All the Reminders in Just One Day

Although we live with reminders and photos of Leif all over our house every day, they are part of the fabric of our lives that we are used to and familiar with, so it's now usually the unexpected or less frequent reminders of him that catch us unawares, and they, too, can be everywhere.

Last Friday we went to Walmart to get my glasses frames replaced after they broke. While I was standing in the optical department waiting, I was looking around at the display of frames and my eye caught a display of high tech, high fashion, expensive sports lenses of the type Leif might have gravitated to and I unexpectedly felt tears come to my eyes.

Even recounting this brings tears to my eyes. Why? I was never there in that store with him. This particular store was built after he died. It was just the remembrance of how he favored "cool" glasses, whether regular daily wear ones, sunglasses, or the kind of sport glasses he wore when riding his motorcycle.

From there we drove in to Tampa, and on the way, we were passed by a motorcyclist going like a house afire. Because Leif rode motorcycles and had accidents, I feel protective of cyclists, but I am also horrified at those that ride like he did, like a demon. There was the second reminder.

As we took the expressway exit off I745, Peter W. was remarking that something had suddenly made him feel sad, that he always thought of Leif when we were driving to Tampa and he couldn't believe it had been almost four years since he died, and I said, "If feels like we should just be able to drive to his apartment and see him." Yes, it still does, and it still feels like a knife in the heart when I realize I can't, that he isn't there and he never will be.

We saw some "cool" cars on the way and remarked how much Leif would have liked them.

When we got to the BX (base exchange, a department store for you non-military types), I saw someone that could have been his brother . . . tall, shaved head, goatee and mustache, about thirty-five, and wearing jeans and designer glasses. This man was probably three inches taller than Leif, but even at that, I had to look again to be sure it wasn't him.

We went into the ITT (Information Tours and Travel) office and they were advertising tickets for concerts by Van Halen and Rammstein. Leif would have loved to go to both of those, though they would have been out of his price range with tickets well over $100 each.

At home I read an article about the Mars opposition (positioning of the planet Mars) and an observatory program about it he would have liked.

By now, on Monday, I'm probably forgetting more things that occurred on Friday to remind us of Leif and make us bounce from everyday routine to sadness to reminiscing to sadness to just being busy. There are so many things we associate with him and always will.

The photo above was taken in Germany in the fall of 1977 when Leif was two-and-a-half years old. My little rascal. I miss him so!

"I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"

 Saturday we went to the German American Club Christmas tree lighting ceremony at our community Atrium building. We've done this every years since moving to Florida, but in the years since Leif died, until this year (our fourth without him with us for Christmas), I have not been able to sing the carols without crying. This was the first year I got through all but one without tears.

Today I sang in the Women's Chorus Christmas Concert, and in our two concerts a year, I've gotten choked up by a couple of songs in each one. I thought I was going to make it through today's concert without that happening, as I hadn't experienced any difficulty with the songs during rehearsals.

But I got surprised by the audience sing-along, which the chorus sings "along" with, too, and by a song I never would have suspected to have such an effect on me.

It was "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus."

I was glad it was a sing-along and no one would be noticing me, but at least I didn't burst into tears. Just couldn't sing for awhile.

I tried to think of why. I don't associate that song with Leif in any way. It wasn't something we sang in our house. I never heard him sing it.

I think it was the association with Peter W. playing Santa with our boys. It wasn't just Leif; it was Peter A. and our family, and the boys being young, and Christmases together. I missed all those things overwhelmingly.

I DID kiss "Santa Claus."

I've posted these photos before, but not in this context. I could kiss that Santa again, and I wish those little boys were with me again.

The first one was taken in Ansbach in 1978 when Leif was not quite four. He never suspected "Santa" was his dad. That Santa suit had a really nice beard with it.

The bottom one was taken in Kansas in 1975 when he was not quite one year old. The Santa suit Peter W. borrowed didn't have a beard or hair, so he tried to make them out of cotton batting. It looked really funny but the kids believe in him anyway and never suspected it was their daddy.

This photo of Leif was taken at Avebury Circle in England in June 1980 near sundown. He was five-and-a-half years old.





"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, 
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it." 

 — Omar Khayyám

And yet, our tears come despite their futility. Our love endures despite it's powerlessness to bring back the times and loved ones we miss. Our memories flood back though they will not convey one embrace to the past. We cannot forget, though we must go on.

Quote from "The Little Prince"

Today as I was straightening up my office, I came across the guest book for our wedding. Inside it was a paper on which I had written a quote from the book, "The Little Prince," by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. I no longer have any idea why I wrote it down or what it meant to me at the time, but it is so terribly true.

"It is such a secret place, the land of tears."

Is it ironic that right under the guest book were two cassette tapes which contain a recording of my father's funeral in 1960 and some of his piano compositions? It's undoubtedly a coincidence. They were not "together" in the sense of meaningfully having been placed that way, but they belong together, just as they belong in a thematic way next to the red little metal bucket with the white polka dots that came from Leif's office and holds some of his things.

The land of tears IS a secret place, a place where no one else can really go with us, and from which we can only emerge by ourselves, though often with the help of the love of others.

I'm glad I found this today and not three years ago. Today I can say that I do not live in the land of tears. Today I can smile.

Why Some Days are Sad

It doesn't take much to bring on sadness on some days. I've been having spells of it for three days now. I wondered whether it was because my birthday is coming and Leif won't be here, or whether coming home and realizing full force that Leif wasn't with us for Mother's Day did it, or whether it's just being home again and not as distracted by travel and other things. Maybe that Memorial Day is coming soon. Maybe it's all of those, plus the associations that so many daily things bring.

For instance, this morning I chose to wear a t-shirt from our 2003 family reunion. It has the logo of the family tree brooch on it that Darlene designed, and she made the shirts, too. Thanks to her, Peter A. and Donovan, we had this beautiful brooch made for Mom in Thailand. I didn't think that putting on this shirt would make me sad, but it did. I reminded me that Leif was there then, with us, hopeful for his future, having just graduated from KSU. He enjoyed the reunion, and these photos of him are with the gifts he received from his brother, Peter A., for his graduation. It made me think of the 2008 reunion, which took place only two-and-a-half months after his death, and how hard it was to have the whole family there except for him, and now, to know there will never be a family reunion with him present, nor will I ever have a family reunion like my mother has had with all her children present.

That made me think how she has a way of telling people what a worrier I am and about my "Worrier's Anonymous" t-shirt (my own design. She doesn't call it that, just describes how I worry about everything. I haven't worn that t-shirt since the day we found Leif dead in his apartment. I wore it there that day, partly because I WAS worried . . . and with good reason . . . and partly as a joke so that if we did find him alive, I could tease him about how my worrying was justified. I just can't bring myself to wear it any more. Too many sad memories of that day. And I can't bring myself to tell my mother, either. I'm not normally a compulsive worrier, though I am a planner and "speculator," but at the time I designed that shirt and put it on CafePress.com, I WAS terribly worried about Leif, and it seems like a harmless and amusing outlet for my worries. I had fun wearing it. The "Worrier's Manifesto" was designed and written to be way over-the-top, but I guess Mom took it seriously, even though I had good reason to worry in her case, too, when I told her I worried about her getting in and out of the bathroom on a cruise ship. I was worried she would fall . . . and she did, and broke her back. So, maybe my worries are justified in too many cases.

So, thinking about these things, with my reunion 2003 t-shirt on, I went into the living room where Peter W. was watching a movied called "New York City Serenade." I only saw snatches of it, but the last scene made me so sad. Two friends were meeting after a long time and one had a little girl and the other apparently had done well in business but was alone and depresed. He left alone in a cab and the father walked hand-in-hand with his little girl talking about the future until he lifted her onto his shoulder. I could just see Leif in that, both sides . . . the man who left, lonely and sad, and the father Leif wanted to be, with the little girl whose mother he wanted to marry. Would he have lived if he'd had something to live FOR?

That brought me back to thinking about the deep sadness I felt Thursday night, when I was again crying, "Why? Why then? What tipped the balance? Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you leave a clue?"

Yes, he left that philosophy essay of his and the photo on this laptop, but that's not enough. It doesn't spell it out.

Then I thought, even if he HAD left a note or explanation, it would just raise more questions . . . . more whys. There's really no way for someone to comprehend it who didn't experience what he did.

But today a revelation of sorts came to me, because of that scene in the movie and connecting it with the email from Leif in November 2007 when he said that life held far more pain and agony for him that pleasure and that he basically had nothing to live FOR, no PURPOSE. That IS the answer. Nothing to live for. How ultimately sad.

Peter W. was affected by the movie, too, in the same way I was, and we were also hit by the West Point graduation, which should be a time of rejoicing and triumph, and yet we both wondered how many of those young men and women will die or be maimed in the wars we are fighting . . . and for what? For how many years? Why are we doing this to these wonderful young people? Is it worth it? Not to me.

Peter W. and I drove out into the country past Wimauma to pick blueberries and on the way he said he was sad today. We discovered we were both experiencing the same sadness. He said he missed my blog about Leif, missed looking forward to reading memories of Leif and seeing pictures, and to knowing what I was thinking. I miss that, too, but it's not something I can write every day, and where are the photos going to come from? I can't make more of them. Leif is not here for that. Every photo I have now is precious. It's both wonderful and terriby, terribly sad to see his handsome face looking earnestly out at me, life-size, from my computer screen. How I wish I would reach in there and hug him! I miss him so!

Picking blueberries in the sunlight was good for us. Seeing the green of the countryside was good for us. The best antidote to sadness and depression is work, action, distraction, yet so often those are the things we don't feel at all like doing. We make ourselves do them. We have to. Tears and sadness can't be the only thing in life. We can't let them take over.

Forever Changed

It is proving far harder than I thought it would be to give up writing this blog regularly. I knew I had a lot of emotion invested in it, and I thought I was ready to let it go, but now that I am at that point, I am finding it to be heart wrenching. I know I am not forgetting Leif or really letting him go, but in some deep emotional way it feels as though I am abandoning him, and that makes me terribly sad. It feels like the day of his memorial service, like when it was over and we all walked away from his niche at the cemetery leaving him behind in the place of no life or future. I know that I will never forget him, will think of him every day of my life, but who else will?

Of the 630 posts I've written in the past two years, this is one of the hardest to write, and certainly the hardest one to publish, to click that little "button" that says, "Publish," because it marks an end to an emotional journey that really has no end, and so is hard to give up. It has meant a lot to me to be able to tell Leif's story and to write about my feelings.

Memory is fleeting. Life goes on. I know that's as it should be, but it is also sad. And yet, I will be able to come back here to visit, just as I can go to the cemetery, though as Peter always points out, Leif is not there. It's not really visiting HIM. It's visiting memory and love. It's a kind of symbolic pilgrimage. Although we are often sad at cemeteries, I don't see them as frightening or sad places. They are monuments to love and memory just as this blog is.

I think of my father and I wonder who remembers him and how often they think of him. Like Leif, he lived. He had a life and contributed to the world. At least he left four children behind who, though some were too young to remember much, were a part of him that lived on. There is no blog about his life, no book, and no burial place. There is no place of pilgrimage except in my mind.

Leif had no children. What survives but memory? And how long will that survive? Not long for most people, I suspect, except if some reminder evokes a thought of him. This blog was my way to keep that memory alive, though of course I had no idea who would read it or if anyone but Peter and I would. That didn't matter so much as the preservation and the continuance, and now that I am ending it, it feels like I am again walking away and leaving him behind in that place of no life or future, which of course is what death is, and what we don't want to face.

I have always felt emotions deeply and strongly, and Leif's death has brought me torrents of tears and sadness, and I can say, like the Tin Woodman in the "Wizard of Oz," "Now I know I have a heart because it is breaking."

Yesterday I saw another reference to that saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Like many sayings and platitudes, it has a valuable message, but some lemons are beyond the possibility of lemonade. Some things life dishes out you just have to endure and survive. How does one "make lemonade" out of the suicide death of a cherished son?

When Leif died, he not only erased his future and his pain, but he changed our lives forever, not only our lives, but the lives of his family and friends, and all who knew him. For some of them, the changes were likely temporary without live-changing consequences, but for those who loved him, the changes are not only enormous and emotionally wrenching, they are quite literally life changing.

There are so many things we will not do with Leif or because of Leif now. We will never have grandchildren from him. He will not be there to help us or see us through our old age. We will not have the joy of his company. Our focus and identity is changed forever. Our emotions will never be the same, and there will always be the undercurrent of sadness, loss and grief no matter what else our future holds. This is not the retirement and old age we envisioned for ourselves, but what it now is has in part been created by Leif's act.

We must not forget, though, all the wonderful ways in which our lives were changed by having him as our son, the years we did enjoy his company, his help, his laughter, his intellect, his love.

We must not forget all the things we did with him, all the experiences of the thirty-three years of his life.

I have chosen the last images of the main blog to be all of Leif on beaches. Somehow, even though he seldom actually went to the beach once he moved to Florida (because even the beach isn't as attractive when you go alone), I will always associate Leif with beaches.

Partly this is because as our sons were growing up, we planned a beach vacation every year. Leif had wonderful times on beaches in so many places; Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, California, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Japan, Hawaii, Thailand, Italy, France, England, Texas and more places I can't think of to name right now. I remember him glorying in the waves when he was just a tiny tot, and how he loved sailing in the British Virgin Islands and SCUBA diving in Puerto Rico. Somehow for me, beaches will always be associated with Leif's happiness, the places he felt alive and free . . . beaches and motorcycles and cars.

I wish I could have a picture in my mind of Leif walking on a sunset beach with someone he truly loved who was the guardian of his heart that he so deeply desired. That would be the photo I would like to cherish for the rest of my life, but that does not exist and is a big part of the reason he is no longer here.

So, I will have to keep in my mind a picture of my tall lonely son alone on a sunset beach, as though the sun of his life was setting, and remember the beauty that once was.

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The photo was taken by Peter W. Garretson in Puerto Rico in 1992. Leif was 17 years old. Who would have thought, seeing that tall, handsome young man, that half his life was already over?

At this time, the blog has 630 posts, 977 photos, and has been visited 10,127 times since May 15, 2008.

Our Family the Night of Peter Anthony's Air Force Academy Graduation Ball - Colorado Springs, CO - May 28, 1991

I think this was the last, and perhaps the only, time that our whole family was dressed formally for a big event. Peter Anthony was graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy and we had flown to Colorado Springs from Puerto Rico to share in that momentous occasion. The night before the ceremony, we were all to attend the Graduation Balls. Peter Anthony was going to the Cadet Ball and we were going to one for parents and family.

Before the dances, we went out to dinner together at Guiseppi's Depot restaurant, which was in an old railroad station which had been converted into a posh restaurant. We had a great dinner and then took these, and many other, photos both inside the restaurant and outside in the dark. My mother was with us, too.

How young we all looked then, 18 years ago. Leif was tall, slim and handsome. Peter A. looked dashing in his blues and Peter W. looked great in his mess dress blues. It's hard to believe that we are the same people as the gray-haired grandparents that now stare out at us from the mirror, but it's even harder to believe that Leif is no longer with us. It still hurts to think that, and I know it always will. One-fourth of our family, one half of our children, never to be with us again.

No matter how many times I go over it all in my mind, I can't truly fathom it, how it came to that, how my son put a bullet in his head.

I am not alone in this. Just this past week we saw the news stories about the famous 32-year-old German soccer player who was depressed and jumped in front of a train to commit suicide. Why does despair grip them so tightly that they can't see a future?

How do we endure the pain they leave behind?

I re-read Peter Anthony's science fiction story about his brother's death and I cried again. There is no way to make his death comprehensible no matter how much I know about depression or the lethal combination of depression, alcohol and guns.

I am so thankful for Peter A. and for our beautiful grandchildren. They are our ties to the future. But I still think of the grandchildren I will never have and that brings tears to my eyes, and I will always think of my son, Leif, and miss him terribly.

Leif With His Hair in One Great Spike - Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico - Age 16

Speaking of Leif's sense of humor and fun . . .
and a bit of silliness . . .

These photos were taken in March 1991 when we were living at Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico. Leif was sixteen years old.

I no longer remember what he had in his hair that allowed him to make it stand up like this in a point, but it wasn't something he wore out anywhere. It was just a silly and whimsical thing he did for fun at home and then washed it out. He had fun posing for the photos.

I don't know why he was wearing the ring on the chain around his neck, and I find it rather surprising to see him wearing a cross, as he never professed to be a Christian.

Of course, the sunglasses are his favorite Oakleys.

He always had a sense of mischief and fun and he didn't really want to grow up, if growing up meant he had to behave in a staid and boring way, though he learned to act professional when he needed to and came across as a very calm, clear-minded person in a crisis. Yet, in one way he never really did grow up, and that was being able to control his spending.

I've gone along for several days without being down in the dumps or crying until yesterday. It was one of those unexpected triggers that brought tears welling up in my eyes. Peter W. was reading some of those cute sayings you see on everything from hand towels to magnets in boutique stores and we were getting a laugh out of them. Then he read that whenever a child is born, a grandmother is born, too. I don't know what about that got to me, but even typing it again brings a reaction. Maybe it's that I will never be "born" a grandmother again with Leif's children. Maybe it's just missing Leif. I'm okay. I'm not staying sad or depressed, but the emotions come welling up at unexpected times.