"I'll bury your memories in the garden and watch them grow with the flowers in spring. Keep you with me."

- The Wonder Years, Cigarettes & Saints

Hi, my name is Erin. Last July, I lost my boyfriend Levi to an overdose.

COVID has been hard on everyone, but the recovery community especially has been crippled. Isolation and fear breed substance abuse. Nationwide overdose deaths have increased by more than 25% each of the last couple of years.

Words can't describe how hard this has been, but one thing that has gotten me through is a desire to live as Levi would have and as he would have wanted me to. One thing we talked about was how we would travel together as soon as the world opened up again.

Levi had a thing with daisies - he gravitated toward daisy imagery in his music, in his clothing company label, in real life. I can't tell you how many times I turned around and found him holding out a daisy for me, conjured from somewhere inexplicable.

At his memorial service last August, his family made packets of daisy seeds with the above quote (a line from a song by our favorite band - the song is also about the overdose of a loved one) to distribute to everyone in attendance.

My packet has hung in my car ever since. At some point in the last few months, an idea started to form in my head - spending months traveling with no particular destination. Only one goal: to plant daisies wherever I go (carefully, of course, no invasive species!!) and spread Levi's message of love.

I can't tell you how many people have told me, in the days since his passing, how much he helped them. Helped in small ways, like giving the perfect advice at the right moment - but in big ways, too, like getting friends off the street into treatment.

I can't get fentanyl off the street. I can't stop an addict from picking up. I can't be there with Narcan every time somebody overdoses.

But I can plant daisies. I can write. I can tell his story - and mine - and give a name to the harrowing epidemic facing our country right now. I can connect with strangers in strange places and live with love.

Help me make our dream of traveling come true, or don't. Either way - thank you for reading this far and learning a little about Levi. And if you haven't heard it from anyone else today, I love you.