No More Christmas Presents for My Leif

This January 1976 photo of Leif playing with the rocking horse he got for Christmas 1975, his first Christmas when he was eleven months old, and so many other Christmas photos of him opening presents or joking around with the family through the years, bring it home to me so forcefully that he won't be here to open any gifts this year, or any year from now to the end of our lives. I don't look for presents for him any more, though I can't help but notice and remark upon things I know he would like, things I wish I could give him.

The holidays and his birthday are particularly hard, as are the monthly reminders, each 9th and 10th, of his death and the day we found him. Tomorrow it will be 20 months since we found him in his apartment. Today it is 20 months since he died. Sometimes I wonder how long I will mark the months that have passed since his death, wonder if I will ever pass those days of the month without remembering. How can the months fly by so fast, taking the time we were with him ever farther into our past, yet the memories seem like yesterday, like he could still just walk through our door.

At a party a couple of nights ago, I hugged a neighbor who lost two children. She asked me how I was doing and I truthfully answered that I was all right most of the time, but not all of it. She said, "It never really gets any easier. You just learn to cope with it. The holidays are the hardest. Even though I have my living son and grandchildren, I will always miss the others. You just have to put on a smile and go on."

Sometimes the smile is real. Sometimes it's a good act.

I'm grateful to have a lot to do, to be busy with real work. It doesn't take away all the sadness but it does keep it at arm's length a good part of the time. It does make me feel useful.

But, it doesn't stop me from thinking, in the interstices, of the eternal question, why? of what we might have done to save him, of what he might have done to save himself, of what we are missing, of what he is missing, of what might have been.

Leif Would Have Loved It

Tonight I was looking online for birthday and Christmas gifts for my soon-to-be nine-year-old grandson, Marcus, and I couldn't help thinking how much Leif would have loved the things that are available today, particularly the computer games and the Nintendo DS and the games for it. If he were alive and had a boy of his own, he would have such a good time playing them with a son.

He had wonderful toys when he was a boy, too, particularly because of our three years in Japan. The Japanese shows and toys made it to Hawaii about the time we left Japan and followed us to the mainland USA, where he got interested in other things as well, like his radio-controlled model cars.

I still have so many of his computer games here, wondering what to do with them, ones he purchased as an adult. He loved the action, the simulations, the sci fi worlds he could inhabit.

Another thing I found on his computer was his iTunes subscription to marvelous photos taken by the Hubble space telescope. And Peter W. reminds me that Friday night was sci fi night on television, with his favorite shows.

His imagination soared. He found a creative outlet for it in his association with ZAON, but I wish he had done more on his own.

I remember shopping for gifts for him when he was a boy Marcus's age, and his delight in getting those gifts, how earnestly and devotedly he played with them, how thoroughly engaged he was.

He never outgrew those kinds of games, toys or gifts, in a sense; they just got more sophisticated (and expensive).

I was looking at the photos of him opening birthday gifts, remembering how much fun we had. Sometimes, in the sadness and mourning his loss, it's hard to remember that we had so many good times. I am so grateful for all the photos we took, because I will always be able to look at them and be reminded that there WERE good times, great times, happy times, for him as well as us and be glad for that. For every one of them.

We didn't know how good they were until they were gone. We appreciated our life and our family, but not enough. None of us really know the value of what we have until we lose it, no matter how much we love and are and are thankful for it.
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This rather pensive photo of Leif was taken in Osaka, Japan in February 1983. We were there because I was attending a conference of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Japan District, and Peter W. came along with the boys and went signtseeing in Osaka while I was in the conference. Leif had just turned 8 years old. He still has the cast on his left arm from when he fell on the school playground and broke it.

Leif at Gotokuji Temple in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, Japan - June 1981 - Age 6

One of the folk art figurines seen most often in Japanese and even Chinese restaurants and shops is the "Maneki Neko," or "Beckoning Cat." Leif and I both loved cats and I was interested in the story and origin of these figures. I found out that there was a temple in western Tokyo which was reported to be the origin of the beckoning cats, which are lucky figures because they are beckoning in luck, customers, or money. Leif and I took a trip to that temple, Gotokuji, on the train. Of course he had to take along a favorite toy or two and play in the dirt while we were there. (I wouldn't be surprised if Darren can even identify the one in the photos.)

Leif also managed to climb down into the concrete cylinder constructed under the huge temple bell, a sounding chamber, I believe, and rang the bell with the large log as well.

The grounds were full of excellent dry dirt and he made the most of it. By the time I was ready to go home, he was quite full of dirt and so were his shoes and his toys. I see that in this photo he was wearing athletic shoes that fastened with Velcro straps. They were very popular at that time and certainly a lot easier than tying shoes, but the noise they made when the kids ripped the straps off the shoe to open them was awful.

I photographed the temple and grounds for an article I later wrote for "Highlights for Children" magazine about the temple and the Maneki Neko story, and I brought several of the beckoning cats back from Japan. Whether these Japanese good luck charms had anything to do with it or not, I have had a lot of good fortune in my life. I wish Leif had had an equal measure!

In one photo, Leif is in front of a small sort of shrine holding rows of the Maneki Neko figures. These are purportedly ones that brought their owners good fortune and the owners then donated them to the temple. A shop at the temple sells the figurines, but they can be purchased in many, many other places, including online these days.

Leif was six years old when we took that train trip and these photos. We had a good time that day.

Leif - Sagamihara, Japan - Fall 1981 - Age 6

This photo really should have been posted with the photos I took of Leif in the hideout or "fort" he and a friend made out of the branches of a tree that had been trimmed or cut down. I put them on the blog some time ago. Leif was pulling on a handle he and his friend had attached to a rope, but why I no longer remember. He has a backpack on. I don't think this was his school backpack, but rather one with "supplies" and toys for play.

Our three years in Japan were a marvelous time for stretching the imagination and the mind. There was so much to absorb, learn, understand. The Japanese toys were fascinating. The travel was amazing. The language was mysterious. The Japanese children's television shows were compelling. Every day, it seemed, brought something new. There was little that was routine. Even school brought cultural treats. Thus it was a rich and enriching time for all of us, changed our thinking, changed our lives.

Leif arrived in Japan at the age of five-and-a-half and left when he was eight-and-a-half. That is a time of great change in a child, and much of what he experienced there remained important to him the rest of his life.

We were fortunate to be there at that time. It was good for us as a family as well.

Leif's 11th Birthday - Honolulu, Hawaii - January 28, 1986 - Age 11

Leif's eleventh birthday we spent at home again, at our townhouse on Eucalyptus Place at the Aliamanu Crater Housing Area. These photos were taken in our dining area. You can see that Leif is maturing quickly and getting even taller. He looks happy, gleeful.

The remote-controlled tank was, I think, his first "real" radio controlled vehicle, which he was delighted with. He was not only always interested in military vehicles, but was fascinated with RC toys. I think this was the beginning of a many-year hobby, which I've already written about. It started with this tank and progressed to the RC vehicles he built himself from kits, modified, and even used for science fair projects.

At this age, Leif was in fifth grade and it was our last school year in Hawaii. It would be a long time before he'd get to wear shorts on his January birthday again.

Happy Birthday, Leif!

Leif's 3th Birthday - Furth, Germany - January 28, 1978 - Age 3

We moved to Furth, Germany, next to Nurnberg, the summer of 1977 and lived there just one year. While there, we celebrated Leif's third birthday. He was thrilled to get a tricycle, his very first wheels, and boy, did he pedal fast! Where we lived it was fairly level ground and he could make headway. This photo was taken in the apartment, though, looking from the living room-dining room area toward the hallway that went to the bedrooms, because he had just gotten the trike at the party.

We had a small birthday party for him with kids that lived in our apartment building and his friend Katie from the next building over, and had a good time.

It was during this year that Leif went to the Montessori preschool I've written about before. He got a lot of exercise going on Volksmarches with us beginning that year, too. He had a generally sweet personality, but he did have a temper. I remember one day when he got mad at his brother for not letting him come into his room and threw toys at the door, denting the paint and making me really upset with him.

There was a large open area between the rows of apartment buildings and Leif liked to go play in the sandbox there. One day he left his sand toys in the box and was upset when he went back for them and they were gone, a hard lesson for him.

But on this birthday, it was just happiness, presents and yummy cake and ice cream.

Happy Third Birthday, Leif!

Leif's 9th Christmas 1983 - Honolulu, Hawaii - Almost 9 years old

In the summer of 1983 we moved from Sagamihara, Japan, to Honolulu, Hawaii, were we lived in a townhouse on the outer rim of an extinct volcano at Red Hill, overlooking Pearl Harbor and Pearl City. Leif was in third grade and growing fast. You can see he is maturing a lot from the last photos.

He was always bright, but in Hawaii he was pursuing a lot of ideas, drawing, planning, constructing plastic models, and so on. He still loved his E.T. "dolls" and kept them by him while he worked. He was deeply into his GI Joe phase, as well as his continuing fascination with Star Wars and Star Trek.

Although I no longer know for sure what he got for Christmas in 1983, I can say with some certainty that it must have involved some space and or GI Joe vehicles.

It was in Hawaii that he became so focused on GI Joe that he would save up his pocket money and we would go to Long's Drug Store in Pearl City, which had a huge selection of GI Joe figures, so that he could select one. That was always a traumatic event for him, and I may have written about this before. He usually only had enough money for one, but would want 3-5, and it was just about torture for him to make a decision. As soon as he chose one, he knew he'd have to leave the others behind.

I would point out to him that if he really didn't know which one he wanted most, it really didn't matter which one he picked, he would like it. And he could save up to get another one next time. That didn't help. He would stand there nearly paralyzed with indecision until tears welled up in his eyes. I felt bad for him, coming there to get something he wanted to give him fun and pleasure, and have the choice be so momentously hard.

But at Christmas, he didn't have to worry about choices, at least not at that age. Someone else had to do that, and he could just open his gifts and have fun.

In Hawaii, we were still very far away from the rest of our family. My mother did come to visit once a year, and Peter's mother, Ellen (Oma to the kids), made it once, but those visits were rare.

Christmas in Hawaii was a new experience for us because it was hot weather. It made me realize how all our cultural expectations for Christmas (and thus those of our children) were for it to be cold . . . and wishing for snow. Thus it didn't SEEM like Christmas, despite the Christmas carols playing in the department stores and on the radio. It seemed especially silly to be hearing, "Jingle Bells," for instance, and see fake snow in the windows of Pizza Hut! We talked about how in probably half the world, it wasn't cold at Christmas time, and why weren't there songs that went with warm weather??

We took all that in stride, though, and we had fun together, enjoyed our family traditions as always, and could even look forward to heading for the beach.