When I awoke the next day, I was lying in Levi's bunk. Levi had his arms wrapped around me tightly and my head was resting on his bare chest. I smiled and carefully shifted so I could move my arms a little more freely. I slowly began to trace Levi's tattoos on his chest. Smiling as I traced over my favorite one. It was two hands coming together to make a heart over his. It also had barbed wire that was wrapped around both of the hands, wrists and the heart. Out of the puncture wounds of the barbed wire was droplets or in some spots streams of blood. Underneath the heart was the date, January 14, 2012. The tattoo sounds a bit odd, but it blends perfectly with his others and it has a meaningful story behind it.
Harley Recalls the Story of Levi's Tattoo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I remember when Levi came up with the idea for the hands in a heart tattoo. Levi had a girlfriend back when he was thirteen until a few weeks before his sixteenth birthday. They may have been young, but anyone could easily tell they were the perfect couple and that they truly cared about each other. They used to do everything together.
She was quick to join our friend group and was a perfect match with us. Kenney and I loved when she came over and I also loved having another girl around. She was one of the most amazing people in the world. She was always doing what she could to help anyone who needed it. A year ago, I had asked Levi why he fell in love with her and he replied: "first it was her eyes, but then it was all the little things. The way she smiled and the way she cringed when we watched a horror movie. Lastly, it was the way she would give her heart and her soul if it meant helping someone in need."
The two of them were inseparable and it was very rare to see one of them and not have the other in the same room. When she was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumor at the age of 15, Levi never left her side. He started online school and sat by her side everyday at the hospital. He waited outside the door during every MRI. He would go with her everyday to the playroom so that she could read to the other children. He made rounds with her so she could sit, chat, and read to the kids who could not make it to her daily readings. He would spend hours with her, making various arts and crafts to give to the patients at the hospital so that they could decorate their rooms. Every night for nine months, he would lay down next to her and hold her in his arms as she fell asleep.
One night he left her side. He came back before she woke up and decorated the room with her favorite flowers. The minute she awoke, he was waiting. He got down on one knee and held out the ring that he had bought with the money he was saving to buy his dream guitar. They both knew that they would probably never have the opportunity to get married, but neither of them cared. She said yes in a heartbeat and wore that ring everyday until her death.
Kenney and I were with him the day she passed on. She had gotten weaker and weaker everyday. A few weeks prior to her passing, she had become too weak to do her daily visits and readings, so Levi took over. It was the only time he ever left her side.
Kenney and I had just arrived on the snowy January day. Levi was sitting at her bedside holding her hand. She looked up at him and very slowly said, "take the ring Levi. Give it to a girl who will have your heart longer that I can."
"No" he said with tears in his eyes, "you can't leave me yet" he said in almost a whisper.
"Levi, please. This is my last wish"
"I love you" he murmured, kissing her lips and taking the ring.
"I love you, Levi" she barely said before the heart monitors started going off.
"NOOOO!!!" Levi screamed, clutching the ring in his hand as the doctors ushered the three of us out of the room.
Levi clung to me as he cried. I did the best I could to hold back my tears and to cheer him up. Kenney paced up and down the hallway with a blank expression.
A few days later, the three of us stood in a half circle around her tombstone which read: "Lillian Mae Fields, June 10, 1997-January 14, 2012. With a bigger heart than anyone one will ever meet in a lifetime"
Last January, Levi had asked me to come with him to the tattoo parlor. I sat with him as he explained the tattoo that he had sketched out to the tattoo artist. The artist listened and when she was finished, gave him a hug, and told him it was one of the most meaningful tattoos she had ever done.
End of Harley's Memory~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I looked up at Levi and smiled as my eyes came across the now empty chain and down at my ring finger, which now held the ring he had given Lillian.
As I sighed happily, Levi began to stir. He blinked a few times, before peering down at me. I smiled up at him and inched closer to him so I could peck his lips. I carefully maneuvered in the small bunk, so that I was straddling his torso. His hands inched there way to my hips as I smiled down at him. My right index finger, slowly traced the tattoo. I felt him shiver beneath me as my finger grazed over the date. His hands tightened around my waist and he pouted his lips. He pulled me closer, so that my lips could meet his again.
