Family honors memory of 2-year-old son, Levi, seven years after his passing

Seven years ago on July 19, 2017, 2-year-old Levi Sampson was killed tragically when he was hit by a car while riding his bike. Just days following his death, his parents decided to “live for Levi” by bringing positivity into the lives of those who needed it the most. For the past seven years, the Sampson family has found ways to help others who have experienced the tragic loss of a child through their foundation, “Live for Levi.”

Levi’s mom, CC Sampson described him as being fearless and having an “unconquerable spirit,” even at his young age. 

“If he put his mind to something, he was going to do it,” Sampson recalled. “He was not afraid of anything –  he really wasn’t. He just lived and he wanted to live every second of life. In fact, he never slept because I feel like now in hindsight, he just felt like he needed to get it all in before his passing. In fact, on the back of his headstone it says, ‘let him sleep for when he wakes, he will move mountains.’”

Mountains are very special to the Sampson family because one of the last things they did as a family before Levi died was climb one. The Memorial Day before he passed, CC recalled taking their family that consisted of five kids at the time, for a hike up Y Mountain in Provo. She described it as a spur-of-the-moment hike that was really hard, but said that it showed them that they could do hard things. 

“We had never hiked the Y before, and it was just before sundown and we had five tiny, little kids,” she recalled. “We didn’t have any water or extra diapers. I don’t know why or how we did it, but we did, and it is something that we recreate every year to commemorate that experience about climbing a mountain and doing hard things.”

The Sampsons had no idea the mountain that they were about to climb in the weeks ahead with the loss of their little Levi, but they took on his unconquerable spirit by passing on love and a little financial help to others who had experienced similar losses. It was in serving others that helped them heal. 

Helping others

Porter described the deep pain that families who lose children go through, and how she never truly understood it until she went through it herself. She said that the goal of “Live for Levi” was to let others know that they aren’t alone in their grief and that it’s also OK to continue to live.

“It’s a world that I never would have known existed unless I experienced it myself,” Porter said. “I know it sounds really weird, but I almost felt guilty not knowing how deep that grief is. Someone’s grief who has lost a loved one like that – I just hope no one ever has to feel this, and anyone who does, I just feel so deeply for because it hurts so much.

“We started a foundation a couple of months after our son passed away – a 501C3 nonprofit – for families that are striving to do good in the face of adversity,” Sampson continued. “We have focused mostly on parents who have lost young children, 18 and younger. As we wade through our own grief in losing our son, it helps us heal, and it helps us make sense of his passing while helping others. … We want to ease that burden a little bit and help them to know that it is OK to live again.”

Porter explained that they try to help families throughout the year through fundraising events, and around the anniversary of Levi’s passing. To date, the foundation has raised over $200,000 to help families in need. She said that they try to encourage the families they help to take some of the money raised to do something that their child would have liked them to do. 

“We usually give a monetary donation to a family and we help families throughout the year, but we usually do one or two big events a year specifically geared toward a family and we get their community to rally around them,” she explained. “We usually like to tell them to go on a healing trip with the donations to help them remember what it’s like to live. …  So that’s what we do. We try to help them go and live for their son or their daughter or whoever has passed and just give them the permission to go live.” 

Building a community 

Porter said that one of the key elements of the Live for Levi foundation is to create a sense of community of people who have experienced similar grief so that the families have a built in support system as time goes on.

“I feel like so many people help right at the beginning,” she said. “You have this big community that helps because people are so shocked by it, but then life goes on and people move on. I feel like through our foundation, we’re able to help these families a little bit down the road when their community has kind of moved on a little bit. And so we try to help them know that there is a community of people who feel for them, love them, and are going through a similar thing as they are.”

Living with your loved one in mind

While Porter is an advocate for moving forward, she said that it’s not about forgetting your loved one lost. She spoke about her grief after Levi passed, and not knowing if she wanted to have another child. She recounted trauma freezing her in a place of fear, but as she remembered Levi, she felt comfort in her decision to bring another child into their family. 

“About six months after Levi passed away, my husband approached me and said, ‘I think we need to have another baby,’” Porter recalled. “At that time, I was just so grief stricken and I just couldn’t stand the thought of trying to keep another child alive. Having that responsibility was really debilitating after that trauma. … After about a year I just had this strong impression that Levi was sending me somebody. A little over a year after Levi passed away, I became pregnant with our daughter Sloan. When we named her Sloan, we didn’t know this at the time but her name meant ‘little warrior.’ She has been the most healing, beautiful blessing in our lives and I feel like she kind of woke us up from our, from our grief sleep if you will. I feel like she was sent here by Levi to save us.”

The mom of six said that she knows that this journey of losing a child will be full of ups and downs, but that she has found that the good has outweighed the bad. 

“It’s such a bittersweet thing, but the good has far outweighed the bad in all of this and it has helped us heal,” she said. “Through this, I’ve become a woman that I never thought I would become. I never thought possible the level of compassion I’ve been able to receive and to be able to just grow into a person. I mean, why else are we here? In my opinion, we’re here to grow and learn and do as much good as we can.”

If you know of a family who could benefit from Live for Levi’s services or to donate, go to live4levi.org. To stay updated on the foundation, search “Live for Levi” on Facebook.