As we approach Thanksgiving, I have a request for a man that my children and I thank God for every day. My husband, Marlon L. Petty, Sr., is an outstanding father and man.
At the age of 21, he made the decision to become a father and husband after finding out we were expecting our eldest son. That summer, he married me and we became a family of 3 on Christmas Eve when my son, Marlon Jr., was born. For Christmas, he got our wedding rings out of lay-away and gave it to me in the hospital because we couldn’t afford to purchase them when we first got married that past July.
He’s sacrificed and worked sometimes 3 jobs to provide for us. We have added 2 lovely girls, Cece and Layla, and another son, Elijah, to the family. Beyond our four children, but we have opened our home to relatives and many godchildren. At times, we’ve had over 13 kids spending the weekend at our house. All of my son’s friends call him “pops”, and our goddaughters affectionately refer to him as “uncle daddy”. We have now been married over 18 years, and 5 years ago, he went back to finish his bachelor’s degree that had been on hold while we raised our children.
My husband is in the process of finding a deal on a stove for the house that died on us back in June, the day my son graduated from high school. Not only does he teach school, but he is a self-taught master chef. Thanksgiving will not be Thanksgiving without his famous turkey and fixings. The kids are in a panic about how thanksgiving will turn out without an oven for their daddy to cook in.
