from Susan, Leif's wife

So who was this guy whom some of you know from work, others from the neighborhood, some of you call Leif, others call Uncle Lucky --

This is my part of the story. As you can imagine, after 46 years of hanging around each other there might be a few things to say…

He described himself in high school as a “man of few words”….

I would have to add to that he was a man who was quietly and often single-mindedly and passionately focused on--

• his family, us - but before us - his parents, siblings, nieces and nephews
• his work at Brookhaven National Lab
• birds
• photography
• the outdoors and nature’s wonders big and small
• chunks of wood

He was the guy I “dated” on and off for 12 years, before we got married 34 years ago.

When I first met him he was just back from the Army, and in grad school at Cornell — he was with some others I knew and talking about learning to downhill ski.   I gave him a hard time about that and said you should try REAL skiing — which to me was cross-country skiing, something I’d been doing for a few years after failing to do well downhill skiing. The next thing I knew he’d gone out and gotten a pair of cross-country skis and was getting passionate about that! And I thought to myself, who is this guy??

But I was dating someone else at the time so wasn’t paying too much attention.

When I did start paying attention and he asked me out on a date, it was to go canoeing. Now we both knew how to canoe but we ended up flipping the canoe near the end of our run on Fall Creek in Ithaca, getting a bit wet. We had mis-communicated about which way to go around some rocks. After some further canoeing in heavy water, we realized that this brainy physicist couldn’t always tell his right hand from his left when push came to shove. So as we canoed more together he supplied the strength in the back of the canoe and I supplied the direction in the front. And we began to trust each other’s judgment.

More than once when we were first dating — while outside in a fond embrace I would find myself suddenly standing alone as he turned with his binoculars or camera to follow a bird flying over or an animal running off. And I would think, who is this guy?  

I headed off to the Peace Corps in Colombia South America about 3 months after we started dating. I’d been planning to do this for 2 years, but had a few doubts after we met — however, Leif pushed me out the door saying he’d still be in grad school when I got back and I should follow my dreams. So I went, we wrote often to each other — once I wrote an emotional “I wonder if we still see the same stars, though I am here and you are there?” His reply was to send me The Field Guide to the Stars and Planets, so I could figure that out for myself!!

I think our friends and families had given up on us ever marrying after 12 years — it really came down to my knowing that he might be submerged in physics for a few days but he’d eventually emerge and pay attention to our life together...and his knowing that sometimes his focus elsewhere had to turn to pay attention to the people in his life. 

So when we finally got that worked out, we got married and shortly thereafter had these 2 sons, who were his and my delight.

More than once he would come home for dinner, read a story to the older son, walk the hall with the younger one slung over his shoulder, sing them a lullaby and then go back to the lab, or go downstairs to his office to work.  He read to them night after night, enjoying stories and laughing with them. And taking them outside in all sorts of weather to show them the world from the start.

I have to say that our care of them as little ones has come back to us a hundred fold as they have been a major source of strength for both of us especially in the last 2 years.   When I called, they came — and they didn’t just visit — they became our consultants, nurses, shoulders to cry on, partners in projects, birdwatchers with us. Leif was enormously proud of them — he often said to me  I don’t know how we got so lucky to have two such wonderful sons. I cannot think of a better legacy from him.