Twice Blessed

By Leroy Parsons

Twice Blessed emphasizes my two wonderful wives sharing the majority of my life: forty years and fourteen years. The other story reveals the impact a son's death has on a family. Linda faced eternity by stating, "I'm a winner either way. I'll stay here with you or go hug Randy for the first ten years of heaven." God was glorified in both Linda's and Carol's lives. I just got an opportunity to help others through their stories. Included inside: Sheet music for I'm Listening Now, God! (an original song by Leroy Parsons)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098004439

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Twice Blessed

Leroy Parsons

Copyright © 2020 by Leroy Parsons

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

A Pretty Day!

Why?

Stay

How Long Is Long?

My Son

How High the Mountain, How Low the Valley

Hope

Eternity

Our Young, Our Future

What Might Have Been

Little Things

You’re Still in My Heart

Home

Wish You Were Here

Time

The Loan

Twice Blessed

A Thought to God

Anger

No One to Go Home To!

I’m Listening Now, God!

The Hands of My Wife

Linda’s Heaven

I Still Believe in Sunshine

The Reunion

A Friend, A Treasure

Carol Jean

Heaven’s Bookshelf

God’s Family Reunion

Yes, That’s True!

One More Day with You

Hey, I’ve Got an Idee

Yes, Lord, We Trust You

Dedicated to Janelle, who after all her trials still greets me with a smile and a cheerful hello each day; Carl Weingartner, my friend and first connection to Linda; my great family and Carol’s wonderful family, especially Don and Chris Oneslager, her sons; also to my Coffeyville cupid, Gene Tucker, who saw our future together and persisted till it began; my brotherly friend, Johnny Henson, who stood with me and by me for more than forty years. Lastly, I owe a lot to Martha Long, a Passion Play friend to Carol and me, who shared a similar loss that same summer, but still understands and anchors me.

God bless them all, please.

Section 1

Front row L to R Janelle Moore, Twila Moore,

Heather Parsons, Michelle Parsons

Back row L to R Randy Moore, Randy Parsons

March, 1986

A Pretty Day!

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, it’s going to be a pretty day! Randy, my son, had begun saying this as a young boy and still repeated it often, even as a young man. Life to him was beautiful and rewarding, a philosophy very common in my family. Friday, August 22, 1986, began as Randy’s kind of day, clear, warm, and full of promise, but before day’s end for the rest of us, the picture was terribly changed. For Randy, his days will never be changed, always being pretty, joyous, and without end.

Happily married, father of a bright, beautiful, six-month-old daughter, and beginning his third year of teaching, my son enjoyed life as those around him enjoyed him. He wasn’t perfect, but his few faults were overwhelmed by his zest for life and his generous, warm personality.

For over ten years, my son and I had worked together during my teacher’s summer months building many log homes, including mine, his, and now his younger sister’s. We were just completing Janelle’s home when that fateful Friday came.

Randy returned home after school, and after spending time with Heather, his baby, and Michelle, his wife, he decided to go fishing at a nearby lake, where during the summer, he had supplied his family with extra food without cost by catching bass with grasshoppers for bait. He was catching bait the last time I saw my son alive.

I was tempted by his invitation to join in one of my favorite activities but declined and went to my daughter’s house to sand the floors. Randy gathered his fishing tackle and drove his old blue Toyota pickup about a half-mile away to Clear Lake, a favorite place of my own childhood days. He parked on the side of the rural road, crossed the fence, and headed to the upper end where he had been catching bass in the shallower water with his grasshoppers.

Soon after I started the sanding, Linda, my wife, stopped by the new house on her way home from her work. She wanted to eat out and see a movie at Shawnee, a town west of Seminole, Oklahoma, where we live. I agreed,