Part of an autobiography from Kalyn, one of Lev's best friends

Some of Lev's friends struggled in school after losing him as a friend and support. Kalyn relied on Lev a lot in school, and life, and was close to our family. Lev tended to push his friends to be the best they could be. Melissa has also talked about how he pushed her to take advanced courses. They made it a competition and then when he was gone she was stuck with a very challenging year ahead of her. Melissa had other losses too and got bad grades her sophomore year, which impacted her college opportunities. Fortunately, she is now doing well in art school in Seattle. 

I think Zay pushed Lev a bit, as they both planned to studying in Europe together after high school. Lev knew his grades needed to be like Zay's if they would make it to the same college. Zay is going to Lewis and Clark this year. 

Kaylyn ended up dropping out of high school and is about to be a dad. 

He has returned to try to complete his diploma at State Street High School, and this is part of his autobiography that he handed in. 

When Lev died we gave a lot of his things to Kaylyn, including his guitar and amp. They had always planned on having a band together. 

Kalyn's first band, in high school, was called Lev's army. He obviously holds him in his heart. 

A two year old tries to understand death

Liana has been commenting recently on Lev's death, and obviously trying to understand it.
The other morning at breakfast she said, "Lev died. Mommy cried."
Tony added, "Daddy cried too. He still does sometimes."
Liana replied, "Yeah. Lani not sad."
I explained, "That's okay. You don't need to be sad. You didn't know Lev."
She said, "Jaal sad. Jaal try to bring Lev back." "Jaal try."
And she gave a big, sad frown.

A couple days later the same conversation was repeated.
But, she added that Lev was at home.
I asked her, "What home, where?" and she couldn't answer, so she went back to the he died conversation.

She said, "Like the shrimp."
Every night hundreds of land shrimp spend their last hours on our doorstep.
"And we put them in the grass," noted Liana.

At that point I didn't feel it appropriate to explain cremation or burial, but she has seen many dead birds and bugs.

Liana is also trying to figure out if we were cows, who in our family would be a cow and who would be a bull.
"Melinda is a cow. Jaal is a bull."
It's interesting, and sometimes heart breaking to see her mind at work.

dreams, damn dreams

I keep having difficult dreams. Three nights in a row now.
The night before last we were in some sort of school watching Lev's class group's presentation, but we had to head back right after because Lev was in the hospital.
He was sick, but he had been sick before. We were going to stay with him there. I was worried, as he seemed pretty sick. I thought, "What if he doesn't make it? Why am I here at his presentation? We'd better hurry to be with him." And then I woke up.

Last night I was in some weird future world and they were upgrading the computer system. I saw a huge panel that was being moved from the floor I was on. On this panel, sort of like a huge iPad, were all our memories of Lev.
Through some glass doors, I saw Tony on the floor below. I yelled to him, "They're taking it, they are going to erase it." Since the panel somehow contained all our memories of Lev and they were about to be destroyed he would truly be gone forever.

Then I awoke.

The dreams coincide with Liana asking more about Lev, so either something weird is going on with both of us - something more spiritual - or I'm mulling over her comments in my sleep.

Rebecca