photo, and the memories that go with them.

Yesterday I sang with the German American Chorus in a Christmas concert and remembered that two years ago, Leif was there to see the concert, enjoyed the party with us afterward, and got a particular laugh out of John H. singing a funny version of "My Country 'Tis of Thee," that goes something like this;

My Country tis of thee
i come from Germany
My name is Fritz.
Give me some sauerkraut.
Don't leave the bratwurst out,
....
Give me a stein of beer
And i'll stay here.

Maybe I'll remember the missing lines later.

Last year I had a very hard time singing some of the Christmas songs and got choked up, espcially on "I'll Be Home For Christmas," realizing that Leif would never again be home for Christmas. This year I had a couple of moments when I almost got choked up and felt a brief sting of tears, but it was so much better than last year. I am grateful for that, too.

Several years ago a friend of ours lost her little daughter, not even two years old, when a babysitter threw her and injured her. He was convicted after a long and heartbreaking trial. Little Jordan's birthday was the 11th, and her family still remembers and misses her so. I reflected on how we both lost children and were devastated by that loss, but I had Leif for 33 years, at least. They lost all of their daughter's future and all but a tiny part of her childhood. I have the photos and the memories and they can only think what might have been. Losing a child is terrible at any time, but I can be grateful for Leif's whole childhood and fifteen years of adulthood, all that time I got to experience with him, love him, and learn from him.

Today, the Compassionate Friends organization, for parents who have lost children the world over, has a ceremonial candle lighting at 7:00 p.m. local time to remember their beloved children. I hope you will, too. I will remember Leif, as I do every day.

He Dreamed a Dream

Leif was a dreamer who dreamed of being a hero, a warrior. Someone who discovered him on Facebook or in this blog and asked to befriend him after death wrote to me that Leif would have liked this blog, that Vikings wanted the songs of their deeds and lives to be sung, to be remembered.

Leif's persona in the Society for Creative Anachronism, SCA, was a Viking pirate. For years SCA was an important part of his life, and he reveled in dressing in his garb, improving his armor and weaponry over the years. He made rattan weapons to fight with and fought many a Sunday battle in the Manhattan City Park (in Manhattan, Kansas), wearing an incredible amount of weight, especially toward this end of the time he lived there when he had the fifty-pound chain mail shirt he made. Several times I went to watch him and take pictures.

He dreamed of being the kind of hero he could perhaps have been in an earlier age, and surrounded himself with both ancient and thoroughly modern weaponry.

I was looking online for information about the Viking songs and sagas and was surprised to discover that they have fragments of ancient Viking songs written in a kind of musical notation using runes, and one site showed both the old runic notation and a modern translation of it. The title of the songs was so completely appropriate, "I Dreamed a Dream," so I decided to try to record it with GarageBand. I wish I had the time and talent to add accompaniment to it, though I have no idea what the Viking sound would have been, beyond the tune. I wonder, too, what the rest of the words were, and whether they, too, would have fit Leif.

The photos I put with the song are ones Leif took of himself on August 7, 2003 when he had just purchased his new armor. He was posing in the living room of the house at 710 N. Ninth Street in Manhattan, Kansas, where he was living at the time. It was a good time for him. I think he had at least somewhat recovered from the breakup of his marriage, he had graduated from Kansas State University that May, and was looking forward to a brighter future. He has just gotten a job at Sykes, which no longer has a call center in Manhattan. Little did he know how his life was about to change, first for the better, as he was so ecstatically in love beginning a couple of months later, and then dashed to pieces when the she left him. I think the period from about May 2003 to February 2004 was one of the happiest of his life, and it shows in his looks. He was so handsome then.

So, my Viking son, although I do not sing your exploits, I do write them and give them to the world.