Brandy went to go and make breakfast for her and her kids.


She glanced out the window and saw her husband Skip


He was walking towards the window with the newspaper in
his hands. He was as clear as the day is bright. Brandy noticed
that she was holding her breath as she watched her missing husband
approach the window. And then he vanished!


'It was just a day dream.' Brandy told herself and grabbed
a mixing bowl from the cupboard. She could feel hot tears
welling up in her eyes. She did not want the kids to see her crying
again. But she was nearly out of control with the stress of it all.
Everything, and now the pregnancy.

With several deep breaths and lots of blinking back of tears,
Brandy found her strength and pulled herself together.
But not until a few drops of her tears fell into the pancake batter.

'Oh Skip, I can't feed our children on tears and sorrow. I will have
to get a job immediately.' Brandy thought to herself.
She fought back the lump in her throat and made mental plans
to go Job Hunting right after Dustin left for school.

She had a couple of months to work before she began to show her
pregnancy. That should give her some extra cash to get them
through until after the baby was born and then she
could go back to work. Hopefully she could find a job that would
allow her to work late into her pregnancy.



"Hey mom, those pancakes smell great. I'm starved and
Beau is all ready too eat", Dustin said in his usual
cheerful way.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh gooooo goooo gooooooo!" agreed Beau.
After they were all settled at the table.



Brandy decided it was as good of a time as any to tell Dustin that she was going to have another baby.


Dustin was no fool and knew what kind of a financial burden
this would put on their fragile and broken family.

"That's great news mom," he said with tears in his eyes.



"I miss him so much." Brandon sighed.



"If it is a boy can we name him after dad?" Dustin asked.

"That is a great idea, if it is a boy his name will be
Skip Jr. I miss him too, honey," Brandy said forcing her voice
not to crack.

Then they ate in silence, only the baby was heard making
his happy baby noises as he enjoyed squishing his pancakes
and stuffing them into his little chubby baby face.

Dustin heard the school bus arriving and got up to leave.
Brandy got up to give her oldest son a warm hug good-bye
when she suddenly had a queasy stomach and almost
got sick.


When Dustin observed his mother fighting off a bout
of morning sickness he knew for sure that the times
ahead were going to be hard.



"I love you Dustin, everything will be alright," she tried to
reassure her teenage son with a warm hug.
"I know mom, we will get through this together," he told
her and hugged her back.

But Dustin was indeed very worried about the whole situation
of his family. He managed to give his mother a nice smile.
And then headed off to school.



He had to run.



Once he started running he really did not want to stop,
he was very stressed out and worried. This day he would
of rather ran the three miles to school than take the bus.




But it was already there and waiting for him. So he got on anyway.




He was very relieved to see he was the first one on.
It would give him a few minutes to collect his thoughts,
gather his strength and focus.



The End of Part 1. Thank you for reading. smile.


{Authors note: Hi everybody, I had to re shoot most of these pictures, the originals were lost when Ts2.com crashed. Sorry if there are not as many pictures to go with part one. I hope you still enjoyed it and will come back for part 2. I promise it gets better..smile..}