In Neck Deep

I know in life you go through times where you question the what ifs. What if I had done something different? What if I had made a different decision about raising Levi on my own? What if I had told Levi something different about why his father wasn't in our lives? I know you cannot go back and change decisions that were made but honestly I don't think I would. I promised myself that I would never lie to Levi about his father. Ever since Levi was about 2 he has asked about his father. Each year I share what I feel is age appropriate for him to understand. I know he isn't old enough to truly understand what happened and why the decisions that were made were made but one day he will and he then can make his own decision about how he feels. But right now he just feels hurt and left out and like his life could somehow be better if he had a dad. Last night was a really tough night. Levi asked me if I knew what his dad looked like. I told him that I did and I described a few details like hair and eye color. Levi seemed sad that he didn't have the same color hair or eyes. I told him he got his hair color from me and then he chimed in with "I know and you carry the blue eye color gene from Papa". He asked if there was gene that he got from his dad. This hurts my heart that he wants to connect with someone who doesn't even know or care that he exists, but I know Levi doesn't know this. I tell him that his dad is tall like his Papa and that he will be tall too. He can tell that I am sad and I hate that knows this makes me sad. He said that he wants a Dad so he doesn't have to get up so early and go to school all day long since I have to work all the time. He said if he had a Dad he wouldn't have to stay with different people so much when I travel. All I can do is tell him that we don't know that is true. No one can tell the future and we don't know what could have happened. I explained that he will one day understand that I have done my very best to always do what I think is best and he just needs to trust me. I hope he will understand one day that he is my entire life.