20 May 2013 Love goes around and comes around
by Carla Adair Hendricks
Judge Mark Leverett’s life has come full circle.
The Little Rock district judge, who back in 1969 spent his first five months of life in foster care before joining his forever family, has now become a forever father to a young boy who spent the first seven years of his life in an unstable family and three different foster homes.
“I always wanted to give back,” said Leverett. “I look back on the situation that I could have been in if I’d remained in my biological family. So I knew I had to give back.”
Leverett’s biological grandparents encouraged his birthmother, an unwed teenager, to place him up for adoption. Living in poverty in depressed West Helena, his birthmother legally surrendered her parental rights in the hospital after giving birth. She had accepted her inability to finish high school and support a third child.
Five months later, in stepped Ernest and Jeanette Leverett, who adopted a 5-month-old Mark from state foster care.
He marvels at the paradox.
“You’ve got one mother who is struggling because she’s got too many kids,” Leverett said. “Another is struggling because she can’t have any kids. God converged those two paths. My life is a by-product of two mothers being unselfish. My biological mother — her unselfishness was in giving up a child that she wanted to keep. But to keep me would have kept her impoverished, and she knew it.
“It was an unpopular decision for a black mother to give up a child in the ’60s. It was not the Angelina Jolie era of adoption like today. I know that was a lot on her. The unselfish act of my mother and father taking in a child that wasn’t theirs. And it wasn’t a popular decision. They were discouraged from adopting by their family.”
As a young child, Mark discovered his adoption origins through an older cousin who revealed the information out of spite. Instead of discouraging him, the news of his adoption only solidified his parents’ love for him.
“It underscored in my mind how much unconditional love they had given me. I knew whoever they were, they loved me. The explanation I was given about the adoption was that it simply meant that I was special.
"They came and found me. They picked me out. I was never made to feel different in a bad sense. It was always different in an extra special sense.”
Perhaps his parents’ affirming words over the years carried him through undergraduate school at Henderson State, Law School at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and later a campaign for district judge.
A Deacon and Bible teacher at St. Mark Baptist Church, his deep faith has certainly carried him through. That faith also carries him through intense days in court, presiding over city code violations in the city of Little Rock.
It was during his 2007 campaign that Mark approached his wife Kim with his desire to adopt. “The opportunity came up when the Heart Gallery came to our church. I was walking through the foyer before service, seeing all these kids in pictures in frames. I saw Wesley, and instantaneously I said, ‘There’s something different about this one.’ He just looked like he belonged in our family.”
He immediately took a picture of Wesley’s picture and texted it to Kim. Quite hesitant over pursuing this child, Kim reminded her husband that he was in the middle of a citywide judicial campaign. In addition, the couple was already raising two young daughters, Kennedy and Reagan, now 14 and 12, respectively.
“Kim is very conservative. My song has always played at fast forward. She’s always on pause. She wanted me to calculate the cost — the emotional cost, the social cost.”
Today he readily admits to his wife’s wisdom. “In retrospect, it made no sense whatsoever. These were two life-changing events at one time.”
Yet pausing to “calculate the cost” only intensified his desire to adopt Wesley. A few months later, the Leveretts felt called to do the “senseless” and began filing paperwork to foster, and possibly adopt, 7-year-old Wesley. When they first met Wesley, he was very quiet and reserved. Leverett now realizes he and Kim were getting a glimpse not only into their future son’s personality, but also his lack of stability and confidence.
“He had been living out of a bag. He had been plucked out of one home and moved to another. He didn’t have a root system.”
In August 2009, the Leveretts began fostering Wesley, who they’d been told had learning deficits and had been held back in first grade. Once in a stable home with two parents working tirelessly on his reading skills, Wesley began to not only catch up in school, but to excel. A year later, his second grade teacher recommended him for the Gifted and Talented program. Today, 11-year-old Wesley is in Chenault Elementary’s Alpha Program for gifted and talented students.
Since Wesley’s adoption in April 2011, his parents have witnessed a beautiful transformation. “His willingness to talk has grown exponentially. Wes would not talk when he first came into our house. He was socially inept. He had a survivor mentality. He just had things that had developed in seven years, and he’s had to work on them. He has grown. He’s got great leadership qualities. He’s really sprouted now. The kid has a really good heart.”
Wesley’s dad has also experienced transformation, as he grows to love Wesley as the elder Leveretts loved him.
“It has really challen
ged me to show unconditional love. He doesn’t always receive it. It took a year for him to hug one of us. It’s not easy to love someone when he keeps to himself. This has really stretched us to show unconditional love.”
