I Dreamed of Leif Last Night

We so seldom remember our dreams. I wonder how many times I dream about Leif. When I woke up this morning, I had been dreaming about Leif. In my dream, he was eating cookies and drinking milk, and he was wearing the blue sweater he is wearing in this photo with his dad. It was so clear, and there was more to the dream than that, but all I could keep in my memory was the darling little toddler with the cookies and milk. I wish I'd have more dreams of him to remember.

This photo was taken by Leif's beloved Aunt Lannay when we lived in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1977. He was two years old. 

Leif and a Canadian Cannon

Here's Leif in Canada, August 1989, age 14, already six feet tall, wearing his snappy gray outfit with his Member's Only jacket. I think this was taken in Quebec City, but unfortunately, the slide wasn't labeled.

He always loved guns of any kind, climbed on every cannon he saw from the time he was very small. I wonder, now, how many he clambered around. He was curious about how the mechanisms worked, and from a very young age could figure out how machinery operated.

He had a quick mind for anything mechanical and could figure out how to fix things. When he died, for an apartment dweller, he had an amazingly good collection of tools. He worked on his cars and his motorcycles, and on some of our cars, too.

It's too bad that we don't foster all the kinds of intelligence there are in this world. We seem to think academic learning is the only way to go, and often don't understand or respect other kinds of intelligence and talents that don't require "book learning." I think someone like Leif might have been a lot happier if he hadn't thought it necessary to go to college, but could have found another path to use his mind. He was certainly not averse to learning . . . but he liked things like the real-time collaboration he found in online games requiring strategic thinking, the hands-on use of skills and mechanical understanding, the mental repartee of ideas he seldom found in classes (with a few outstanding exceptions).

He would have made a good Viking. His name fit him.

Leif in Quebec City, Canada in August 1989

 For so long, I thought I'd never see any "new" photos of Leif. Now I am blessed with many of them! In scanning the slides we took back when taking colored slides was a popular means of photography, we've discovered many photos of Leif we didn't remember and hadn't seen since they were taken and developed. We only printed a few when we took them, so this is like finding a treasure.

These photos were taken in Quebec City, and Leif was, as he often did, acting silly. He found a way to wrap his feet around the railing on the stone wall and look as though he were falling off without actually doing it.

We had a great trip through eastern Canada with Leif, and he enjoyed seeing the cities and experiencing French Canada. He was 14 years old, but already over 6'1" tall. You can see he liked to dress well, with his nice slacks, dress shirt, purple tie and Members Only jacket. Those were his choices, not forced on him by his parents. And of course, snazzy sunglasses.

I'm so glad we got to take him on that trip. I wish Peter A. could have been with us, but he was already away from home at the Air Force Academy.

Where is the compassion for Robin Williams?

This is Leif at the age of 16, in his room in our house at Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico, with the guitar that he designed and made.

His initial time in Puerto Rico was difficult, as he was initially not accepted by the kids at Antilles High School, and was attacked by one group of guys and beaten up. But he overcame that and found a group of good friends and a place in the school. The years in Puerto Rico became some of the best ones of his life. Although he was sometimes angry and frustrated, he was also creative, had friends, enjoyed the sea and guitar lessons. He had hope. The future looked bright. He had every reason to think life would treat him reasonably well . . . and so did we.

It was in some ways unfortunate that we had to leave Puerto Rico the summer between his junior and senior years of high school. It's tough to go to a new school as a senior, hard to fit in, hard to make friends, especially for an introvert like Leif. Yet staying in Puerto Rico would have offered him less opportunity, and he would have had to return to the USA for college anyway.

All that aside, there was no hint in these days that he would ever be seriously depressed or suicidal. There were times, as there are for all of us, when he wasn't happy, but he found much to enjoy in life and went out to meet it with open arms.

Robin Williams' suicide this week has opened a bigger public dialogue about suicide than we have seen before, it seems to me. I think it is because it's so hard for people to believe that a man who could act so funny, so silly, so seemingly full of the enjoyment of life, could be so deeply depressed that he would take his own life. It's because he was so much a part of our lives that we all feel the loss, unlike with many others who have taken the same course of action.

I've seen so many comments on Facebook, discussions, sadness, even anger, misunderstandings, blame. Some people can't understand how someone who was rich and "had everything" could be unhappy. Why didn't he just "walk away"? Some can't fathom how he could do that to his wife and children, and think his act was cowardly and selfish. Some people who have struggled with depression can't figure out why Williams' couldn't tough it out like they have. Some have no sympathy for him, only for his family members left behind.

I understand where they are coming from, but depression is no respecter of wealth or position. Nor does someone like Williams do it "to" his family . . . more likely, he was just trying to escape his own deep misery and felt he had tried everything and failed. More likely he was in such a deep hole of hopelessness that he felt he had failed his family and they would be better off without him, if he was even able to consider them at the end.

None of us will ever know the depth of his struggle, how hard he fought to escape depression and addiction. Most of us will never know what it's like to feel so terrible that we try drugs and alcohol to "self-medicate" in an attempt to either feel better, or feel SOMETHING. My father said he felt "dead inside" for the two years before he took his life. Leif listened to a Johnny Cash song that said he hurt himself to see if he could still feel, not long before Leif took his life.

I think it's time we learned to be less judgmental and more compassionate, less angry and more understanding. Some people will be able to fight depression. Some will not. Just as some people can fight other illnesses and either be cured or manage the illness for a long time. Other people find no effective cure or die younger from the same disease. It's time we recognize that mental illness is as much an illness as a physical illness, and just as devastating. It's time to stop blaming those who suffer.

It's also time to have compassion for those left behind, those who every day of their lives will wonder if there's something they could have done to save their loved ones; those who will wonder every day of their lives what put them over the edge? The eternal question of "why" will haunt them. They will not only grieve as we all grieve when we lose a loved one, they will be tormented by questions that will remain unanswered.

So my hope is that all those who are blaming Williams for "taking the easy way out" or "taking the coward's way out," or for being "selfish," will keep their compassion for his family and extend it to him. We have not walked in his shoes.

Leif Clearing Out Fallen Coconut Palm Fronds in Puerto Rico

Here are two photos I had never seen before that I found among my mother's slides. I know why I never saw them. They are not in good focus, probably because she took them through the dining room window.

However, they are a treasure to me because I can see my "Tarzan son" the way he looked in high school in Puerto Rico when he was out in our large "rainforest" back yard helping to clear out coconut palm fronds, coconuts that fell (dangerous!), and mow the spongy lawn.

He was so slender in those days, with a terrific figure and long hair.

He used a machete out in the yard to cut things, and one time I looked out and he had used the machete to whack off the end of a coconut, had the big heavy coconut stuck on the tip of the machete, and was pouring the coconut water into his mouth that way. I wish I had a video of it.

Leif didn't like yard work and would have preferred never to do any, but he helped out in our postage stamp sized yard at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, whether mowing or shoveling snow, and then in our yard in Puerto Rico, where it was incredibly hot and humid, and then again in Kansas, at our old stone house and the one we purchased for Peter's mother, and finally our yard in Florida. I can't say he ever did it willingly (at least not getting started) but once he got started, he worked and got the job done.

When I think of him doing yard work, these pictures are what comes to my mind, that tall, slender young man who was strong as an ox and worked to help us in so many places.

These photos were taken by my mother in April 1991. Leif was 16 years old.

The Mail That Keeps Coming and the Photos I Have Never Seen Before

Recently I read an article by a man whose son died, in which he wrote about how his son lived on in the world of junk mail. His son was dead, but mail continued to arrive for him, months later. He said he saved the mail, as though his son might somehow be coming back for it.

I understood exactly how he felt and what he did. Even over six years after Leif's death we still get mail addressed to him, although the amount of it is lessening. The latest piece was another ad from Mazda, offering him a great deal on a new car.

I don't save the junk mail, and personal mail was never really an issue, since Leif had little use for paper correspondence, preferring to do everything he could online. After he died, I had plenty of mail about him, taking care of his affairs, but only junk mail addressed to him, and I didn't keep any of that.

It still arrives, as though he were still here to receive it. I wonder how long these mailing lists go on and on when there is no response.

It used to hurt when I saw his name on an envelope. It was yet another reminder that my son was no longer with us. Now, it's more an annoyance that they won't quit.

There's still so much of him everywhere around us, so much of the way we live that we owe in some measure to him. I sit here at my computer desk, which he and his dad put together for me, using a computer that was once his.

A couple of days ago as I was driving home, I was thinking that I would never see a new photo of Leif, or have a new story about his life to tell, unless someone who knew him came forward with them, and then, just a day later, someone did.

My mother has been an avid photographer most of her life. Her vision is no longer good enough to use her camera, and she is confined to a wheelchair, but last week she started going through her thousands and thousands of slides. I brought home a couple of the big boxes of them to give her a start. There was a big plastic box labeled "family" and some dates that went through 1993. I decided to peek inside and found a few that she took when we lived in Puerto Rico . . . and there were some slides of Leif I had never seen before. Mom only printed the very best of the photos she took, so I'm sure there are many that none of us have ever seen. I won't know whether these are good shots of Leif until I scan them, but I will treasure any new photos of him I get.

The one with this blog was one of Leif's many selfies. It was taken March 11, 2008 in his apartment, less than a month before he died. I wonder about his photography. When he was in middle school and high school, he photographed architecture and objects. When he was in college and the army, he didn't take many photos, probably because of the expense in those days when he had to buy 35mm film and pay to have it processed, but he did take some of his wife Nikko and their friends, and of his deployment to Bosnia. During that period, he didn't take selfies. But when he returned home from the army, single, he seemed to only take photos of his vehicles and himself, the only real exception being the woman he wanted to marry. After she left him, it was only vehicles and selfies.

At the time he took this picture, he was in love again, and he had photos of her, but he hadn't taken them. He asked for a camera for his last birthday, but never used it for anything but his vehicles. It seems to me that is a sign of how disconnected he was from other people. To my knowledge, he never took a photo of us, his parents, or of his brother's family when they were here to visit, except some silly cell phone videos with his nieces.

Not everyone is an avid photographer, so not taking pictures in and of itself isn't so strange, but to take ONLY the ones he did seems telling to me, a sad comment that he felt no need to take photos of people in his life, but did take photos of himself. Why?  

Even in Istanbul - Memories of a Young Boy and Cars

If I had taken Leif to Istanbul when he was any age from three to twelve, or any other city in the world, and he had seen this display, we would not have been able to move him from the spot. How he loved little metal car models. He had a HUGE collection of Matchbox cars, which he loved to examine, play with, and compare. As an adult, he still had his metal black Lamborghini model.

I took this picture of the outside display at a store behind the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. I couldn't help but think of him and wish he'd been there so I could tease him a bit about it . . . and watching him pick up various cars and start his usual long dissertations about their various merits.

I can picture him as a child surrounded on the floor by all his cars . . . and planes . . . and ships . . . and space ships. I remember his Hot Wheels sets and speedways. How that boy loved vehicles of all kinds.

Coming Home Brings Memories Again

We recently returned home from a lengthy trip. We thought about Leif every day while we were gone, but when I'm traveling, I don't miss him so much. I think that's because when I'm out of our home environment, I don't EXPECT him to be there, so it's "all right." When I come home, I'm reminded of all the things he did, all the things in our home that we have because of him, all his visits, the places he went.

Yesterday I had to go to an appointment near the area in Tampa where he lived. I passed by the CVS I'd been to with him, the VA hospital I took him to, the university he attended. I had a momentary urge to drive by his apartment, realizing, though, how silly that was. There is nothing of him or anything of his there. The oddest moment came when I had to make a U-turn on a busy street and a young man on a yellow Suzuki crotch rocket pulled up right behind me. I almost did a double take. I couldn't help but wonder whether it was Leif's stolen bike.

Not so long ago I was in Michael's crafts store and as I walked to the bead isle to find some things for Peter, I passed the shelves full of plastic model kits. I had to take a picture, because if I had ever taken Leif to a Michael's as a child, this would have been his favorite place. He LOVED building models. Car models. Airplane models. Ship models. He started doing it very young, when he was quite capable of figuring out how they went together, but not as good at using the glue so it didn't show. He would get so upset with himself for making a mess of the glue.

On the drive home from the appointment, I kept thinking about how I rarely write on this blog any more. It's because I don't want to keep saying the same things . . . though here I go doing it . . . and I realized there will never be any new memories of Leif to recount, though perhaps I'll be lucky enough to discover something someday that will trigger one I haven't already written about. I'll never have any new photos of him to post, unless someone else who knew him ever sends me some I haven't seen.

It wasn't as hard coming home this time because I had my sister Lannay here to distract me. My usual melancholy for Leif didn't arrive until after she left and I started seeing things like the motorcycle rider and thinking of Leif when I couldn't sleep at night.

There will always be things to remind me of him wherever I go, but home is where I miss him most.

The car he would have loved!

Today we saw a car Leif would have loved, appreciated, dreamed of driving. The only thing which would have made it better would have been a yellow instead of orange paint job. No doubt he would have preferred to avoid the ticket these two guys appear to be getting, but even that probably would have been worth it to him if it meant he got to drive it.

Hand-me-down Gadgetry

So many thoughts have gone through my head in the days since I last wrote on Leif's blog. Memories of the day of his Memorial Service in inurnment on April 29th six years ago, thoughts of another Mother's Day coming without him in my life, thoughts of him riding his motorcycle when I see some other young man riding his, thoughts of all my inherited technology over the years.

I was the benefactor of many a piece of Leif's cast off technology when he moved on to something better, newer, "cooler," like his Treo, like this MDA phone. It was pretty sophisticated in its day, with it's slide-out keypad and many Windows functions. He gave it to me when he got a new phone (of course), but I was never able to use it because it didn't get a signal in our dense concrete house. I should have sold it long ago. It still works, but who would want it a 2005 or 2006 phone now?

I think about all of the things I learned from him about technical gadgetry, and how many I learned to use when he bestowed his castoffs on me. He could have probably sold them on ebay, but though he was perpetually in need of money, he was never ambitious enough to learn to sell his no-longer-need-goodies, and so those he didn't give to me ended up stuffed in a box or drawer. This isn't the only cast off phone of his I still have. And who am I to talk, now that I've had them sitting around my house for six years I never sold them (or used them), either?

Some of his replaced-by-newer gadgets he sold to us or other family members, but not others as far as I know. He sold his dad a Mac Mini years ago, and his grandmother a Gateway computer (which has since bit the dust).

I wonder what he'd be using now, if he were still here to spend his time checking out the latest electronic gadgets. He was an early adopter of the iPhone, so I'm sure he'd be either finding some way to get his hands on an iPhone 5 or a Samsung Galaxy 5, and no doubt he'd either have or covet and iPad Air.

What I miss is talking with him about all that stuff, learning something new, finding out his opinions. I can read about it online. I can see it in the stores, but it's nothing like listening to him hold forth with enthusiasm.

Hand-me-down phones and computers; I was lucky to have them. They may have been secondhand, but they were better than I would have paid for myself.

Ah, Leif, thanks for all the fun.