Marriage, by far, the hardest thing we’ve EVER done…but for reasons you may not know! 

At probably one of the happiest points in my life, probably right after Herman & I were remarried, I remember telling my sister in law that, “Pondy & I both agreed that marriage was probably one of the hardest things we’d ever done”. I mean harder than Business Policies with Dr. Self, your last semester, of your last year at Alabama State University, Lol! (That was for all of my fb ASU COBA Alum! Lol! Y’all know what I’m talking about, ugh, lol). Okay, I digress;)! Anywho, she looked at me & smiled & said, “Peaches, really? No? really”? And I could see the wheels turning in her head as she was “THINKING TO HERSELF” because she didn’t actually utter these words but I could see her “thinking”, “but you guys seem so happy! Y’all made it work”! I laugh at that comment now because I actually just made the statement and kind of walked off & got into another conversation. I didn’t get a chance to finish or clarify my statement. What I meant was, the hardest thing we had ever done…”WIDE OPEN & Exposed”!

We thought it was a sho nuff love the 1st time but we soon realized that it was “I can’t live without you…until you do something to piss me off type of love”.  Lol! The first time, when we got married, there was no fear or thoughts of, “this thing may not work”. There was no real honest, genuine put my feelings & thoughts & concerns to the side for the sake of some one else’s…constantly. There was no constant concern for how the other person felt, for example, if you walked into the room & they were sitting there & they sighed too hard, your stomach dropped because you wanted to know, “are you ok? Do you need something”? There were no calls just to say, I had a very vivid dream & I just needed to hear your voice. No feelings of, as long as she/he’s smiling & her/his day is going good, no matter what craziness is going in around me, I’m GOOD!  If we’re being totally honest, there was not a lot of that. 

This time around, for us, is the hardest but only because we’ve had to learn true sacrifice. It’s honestly not about how we, individually, feel or what we, individually, want. We have honestly put all of our selfish ambitions and quests to be the BEST outside of each other to the side. The divorce made us stronger because we now realize that the “work”, now so effortlessly, goes into each other but in doing this, we found out that we wound up making ourselves “Happy” when we know that the other person is! Our motto is: if you’re good…I’m Great! Hard work, heck yeah! But so worth it! I wouldn’t change a thing! #HowMyDivorceSavedMyMarriage. Stay Tuned!

I can honestly admit, I had one of the BEST pregnancies ever!  Hands down!  Okay, for those of you who were with or anywhere around me during my pregnancy and you read that first sentence, I know you’re saying to yourself, “That’s a lie if I ever heard one”!  LOL! Okay, I’m not necessarily referring to the actual pregnancy itself (that’s a whole nother’ post, lol) however I am referring to the non-stop care and time and attention that was provided to me by my husband.  I was extremely sick, almost the entire pregnancy.  And as much crying and vomiting I did, Herman (Pondy) was right there beside me, holding a trash can or a pan or whatever he could grab, under my curled up, weak and exhausted body.  I can distinctly remember him scrubbing floors, almost weekly, cleaning up vomit from when I tried desperately to make it to the bathroom in time (and this happened at least three to four times a week).  He was phenomenal! He called to check in on me all day.  He cooked, he cleaned, he washed clothes, you name it, he was right there!  However, it was when the babies arrived, that things seem to change and almost immediately!  How does one go from being extremely concerned and caring to almost non-existent when I needed him the most.

It was one of the most beautiful moments of both of our lives! There we were, in the delivery room, Herman standing to the left of me near my head, poised with the camcorder (yeah, this was pre-iphone era, lol) in his hands and there I was, lying stretched out on the delivery table, thinking, “what is with all of this procedure and protocol and chit chatting about paperwork…Let’s get this thing on the road!  I’m so ready to meet these little people”!  We were ready, so we thought.  We had purchased almost everything we needed.  We had enough diapers and clothes and bed spreads and ointments and lotions, creams, bottles, you name it, to last us at least 3 months (and that was for 2 babies)…yeah, we we’re READY!  Ready to leave Herman and April in that delivery room and almost never to see them again.  Almost.  It was almost instantaneous.  As my most Awesome OB was pulling the babies out, one by one, Herman left first (because he got to see them come out before I did, something happened).  And as baby #2 was being pulled out and was held up high, over my Cesarian sheet that was tied or draped across me, I then left. Now I don’t want you to think that we physically got up and left out of the delivery room, no, not at all. We were truly probably the most obnoxious new parents you ever did see! Taking pictures and gloating and singing and praising God, lol!  Yeah, we were a mess but in a good way.  However spiritually and mentally, Herman and April no longer existed as two individual beings who had cared for, looked after and taken care of one another for the past 10-12 years.  We had become “Parents”, Bryce and Asia’s Moma and Daddy were our “New” names!  Now, there was never a “pre-birth” discussion on how we would, at 4:30 and 4:32 respectively, let go of those two very important people who had walked into that hospital.  No, no agreement, no discussion, it just happened, unknowingly and to the both of us, at the same time.  Crazy, right?

We both became so caught up in the “Responsibility” of parenting “2” babies that we completely neglected the two people that helped to create these two beautiful and amazing beings.  Herman became obsessed with work and making sure he was able to provide for and take care of now “3” individuals, no longer 1.   As for me, I became “Mother Extraordinaire”! If it didn’t fit in or around the schedule of little Mr. Bryce and little Ms. Asia Moncrief, it wasn’t gonna happen, not by me.  My babies became the most important thing to me and then it became about my career.  So now you have two people, who have completely stopped breathing, not only for themselves but for one another.  Now everything they did from that moment on was from a “parenting” perspective and it was all about their babies.  

There was no more Herman and April or Peaches and Pondy, it was only, “what does Bryce and Asia need”!  Sounds perfectly normal to some I’m sure.  You may be thinking, yes, you have babies, you take care of babies, right?  However for us, this was not normal because there was never a time since we had met when we weren’t 100% involved in one another’s lives.  We were extremely close, almost like siblings.  We basically grew up “dating” one another, so this was bad for us, really bad.  We realized near the end (of the marriage) where we had gone wrong.  Later, we talked about how, almost at the same time, we died in that delivery room that day & two other people, not known to us, walked out with our babies.  We thought we were doing exactly what we were suppose to do, after all, we had planned everything to the T.  Little did we know, we still needed to keep breathing, keep living, for one another.  We, as individuals, died in that delivery room that day BUT GOD, only God knew that it was purposeful that we did.  So that he could put back together, in front of all, now to two very strong, passionate, and LOVING individuals.  #HowMyDivorceSavedMyMarriage.

I remember when I moved out of the house, well, when the kids and I moved out of the house, I had purchased a home not too far away from the home that my husband and I once shared.  It was awesome, it seemed.  I was moving on with my life but okay, not too far away from the old life that I once knew.  It seemed that “life after separation and subsequently divorce” would be alright.  I thought, “I can do this”!  but then night fell.  The nights were, for some reason, the worst for me.  I remember smiling all day having very in-depth and thought-provoking conversations with my co-workers about, the hottest shoes for the Fall and who was dating who at the office, lol!  Conversations that were about absolutely nothing but they made me smile & laugh for a little while anyways, a definite change from my personal life.  I played and cooed with my babies after I would pick them up from daycare.  We tickled and giggled and ran throughout the house letting out these LOUD bursts of laughter.  Everything seemed to be “normal”, well, until the night came.

I can honestly say, just about every night while in my new house, my BIG beautiful home that I had purchased all by myself…I cried like a baby.  Tears fell in my sleep I think because I had cried so much.  I would cry out almost in pain, asking God to please hear my prayer and to no longer be silent regarding my situation.  I wanted him to take away all of this pain and hurt that seemed almost unbearable!  However there was absolute Silence.  Nothing.  All you could hear were the sounds of my deep & sometimes uncontrollable moans & continuous crying.  I was alone (right where God wanted and needed me to be) and the pain of my broken heart was almost too much for me to bear.  I wanted this part of the test to be over.  I wanted the pain to STOP!  However, I had realized later, that there was something bigger to come out of this.  There was a purpose that had to be fulfilled.  I visualized God sitting up high, looking down on me and holding and rocking me in his arms, all the while wishing he could instantly take away my hurt. As his child, I know it must have been hard to see me in that place but he couldn’t and he wouldn’t, stop the pain.  What I had to do, after this, was much bigger than the pain I was experiencing at that very moment.  Therefore he ignored my pleas to “make it stop” all the while holding me up.

God needed me to feel every bit of that broken heart so that I could, today, stand before you and so many others and proclaim that he is good and merciful and that weeping really does endure for the night but Joy will most certainly come in the morning.  This is my morning yall!  I’m living in it everyday (my morning) full of joy and not just because a marriage or a relationship was restored but because “I”/We were restored.  God not only healed my broken heart but he restored my faith and my love in him (God) through that entire process.  That once traumatic pain has given way to an unshakeable faith in God and a renewed, almost giddy school girl love for my husband.  I now love him like God loves him, with all of his flaws and imperfections, as we all have, I love him more because of them.  Through all the pain that he (God) watched me endure, he knew in the end, that there was PURPOSE in it and for that, I’m grateful.  #MyDivorceSavedMyMarriage