THRIVING Melanin Family Magazine March 2017: National Single Parent Month | Page 52

Life Goes On... By Toria Simmons

It all started five years ago, I lost my husband to the military, he loved his job, he served his country and he died protecting it, before he thought about joining the Army we lived a good life, he was a school teacher, I was a nurse, we didn’ t have any kids at the time, life seem great and we had no worries, a year after we bought our first home, I gave birth to our first born daughter,( Roxy) then ten months later I became pregnant with a another handsome baby boy,( Remy Jr).
Two years later we finally had our third( Ra’ mone), after Ra’ mone was born Remy was called to fight war in Afghan, I was furious of course, I didn’ t want him to go, I just gave birth to our son and the kids were under three, two weeks after the baby and I were home, Remy was deployed.
I cried for three weeks, I didn’ t have any help with the kids, my family stayed so far away from us, including his family, I had my close friends and neighbors but it wasn’ t the same without him, I didn’ t go back to work after Ra’ mone was born, I became a full time mom, we had enough money in the bank to last for two years and after that Remy would be home and everything would go back to normal, so I thought, at first I cried for three weeks then I got over it, my best friend Sam came and spent a month with me, my mom flew from Los Angeles to help out and my mother in law came a couple weeks later, everything started looking up even though, I quit my job to be a full time mom and I home school my two kids, my husband calls me every day and we try talking as long as we could before the call dropped.
We would talk everyday around 7:30pm, what a great feeling, the kids missed him terribly and I did as well, I needed my husband here with us.
After six months of Remy being gone, I was still maintaining all the bills and everything else that came first in our household.
“ It’ s been crazy over here; they have us going through towns looking for survivors and its bad baby”
( Helicopters passing)
Eight months later I found out I was having my fourth child,( what a big surprise) this time without Remy being here, he didn’ t know at the time we were expecting another child.
Never seen it coming, three kids and pregnant with the fourth, my baby boy is ten months to this day. My son and daughter are a hand full, the ten month old mimics them both, and this fourth baby will either make me or break me, looking at my future I will probably give up nursing.
I hired a nanny to help out around the house; weeks have past and my stomach have grown tremendously, finally, after two weeks of not hearing from my husband, I got that call …
“ Hey baby, I miss you”“ I miss you too love bug”“ What took you so long to call me?”
“ How are my children”? How’ s everything, are you getting the money that’ s being sent to our account?”
“ Yes baby, ah; I have something to tell you”( Scratching my head) Remy paused for a few seconds …“ Honey what it is”
I lift up my shirt; Remy eyes widen and his mouth dropped.
THRIVE MAGAZINE 25