A Photo of Baby Leif from Long Ago

He was so bright-eyed, so curious, so eager. He was so small here, and yet, for his age, so big. This was taken in the spring of 1975 when he was only about four or five months old. I don't think I've seen this photo since it was taken. I scanned it from an old slide that's been in a box for all those years. It's both a joy and a sorrow to see photos of him I didn't remember existed. So many memories. So hard to know he's been gone for over ten years.

Babies work so hard, trying to learn to control their muscles, raise the heads, roll over, crawl, walk, get things into their mouths. What ambition it takes. What makes them do it?

Leif did it all early. He walked at ten months. He talked early, especially for a boy. He grew fast. He took in his environment and figured things out at amazing speed.

Right now, I just want to look into those baby eyes and say, "I love you. How I wish I could tell you that again in person."

Leif's Political Views in 2004 Fit Today

From: "Leif Garretson"

Date: Wed Aug 18, 2004

My main concern with Bush, other than the fact that he is alienating our allies, [is that he] has made us even less secure by making even more of the world  hate us than already did. I considered myself a Republican previously because I am against big government and as a libertarian basically believe that the government that governs  least governs best. In past years I had a much greater fear that the Democrats would rob my freedom than the Republicans. But in the wake of the Patriot act I am far more concerned by the Republicans, which have become so radically right wing that it is beginning to resemble the beginnings of Fascism. If the Democrats  are allowed to get too much power we slip closer to becoming Soviet Russia. We have now tilted the other way and are leaning in the direction of Fascist Germany. Granted, we are not there yet, but the price of Liberty is eternal vigilance and if you wait till it gets 'too bad' it will be too late. It must be stopped now while it can still be done without a more dramatic measure.

I also find the war in Iraq unconscionable.  The idea that  we are protecting our selves by sending over a thousand Americans to die and 5 times that many to be wounded  along with 50,000 Iraqis at the expense of 4 billion with a B dollars a month to me is nothing short of criminal. Those man and woman, and those dollars, should be here at home improving the problems we have within our own borders. The war has accomplished nothing other than to make lot of Bush and Cheney cronies very rich and to get lot of far more deserving men killed.

This pattern is extremely disturbing, with our civil rights and privacy eroding to make way for a Government that more closely resembles the Mafia than a democracy. Combine that with laws that are nothing short of a prelude to Big Brother, a Republican media that tells us that to dissent is unAmerican and we should all just shut up and hail  the flag no matter how wrong those waving it are, and I am forced to conclude that the greatest enemy of American Freedom and Prosperity is not Al'Qaeda it is the Bush administration.

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I was looking for another file on my computer this evening and came across this email he wrote in August 2018. He wrote it to his brother and me in response to questions from a BBC journalist about why some Republicans were leaving the party. I hadn't read it in the intervening 14 years, but I think he would have a lot to say about the current government and state of affairs. He was a PASSIONATE defender of civil rights, freedom of speech, and the Constitution. At this point, he had only been out of the Army for a little over a year, where he was a machine gunner in the infantry. He was a gun owner who thought the NRA had gone way too far. I think his comments are so apropos to our country today. He would have a lot to say, an IMPASSIONED lot to say, if he were still with us, and he would be defending Colin Kaepernick. I frequently find myself wishing he were here to talk with.

The photo was taken about two months after he wrote the email, in Kansas.

A little More Alex Silliness

I continue to find old photos I'd never seen before as I scan my mother's slides, and even ours, which I must have seen at least once years ago. This one was one my mother took at her house on Christmas Eve 1997. Leif took her fuzzy black winter hat and put it on and was acting silly, as he loved to do. That thing he is holding is one end of a Norwegian cookie called a "Krumkake" that we traditionally had for Christmas.

A month later, he enlisted in the army. Although we continued to share Christmases together, this was the last one before he was gone for several years. He had been married for a couple of years at this time, and is wearing his wedding ring. He is also wearing the silver double-sided ax necklace we brought him from Greece. It was a favorite of his, and I still have it.

I miss his silliness, his laugh, his smile, his jokes.

A photo from long ago - Scheffau - August 1979

Last night I dreamed about Leif. I can't clearly remember the dream, unfortunately, but I do remember glimpses of following him and Peter W. down some stairs, of being in a strange house, where I was making up some kind of bed for him on the floor. In this dream, he was a young man.

I wonder how often I dream about him and don't remember the dreams. He lives on, in my subconscious, as well as my daily thoughts.

I've also recently found a few new photos of Leif, slides taken by my mother in her visits to us in Germany in 1978 and 1979. I've never seen them before, since she never projected them or made print copies. The photo at left is one of them, taken in the town of Scheffau, Austria, in August 1979 when Leif was four-and-a-half years old. That's him in the red shirt. I wish he were facing the camera. He seems to be trying to pull me toward something,

Scheffau was a favorite destination of ours. We went there in the winter for skiing on the Wilder Kaiser mountain, and in the summer for the beautiful mountain scenery. Since we left Germany in the summer of 1980 when Leif was only five years old, I doubt that he had memories of this, but we had such good times there.

Peter W. was looking through photos of Leif a couple of days ago and said, "We gave him a good life." Yes, we certainly tried to, and I think we succeeded when he was a child in our care, and Scheffau was a part of that. Life was not good to him as an adult, when everything he tried seemed to disintegrate.

There are so many reminders of him everywhere. Last week I came out of Walmart to find a gray RX8 parked just one space away from my car. Leif's was silver, so I knew it wasn't his, but it was so close it startled me.

The third weekend of July we had a family reunion in honor of my mother's coming 100th birthday. Every one of her descendants were there except Leif. This is now the third family reunion he has missed. It brings tears to my eyes that Leif was the only one not present. He would have enjoyed it, seeing his cousins and nieces and nephew, aunts and uncles. 

How Can It Be Ten Years?

Today it is ten years since Leif's death, ten years since we found his body, and ten years and just over two weeks since we have seen him alive. It doesn't seem that long. He is a part of our lives every day. We will always miss him and always be grateful he was our son, grateful that at least we had him for 33 years.

Yesterday I was looking for a photo on my computer and came across this one I don't remember seeing before. When I clicked on it and it opened full size on my computer screen, LIFE sized, it was startling, as though he were right there looking at me, with that quizzical amused look. How I wonder what he was thinking. Oddly enough, he was either wearing this shirt when he died, or one much like it.

I don't know who took this photo, only that it was taken with a Fuji camera (probably his), and I don't know where I got it. I do know it was taken in the house on 9th Street in Manhattan, Kansas because of the drapes and computer screens, so it had to be between 2002 and early 2005. I'm betting it was 2003.

Even now, as I write this, he has such a direct stare into the camera that it unnervingly looks like he is there looking at me. How I wish he were! I sit here in this room where he once had his computers and a sort of "living room" for himself, before he moved out to Tampa, and wish he were back again.

We have learned to live through it all, to appreciate him, what we have, learned to handle grief, which comes back, but is mixed with good memories, too, learned that we can feel many emotions at once, sadness and happiness together.

We went to the cemetery today. There were tears. There were also smiles. They say no one is truly gone as long as they are remembered. I disagree. He is remembered, but he is gone. What remains is not him, it is our memories. We keep him in our hearts and minds, always. 

It Would Have Been His 43rd Birthday

Yesterday was Leif’s birthday, the tenth since his death. If he were still with us, he would be 43 years old. What might have happened in those ten years? How do you celebrate the birthday of someone who is no longer with you? Probably most people don’t, though I imagine that they, like us, remember and miss their departed loved one on that day.

As I have written before, we decided years ago to try, when possible, to do something Leif enjoyed on his birthday. This year we Went to Bellows Beach, a place we spent many happy hours with our sons. Even after we moved away from Hawaii when Leif was only 11, we went back several times. The last time we took him there was in 1989, when I took this photo of him. How I wish he and his brother could have been with us again.

Our Ninth Thanksgiving Without Leif

Today is a day to give thanks, and we have much to be thankful for. I will always be thankful for our son, Leif, but I will also always miss him, always wonder how this beautiful, curious child could end his life at 33.

This photo was taken on Thanksgiving 1976 in Virginia, by my sister, Leif's Aunt Lannay. He was fascinated with the old pump organ, the same one I, and my siblings, used to love to play at Mabel and Becca's house when we were children. Look at the little guy, hanging on by his fingertips, and still managing to finger some keys and pump with his little feet. He was determined to "play" that organ, and the only way he could reach both the keys and the foot pumps was like this.

That kind of tenaciousness was typical of Leif, at least when he was interested in pursuing something. He had intense concentration and determination. The corollary, however, was that if he was not interested in something, he could resist or ignore it equally well.

Leif had musical talent, which he pursued by playing the electric guitar when he was much older. He loved music, shown by his enormous collection of CDs and the expensive music systems he bought for his apartment and car. Music brought a lot of joy to his life. I believe that sometimes music and video games were about the only joys he experienced. So, I say thank you to all the composers and performers that brought him joy, and all the game designers and players he played with online who not only gave him good times playing but also supported him emotionally in gaming social networks.

And I will be thankful for all the days I shared with that bright, beautiful, curious little boy.

He talked with his hands, too.

How fast the days, months and years pass. It's been nine and a half years since Leif died, and over four months since I posted anything on this blog. I think about it often, just as I think of him, but I don't want to post the same things again, and I want new photos, new to me, at least. Photos I either haven't seen before, or that I haven't seen is so long i can't remember them. Today I found one. This photo of him in his classy purple suit was taken at a wedding in January 1993. He was explaining something to someone, talking with his hands like I do.

He was a senior in high school then, with long dark hair which he usually wore in a ponytail. He wore earrings in those days. His ears had been pierced, at his request, by Jennifer, our neighbor in Puerto Rico. He was tall, slim, and had his first job with a call center in Manhattan, Kansas, a rotten sort of job that seemed to keep coming back to him in other iterations wherever he went. He was good at it, but it was mind-numbing and, to use his word, "sucked."

Leif was a natural teacher, not necessarily the academic kind, though I think he would have been good at that if he had the inclination, but at explaining almost anything in such a way that whoever was his listener would get what he was conmunicating. He had an incredible memory and remembered practically verbatim just about everything he heard and saw, even when he didn't appear to be paying attention. He absorbed information and ideas like a sponge absorbs water, and he was able to figure things out and provide solutions to problems. He loved to "hold forth" on topics that interested him, and would amaze any listeners with the depth of his knowledge and understanding on a wide variety of topics, particularly because he never seems to make any effort to acquire the knowledge.

He was passionate about the U.S. Constitution, politics, beer, and guns, hated cruelty to animals, and liked to play pool and computer games.

I wonder what he was talking about in this photo. I will just have to imagine it. 

Which Leif Garretson Should I Remember on Memorial Day?

When I remember Leif on Memorial Day, which Leif should I remember? The boy who wanted to grow up to be an Air Force pilot but couldn't because his eyes wouldn't pass the flight physical? The college student who joined Air Force ROTC to become an Air Force officer, scoring at the top his class at summer camp, only to be sent home when his body failed him again with a pulled muscle in his groin?

The man who enlisted in the infantry, the toughest physical challenge, to try to find a way into the military, hoping to qualify for Green to Gold to become an officer? The man who went through Infantry Basic Training on a broken foot after a fellow soldier fell on it during first aid training?

The man who breathed and ate sand and dust in Uzbekistan during UN maneuvers and developed severe asthma so that his body betrayed him yet again? The man who served his country with distinction in Bosnia as a peacekeeper? The man who was the best machine gunner in his battalion?

The proud soldier who became a broken man, the one who, with PTSD, finally ended his life like far too many of our veterans? He didn't die in a combat battle, but he died in his own private war, one brought on at least partly by his military service.

So, on this Memorial Day, I remember Leif Garretson, my son, who served his country, and is no longer with us. I will always be proud of him and his service.

This photo was taken around 1999.

The Whole KVCC Veterans Memorial Mural Wall

This is the whole mural or mosaic with Leif's stone near the top right.