TikTok star Ophelia Nichols aka Mama Tot is reflecting on her husband’s emotional reaction to her son’s death.
As we’ve been reporting, the popular social media personality is dealing with the aftermath of a horrific situation after her 18-year-old son Randon Lee was shot and killed late last month near Mobile, Alabama in an apparent drug deal gone wrong.
Related: Both Parents Of 2-Year-Old Murdered During 4th Of July Highland Park Mass Shooting
On Wednesday evening, Nichols spoke out about it on the clock app, informing her followers about how her husband Derick has stepped up in the time since Randon’s murder.
Responding to a fan who’d asked about Derick’s psychological well-being amid the family upheaval, Nichols revealed that she’d been on a girls’ trip at the time the news broke about Randon’s death. So, as she was scrambling to get home, Derick stepped up and did what had to be taken care of in her absence:
“He did everything for me. … He was in communication with my friends the entire time. He took all of ’em to the airport for me to send them back home. He got the house together for all of our family to come here, including my mother. He was there for arrangements.”
Mama Tot’s voice broke, and emotion overcame her, as she went on to explain how Derick moved to the forefront while she was physically incapable of getting past her awful grief:
“There was one day that I was so physically ill, and I guess my body in some way was reacting to my baby child leaving this earth. I couldn’t hold any food down. I couldn’t even hold water down. And he was outside on the porch calling my friends, listening and asking how to help me because he’d never seen me so sick before.”
Ugh. So, so sad. Our hearts go out to her just hearing that… Nichols recounted one of the most heartbreaking moments of the entire ordeal, too. At Randon’s funeral, she explained, her husband broke down in tears and wept:
“I knew my husband loved me, but he really showed it through all this. I’ve been with my husband 16 years and I ain’t ever seen him cry. And that day in front of the casket, my husband cried for the first time in front of me.”
Wow.
As Mama Tot explained, Randon wasn’t Derick’s biological child, but the grieving father raised him for 16 years nevertheless. And that has buoyed her spirits even as the world has crumbled around her following the teenager’s murder:
“We didn’t get the opportunity to have children together, so these are my babies. But he’s raised them for 16 years. And without him and my daughter, I don’t know how I would have gotten through what I got through because I had to face a lot of things through all this. … He is something special.”
Here is Nichols’ full video from Wednesday (below):
@shoelover99 Replying to @joycecarson19
Truly an unfathomable situation to go through.
We applaud Nichols’ resiliency, and that of her husband too. And we continue to send our condolences to Randon’s family, friends, and loved ones following his untimely, awful death.
R.I.P.
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