I Miss Him So!

On March 11, I wrote about how much I missed Leif, and the recurring sadness has only grown stronger the closer we get to Easter. Why is that? First, the last time we saw him was on Easter in 2008. Easter came early that year, March 23rd. We invited him to come for dinner and he demurred, saying he didn't have extra money for gas, and his Mazda RX8 was kind of a gas guzzler. I told him I'd give him gas money, and I gave him a $20 bill. I wish I'd given him more, though I doubt it would have changed anything in the end. We had a really nice visit. He was positive, upbeat, hoping to move to Orlando, and once again, in love. By April 9, he was dead.

This year, Easter falls on April 9th, the day he shot himself. There is something strangely coincidental about these dates....the date of a resurrection is, this year, the anniversary of Leif's death. And Easter 2008 was the last time we saw him alive. 

I will never stop wondering why, even though I have examined many causes for 15 years. And that's another thing, fifteen YEARS have passed, and yet the grief is fresh. It still seems only yesterday that he drove up our driveway, bass speakers pounding away, and unfolded his 6'2" frame from his snazzy sportscar. It seems only yesterday he was giving me a big bear hug and calling me "silly mommy."

Last August 13, 2022, I posted a photo of his still-intact wallet, with all his cards and $12 cash in it, saying it was time to let go of it....but I didn't. I still couldn't bring myself to do it. But now, I have. I set a deadline to do it before the 15 year anniversary, and I scanned and shredded his cards, his driver's license, his motorcycle license, his concealed carry license, even his laundry card, and his debit and credit cards. The wallet now is empty except for the $12, which I still can't make myself remove. I need to take that out and donate the wallet. I will. I promise. He won't use it any more, and neither will I. But it still feels like I took them away from him. Dismantled his life.

I chose this photo because I am sitting here at the very desk he was helping his dad put together for me in this photo from July 26, 2006. Every day I use this desk. Every day I see his photos and flag case above it. But he is not here, and Easter will not bring him back. Ever.

 

When Is It Time Let Let Things Go?

In April it was fourteen years since Leif's death. We had to clean out his apartment quickly to avoid paying another month's rent, sold his furniture and many of his belongings, gave others away, and brought more home to figure out what to do with them. Over time, we chose a few to keep, some because they were useful, some because we had sentimental reasons, and some because they seemed so personal and part of his identity that it seemed just plain wrong to dispose of them. 

Some of these were his wallet, which until today remains in exactly the same way he left it on his desk the night he died, with the single exception that we returned his retired military ID to the military, as is required. All this other cards remain, and the $12 in cash that was in the wallet. Of course, we reported his death to the accounts for his credit cards, and his licenses have long expired. At first, I just couldn't let go of this because, as totally illogical and foolish as it sounds, even to me, I had some sense in the back of my mind that if he came back, he would want and need it. Of course he was not coming back! We found his body and watched it being taken away in a body bag, but the unconscious part of our human minds are capable of such wishful and crazy thinking, even when our conscious minds know better.

I also kept two of this army uniforms, his "dog tags," and his combat boots. I knew he wasn't going to ever go back into the army, and he also could never have fit into them, but the military was so much of who he was, his identity, that HE had kept them, long after he was medically retired from the army. I knew they meant a lot to him. Those combat boots carried him a long way. I wonder how many miles he walked or jogged in them. After he was medically retired and sent "home" he wore them and still walked miles, miles to the university for classes when he was finishing his degree, and even, one day over ten miles round trip from our house to Tuttle Creek Lake. 

 This photo was taken on a military exercise in 1999. It looks like he's wearing the same boots I saved. The photo below are the ones I've kept for over 14 years. 

Now I am ready to let go of these things, all but the dog tags. I'm keeping those. It should be easy to discard a pair of well-worn combat boots with a hole in one side that no one wants, but it's not. It somehow still seems like a betrayal. There's no logical reason it should feel like that, but it does. 

They will go first. Next will be the wallet. Then, when I have more time and can remove the sewn-on insignia and nametag, the uniforms. I know it's time, but it still hurts. 

Hurt or not, for some reason, after fourteen years, it finally feels like the time has come. The boots aren't going to walk any farther. 

The sanctity of objects

I took this photo today. It's Leif's wallet, nearly exactly as he left it, even the $12 in cash. I still have it. Why?

Some people keep their deceased loved one's room untouched. Some can't bear to part with their belongings. Why?

I've thought a lot about this in the nearly three-and-a-half years since Leif died. There are probably at least three reasons why people do this.

First, some really can't bear to part with those belongings or clean out and change a room. There is something comforting about having them. It provides some kind of emotional connection, makes them seem somehow nearer than death. Some people even keep unwashed clothing that they feel smells like their loved one.

Second, it seems somehow wrong to take someone else's belongings and dispose of them. They aren't ours. Even though that person is dead, it feels like some sort of stealing or misappropriation. We aren't sure they would approve of what we decide to do. It's as though we are doing wrong.

Third, and this is perhaps the strongest reason for me, at least in my conscious mind, is that getting rid of their belongings, especially things like ID cards and drivers' licenses, feels like dismantling their lives, their identities. It's as though we are erasing their existence, wiping it out. That is emotionally painful and very hard to to.

One could argue that keeping these things is unhealthy and allows the grieving to focus on loss even more. For some, that may be true. For others, perhaps here is some tiny comfort in the thought that we have not disposed of those small pieces of their identity, as foolish as that may seem.

We washed and gave away most of Leif's clothing, though Peter W. chose to keep some of his shirts, particularly some we gave him as gifts or some he could wear. I kept a set of his army fatigues and his dress greens, his combat boots, his dog tags, his photos, even his high school yearbooks, his school records. I don't know whether we will keep them always, but for now, they are here.

There are other things we kept and use daily, even some forks and spoons, but those are utilitarian items that we kept because they were practical, not because of any sentimental reason. Leif was not attached to such objects. Still, I sometimes think of him and remember that they were his when I use them.

But the wallet, that is somehow for me a poignant symbol of identity. I can't even bring myself to take the $12 out and spend it. That's Leif's money, the last money he had in his wallet. It's not mine. I can't take it.

The only thing missing from Leif's wallet is his military ID card, which we had to turn in (or at least we were supposed to). I've written about how doing that made me cry, how I felt then that it was dismantling his identity. I can't bring myself to go further and destroy the rest of his wallet's contents.

Who would ever want them but me? Someday they will no doubt be destroyed and gone, and I won't be there to see that or miss them, but as long as the wallet is in my care, even though I KNOW he is not coming back for it, I will save it for him.