A FEW MORE CHAPTERS OF MY TESTIMONY

Sunday 1:00 PM
March 30, 2008


I CORINTHIANS 1:27, 29, ...31
"But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;"
"That no flesh should glory in His presence."
"That, according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord,



....UNCONDITIONAL LOVE MODELED BY MOM and DAD EDMONDS!

.....Picking the story back up shortly after Beth took me home to meet her parents...

As I stated before, Mom & Dad Edmonds were not overjoyed when their teenage daughter brought her new Beau home to meet them, and rightly so...

They would have been terrified, if they only knew the places that Beth went with me and the danger she constantly faced by being my girl... I had no moral compass, doing what was right because it was right was a totally foreign concept to me....

... The world I grew up in was a world of mixed and confusing messages.

....The things that were important to me, ...My values were based on a philosophy of do it unto others before they do it unto you...If it feels good do it, and do it for all you are worth...Party Hardy was one of our favorite sayings, PARTY...PARTY...PARTY!!!!

... SEX, DRUGS, and ROCK and ROLL WAS OUR MANTRA! We were proud of it, and I took my very young and naive bride to be along for the ride with me... And Clyde And Shirley Edmonds' daughter, was in constant danger as my companion.

... Sure, I was hard worker, I always kept a job, and always had a pocket full of money, because I was a drug dealer, a petty thief. I carried a gun, Drank and drived, got in street fights all the time. I grew up in a violent world, was angry, violent... And I'm had been taught that if your woman got out of line, you had to smack them around from time to time to keep them in line.

.... Sex was expected any time that the mood hit us, and was almost a daily ritual, as was the alcohol and drugs...

... I was a three time loser by the time I was 18 and God's hand, and our guardian angels always protected us somehow in spite of ourselves.

....Three felony convictions and never seen a day of hard time in a State Prison, we were in several car accidents and escaped without serious injury to ourselves or anybody else for that matter. I never even had a DUI Ticket...

....All of the fights, and battles, and we survived. All of the drugs and no serious overdoses. We both Have Hepatitis C now from dirty needles I'm sure.

As much as I hate to admit it, or tell of it... Beth and I both, were promiscuous , and cheated on each other occasionally,... and neither one of us knew who it was.. that had infected the other with V.D.

I could continue to fill up page after page with all of the wrong and dangerous activities, near death experiences, brushes with the law, etc, etc, ad infinitum.

We could give you a list of names, obituaries of friends and acquaintances that we buried along the way.

My point is this...Mom and Dad Edmonds were not Stupid, and I know that they worried and spent many a sleepless, anxious night over the well being of their Baby girl. Beth was the apple of her Mom and Dad's eye. I had never seen a Parent's love for their Kid... so apparent,... in my life.

The problem with that,... is, ....she was spoiled rotten, and that is the other side of the coin from how I was raised.
It is just as wrong to spoil and over indulge your child as it is to exploit and abuse them.

Both methods and philosophies place our children in incredible danger. Like I said earlier, they knew I was trouble, and they knew that their daughter was in trouble and was at incredible risk as a result of being with me...

.....Because their Daughter loved me,.. and because, I loved them, they loved us both,... almost to death.
... They rarely confronted us, and I can't tell you how many times they climbed in their car, and came and rescued us from the messes we got ourselves in,... or should I say ,the mess, that "I" got us into!

They loved me like their own child and they loved me unconditionally.
Pops taught me how to work on cars and about tools and all things mechanical. Every year I spent Christmas with them and they always had a mountain of gifts under the tree for me and also gifts for all of my family members. Mom fixed me my own special dinner for my Birthday just like she did for her kids and grand kids, and the whole family gathered around that small table in her kitchen in turn, everyone of us for our own special dinner. It was a family tradition.

Some of my favorite memories of them and especially Dad Edmonds was the many times we would sit together and talk sitting in the living room on the couch watching T.V. or something and Dad started calling me his Son, My Boy, Terms of endearment like that...Dad began to tell me about his years at work at the Paper Mill he had retired from. 44 years my boy he used to say, I worked for Parchment Paper, and then it was Brown Company when I retired, ...He would tell me tale after tale of his work there...He would also proudly tell me about how he used to be quite the dancing machine, a regular Fred Astaire, and he wasn't kidding either. That's how he met Mom. He swept her off her feet on the dance floor during the Big Band Era.

.....I didn't realize it at the time, But I should have known that I had really arrived when he began to share with me his war stories from WWII.
...Beth told me later on That her Dad never talked to anyone about when he was a soldier, and he told me story after story of battles he participated in...He was a Combat Medic, and the other soldiers called him Doc. He would always lean in real close and lower his voice to almost a whisper as he began to tell me in graphic detail the horrific things he had to deal with as a medic. I know now that he was trying to protect Mom and Beth from hearing about his buddies and men with their Arms, legs, and their heads blown off, and then he would get misty eyed and excited at the same time and say, for Christ sakes, they even had their nuts blown off and what were you supposed to do about that?...Why those S.O.B.'s in the Army wouldn't give us a Pistol, a 45 to carry to protect ourselves with...They made us carry a rifle for God's sakes, a Damn Carbine in one hand and you was supposed to patch up your buddies with the other hand, with bullets and grenades, mortars, and bombs going off all around you...you have to keep from getting shot up or killed yourself, shoot back, and doctor up the wounded all at the same time with a rifle in your hand instead of a pistol. He would say, "Wars a hell of a thing."
...."It was pure Hell!!!"I can't even begin to tell you how much I came to love that man or how much I respected him...As far as I'm concerned, and if anybody were to ever ask me, "WHO IS YOUR HERO???"

It would be, hands down, beyond a shadow of a doubt...That Wonderful little old man. Clyde Enos Edmonds, Loving Father, Devoted Husband, Hardworking Retiree from the Paper mill (44Yrs.) "DECORATED WAR HERO"

He was the man that took me in as his own and loved me unconditionally, even when he was mad as hell at me....He loved me and I never ever doubted it. He taught me what being a real man was all about. He modeled it well for me and it sure as hell wasn't slapping your woman around to keep her in line, Nor was it about making money on the hustle rather than good old fashioned honest hard work. He taught me about a good work Ethic. He taught me what it meant to have character and integrity. He wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but he loved his family and he loved me and it showed, and I sorely miss him.

Mom Edmonds is just as much a hero in my eyes as Dad was....You could never have known a kinder lady than she. She Loved to read and most of memories or at least what comes to my minds eye when I think of her more than anything else is her sitting in the Kitchen in her Kitchen chair with a book in her hand, mostly paper backs, Harlequin Romance novels, or an old classic, I also Remember how she used to dote over our daughter Aimee all the time, with Aimee sitting on her lap or nearby with Grandma reading a story aloud to her.

She was a sensitive compassionate person, without a selfish bone in her body. If she knew you, and there was an occasion that called for a card of some kind...you could count on going to your mailbox and opening up a Card from Shirley Edmonds...Get well, Sympathy, Happy B-Day, Anniversary, Happy Halloween, She was Hallmarks greatest customer.

She would always Adopt a poor unfortunate family with children for Christmas every year and my favorite part was she would have me be Santa Claus and let me be the bearer of glad tidings & gifts. She shopped year round for gifts for her loved ones and strangers alike. She valued Family, Kept the Genealogy Family Tree updated, always writing letters to distant relatives keeping them up on the news and encouraging and comforting them if need be. Her family dinner events and traditions, her labors of love are amongst my favorite memories. She loved to travel and always made sure that there was room for me on their family outings whether they were short day trips or two week family vacations...

Mom Edmonds was not a confrontational person, and she would almost avoid conflict at all costs, but Oh Man! if you got her IRISH UP...as she called it...She loved her family,...Especially her Bethy (Prudence) was her little pet nick name for her but Oh man, she loved that girl and our little girl our other Kids too...But I know that she loved me in spite of all my faults and numb nutted stupidity and I think the biggest reason that they loved me was that they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt how much Beth & I loved each other no matter how ignorant and crazy we both acted .
That is why its called unconditional Love!!!!

.........................................to be continued................................................

P.S My dear wife left yesterday to visit with our Kids in Georgia...Michael II's current assignment in the Army Has them there and Jess and Mike is expecting their second child in the very near future.
I needed to remain behind even though I would have loved to be able to go. I am trying my best these days to just stay still and discern what it is that God would have me to do...One step at a time. Also, as some of you Know, We made a commitment to provide home health care for my mother, and I need to be faithful to those commitments.
Please pray for us while we are apart, as I am lost without her near me, Maybe I'll get more writing done.

Baruch Hashem Adonia