“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are gray. You never know dear-- how much I love you….So please, don’t take… my Levi’s away…..”

 I get reluctant to write about my son, because of the, issues of late with his “dad”, and because I don’t know if I have the words to describe how much I love him.

My son came into this world by the name, Levi. I choose that name because I wanted to put some kind of love into a book, which most use as a means to hate. Secondly, a lot of my friends and family call me Liva, (Live-ah) and I liked how the two names came together in a sentence—“Liva and Levi.”

Sounds like a connection, which is what, Levi means in Hebrew. I gave him the middle name of someone I loved very much the last 17 years of my life, and his last name for the inappropriate grandfather, that’s clock radio played country music at night, as my nightmares persisted throughout my early childhood. Levi is a living reminder of why I am the way I am, and his name is in loving remembrance of the death of who I used to be, by overcoming and healing. There are wounds inside me still healing, and often I feel like I'm bleeding out, but we all have those scars to bear in order to understand the significance of our journeys, I suppose.

My son saved me. He was my rebirth into a new skin. A skin, which at times doesn’t fit so tight, but protects me from the sting, of a country music song that covered up the creek of the wooden floor and the losing of my innocence or trust for the world.

Levi resuscitated me like an electric shock to a dying heart. Without him, I would, most likely not be alive. I used to push the boundaries with my chemical abuse. I pushed it until my heart couldn’t take it anymore, and my spirit collapsed somewhere in between all of the giving away of my hopes and dreams and the numbing away of memories I couldn’t recall or want to acknowledge.

My son is a fatherless child born to a fatherless mother. As my mom describes we are “big throbbing hearts,” that are used to the going away and not coming back. So we hold on to each other tight. We sleep—side by side. We eat and brush our teeth—side by side. And we stand—side by side.

We are a party of two.

I try not to introduce Levi to anyone I’m interested in, because he gets attached easily. I wait to see—and I guard his big throbbing heart while exposing mine to the predators, I tend to attract. Better one heart be broken than two. I’m working on that, and learning to experience healthier connections. Links to beating minds and throbbing hearts that can endure and let love overlook, those moments when it’s hard and overwhelming—ones that are accepting of the depth of Levi and my presence, and be strong enough to handle the swishing of the tides it brings.

We are a party of two, with all of our bad and good. We love each other in a crazy way, which makes absolute sense to both of our OCD/ADD riddled thoughts. At the end of those long days, when nothing seems to go right for either of us, Levi will lay on my shoulder to fall asleep, and we know there’s no conditions in that moment--just abundance.

It’s not easy being a mom. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done and it’s not all fairytale moments. It’s overwhelming, terrifying, fucking up and mucking up, humbling and amazing, BUT I just close my eyes at night and hope that the best of me sticks, as he develops into the greatness of him.

I climbed out of a very deep dark hole to be at his reserve—and sometimes I fall back in and have to climb right back out; to make his breakfast, tell him to brush his teeth a million times, wrestle my tired old ass with him on the hard floor, play basketball with him down the street, put the chain back on his bike a million times a day, and make sure he remembers to wipe properly. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, but where I am right now, which is a room away from that 8 year old sleeping boy; I named Levi on the day of his birth and wake of my new beginning.

 Love you, Levi’s…

 

Levi and Me back in 2008