Local business owner chips in by buying tablets, delivering Christmas tree for family
After her sister jumped off the Hale Boggs Memorial Bridge in June, Rona White’s whole life changed.
Now, five months after her sister’s suicide, she has custody of her 10-year-old nephews, Lionel and Darnell, and she is preparing for the first Christmas without her sister, Tonya. Her and her husband are looking for three-bedroom housing to make space for the boys, and White is on-call during the day because of Lionel’s disability.
“I just try to be strong for them,” White said. “All I want is for my nephews to have a good Christmas.”
White, who has four adult children, never expected to have young children at her home again. She is learning the twins’ preferences – one of them likes cereal, the other doesn’t, and she is back into the routine of parenthood – bedtime, getting ready for school in the morning, grocery shopping with kids.
“I was lost at first,” White said. “I was a little rusty, but I got it down pat now. If I cook something, I ask them, do you eat this? Did your momma used to feed you this?”
White said her sister, Tonya Armstrong, struggled after the death of Lionel and Darnell’s father, Lionel Fiffie Sr. in 2021. Fiffie was gunned down in his home in Hahnville.
“I think that’s what caused her to go into the depression,” White said. “She wasn’t like that until the boys’ daddy passed.”
White said her sister was going through a lot and, unfortunately, didn’t get the help she needed.
“I had a feeling that something was going on with her, but you only can do so much on your end,” White said. “They have to want help. I just wish I could have done more. I just feel so bad for my nephews. My heart breaks for them.”
The Prayer Board
The twins’ loss of both their mother and father, and White’s act of taking the boys in, pulled at the heartstrings of Pamela Schaubhut, owner of The Sneaux House Snowballs in Luling. Schaubhut came across White’s story through her prayer board, which sits on the side of the Sneaux House.
“When I see a prayer that really touches my heart, I try to really pray for them,” Schaubhut said. “If I see something that God puts in my heart and touches me, I feel the need to help”
Schaubhut decided to reach out to White.
“I just could feel the hurt, ya know?” Schaubhut said. “I just have to help people because I can feel the hurt like it happened to me.”
White said she couldn’t believe Schaubhut reached out and offered to help.
“When people come to you and you don’t know them and they’re trying to help you – that does something to me,” White said. “That really does something. She doesn’t know me and for her to call me and reach out to me. That means the world to me. I’ll never forget that.”
White said Schaubhut bought the twins tablets and delivered a donated Christmas tree, lights and ornaments to help them decorate for the holiday.
“We were talking like she really knew me, and I really knew her,” White said. “I really felt comfortable with her. She made me feel comfortable sharing my story with her.”
“Better days”
White said she wants her nephews to know that she will always be there for them.
“I tell them all the time, ‘I know you miss your mom,’” White said. “I try to explain to them that she’s not coming back. I tell them: ‘But I’m your aunt and now that I have custody of you, you’re my kids. And I’m going to do whatever I have to do to make sure you are okay. You’re going to be okay.’”
But White said the grief over the loss of her sister breaks her down, especially during the holidays, and she struggles with the fact that her sister jumped off the bridge.
“That’s the part that is bugging me,” White said. “Why, why did you do that? If you were going through a storm, you could have told me, ‘Sis, take custody of my kids.’ I would have done that.”
White said her message to others is not to take suicide lightly.
“I want the community to know that you really have to listen – encourage them to get help,” White said. “Push them to get help. I wish I could have done more. My sister would probably still be here.”
White said she tells her nephews that their mother loved them.
“I tell them I don’t know why she did what she did, but your mom loved y’all,” she said. “She loved y’all more than anything.”
What is White looking forward to?
“Better days,” she said. “Better days.”
