Thoughts of Redemption

By Julian Munrro

Munrro provides a resource for people to use in their life journey. This is intended for young and old, for any and all cultures, to provide a guiding light toward protection and healthy living. The author encourages much-needed unity to overcome the pitfalls that life can present. He promotes alliances and leadership that will invest in the well-being of our young people. There is a special word here for those who are about to make critical decisions in their lives that require the utmost attention. There is a special word here for those who are suffering from the consequences as a result of their own choices. A major attempt has been made here by full disclosure of his own life in order to help build a better environment for our children and the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887630618

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Introduction

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

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Thoughts of Redemption

Julian Munrro

Copyright © 2023 Julian Munrro

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2023

ISBN 979-8-88763-060-1 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88763-061-8 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

To Fats and Evelyn

Introduction

This book is a story targeted for learning with a wing span that covers unbridled sex, mental illness, rape, sorrow, addiction, and hope. It is a compilation of bad decisions and their consequences. It is a group of actions that have no merit in the thinking process. It is not meant to glorify the actions but to put a spotlight on the actions and their consequences. It is meant to thwart off behavior that is destructive to our wellbeing. As children find themselves making decisions on their own, it is meant to encourage incorporation between children and their overseers. It is meant to assure that decisions are not made out on an island in the minds of the inexperienced. It is meant to stop young people from having a flagrant disregard for basic health safeguards to their lives. To stop turning the gun on themselves and others in the quest for success.

My hope is that the readers of these pages will challenge their personal lives. That they will touch down in their destiny. The destiny set aside for them. My hope is that young people will synchronize their efforts to those who are winners in our society, to avoid the pitfalls that will strangle them, if not now, later. For those who seek help, should know they can find it. I started writing the first five pages ten years ago. A time when I was afraid and didn't have an idea how much longer I would live. Just last year, I decided to make a real attempt to put my thoughts and experiences on these pages. It was in my heart to take another step and make sure that I would be a part of the solution and not the problem. And so I submit to you what is personal to me in an effort to make sure that the painful truths and mistakes that I've made will not be repeated but discarded as fool's gold. Amplifying that the same opportunity that was placed before me can materialize before you.

Iwould like to say that so much is going on around me at this time, and no matter how hard I try to keep it all in perspective, it is quite frightening to feel the inadequacy of my attempt. I have come to bare certain emotions that I have never dealt with before on this level, and my situation has stapled all the inner portions of my mind and body into a very drastic defensive position. If the feeling of being in control is true, I know that I am not in control. While I feel I am being attacked upon every side of my life, I do hope in a reactionary way. I want to assure you that I have been driven to write about the sum of my life and its crushing realities. I sometimes wonder as I have inched my way toward writing these pages, if my emotions have pushed me to a place where time is running out for me, and this is a Hail Mary, in a last ditch effort to tell what has happened to me. My current posture in the world, I feel, is an accumulation of years and endless configurations of life's possibilities. It is now that I have come to a time to disclose those things that have molded me into a cocktail of emotions, at the same time allowing me a space in the order of things, to embrace my fears, challenges, and most importantly, my thankfulness. It is now that I call on my experiences that I might lay them before you, hoping to add another dimension of resource to help as life on this earth continues. I do this that I might reconcile some meaning in the life that I've lived. Also that I might submit to those who claim to know me and those who want to know me a true version of my existence. In this process, I hope to render myself some respite as I have reaped what I have sown.

I remember the riding of my tricycle around the Goliath-type columns in front of the Prudential Insurance Co. in downtown Newark, New Jersey. The moment that stayed with me all these years was one of completeness. A moment on a cloudy Sunday morning. I am very clear about this particular day as I feel what I felt riding in and out of those columns of the building. Head cocked back, I pedaled, trying to see the top of them. I was at peace and happy without a care in the world. I was pure innocence, in harmony with the day, in harmony with the universe. My family lived doors from the Prudential on Bank St. in a two-family house. My parents were in their mid-twenties and working; they would often allow my mother's sister, Aunt May, to babysit me and my brother, Montell, who was three years younger than myself.

My aunt and Uncle Will also had two children, Breanna and Philton. Breanna was the same age as I and Philton a year younger. It was a fun time when we were together. Sometimes my aunt dosed off while watching TV, and we would have the run of the house. Just for laughs, we would prick the bottom of her foot to make her leg jerk. My mother often told me how wonderful it was being me in the early years, born to a proud father who wanted to succeed and a mother whose intent was to be a good mother and wife. I was told over the years how perfect I was and how I wanted for nothing as a baby. My skin was as butter, always massaged with baby oil. Yes, I was their prince, and I fit the bill in everybody's eyes from the time the doctor took me from my mother's womb. Being the first child of people who wanted something good in life enabled me to be well cared for in relation to the resources that were available.

My parents would eventually have six children. It seems that my parents' beginnings were honest and optimistic in nature, although the two don't necessarily provide for being successful at raising a family. Around the age of seven, I began to develop a social life outside the family. By then we had moved to a larger apartment in East Orange, New Jersey. At the time, my father was working for the city sewer department. My mother had ceased working as a licensed beautician. That's the only job my mother would ever have. With my mother home, it enabled me to develop friends in close proximity to the house. There was Roy next door, Alice across the street, and Charlie down the street. My interpretation of Roy was that he had older brothers and they always seemed busy doing something, including riding their bikes. They lived in a big house with a long, dirt driveway that went all the way down to the garage. It was Roy and his brothers who started teaching me how to ride a bike. My father did eventually buy one for me. While developing my braking skills, I ran into a lady getting out of her car, and the result was three stitches over my eyelid. The scar is barely visible to date.

There were days when I would play with Charlie, who was younger than myself. Our playing days were very short lived, basically because of one incident. While playing in his backyard without warning, Charlie went to the side of the garage and pulled down his pants and began to do a number two. Needless to say, I was appalled that he would do something like that. Besides not having anything to wipe himself with, I had never seen anybody do that before outside. Right then I marched to the front of his house and rang the doorbell. His mother came to the door and I began to whistle-blow what I thought was a terrible thing. She said, Okay, thank you. I left Charlie and his mother standing in the doorway; I began walking to the sidewalk. I never saw coming what was about to happen. Charlie had run from his doorstep and kicked me in the backside. Then he ran back to where his mother was standing. I looked at him and then looked at her. As I continued home, I realized a conspiracy had taken place. I could never have explored the idea that he could have been told to go outside in case of an emergency. What did I know? I thought I did the right thing. Needless to say, however, that was the end of Charlie and me.

I soon met Alice an only child who lived directly across the street from us. Maybe a year older, Alice was hyperactive, fast, furious, and in charge. If you were in her presence, you were under her supervision. I had no doubt in my mind that with her aggressive leadership abilities, she could be mayor. I was in awe of her family's place, which was three times the size of ours. The few times I was there, nobody was ever home. Alice did enjoy playing house with her own toy coffee cups and plates. She actually played the mother and me the father, going to bed, by us just lying on the couch and watching TV. Turns out Alice was my first kiss, which took place in the backyard one summer day. At first, I was embarrassed and filled with guilt but soon relaxed to the idea. Now I had something to look forward to the next day. The next time I saw Alice, she was with her girlfriend, and true to form, Alice kissed me as her girlfriend watched. The girl began to cry because she wanted me to kiss her also. Alice wanted me to kiss the girl, so I did to be able to kiss Alice again. Alice was short in stature, with a light complexion and reddish-brown short hair and I thought she was pretty. Her girlfriend was shorter than both of us, very dark-skinned and had a very bad runny nose down to her lip. I remember wiping my mouth vigorously because her, well, it was on my lips. That's really the last memory I have of Alice.

It was during this time on Sterling St. in East Orange that I first experienced my fear of darkness. My parents had gone to the movies and left me home alone. When night fell, the house became dark and very quiet. I remember crawling behind a sofa that was against the wall, and I watched TV from that vantage point lying down on the floor. When I heard my parents coming up the hallway stairs, I climbed out to greet them. They were very proud of me that I made it through the evening without them. Though I never spoke of my fear, my father discovered it. He told me I should not be afraid of what's in the dark, but what's in the dark should be afraid of me. Hardly willing to adopt that psychology at that time, I soon realized I had a greater fear materializing in my relationship with my father.

I always felt my father's overpowering cadence when he communicated with my mother. At times, his demeanor was as a vicious dog that you would never put your hand over the fence to pet. I soon began to connect the tone, volume, and the threat of his voice to something I was even more afraid of: the expression on his face. I was deathly afraid of that. From an early age, I believed my father could and would hurt me. I had a terrible habit of peeling my shoe half off my foot and then kicking my foot so that the shoe would fly off. Home from school one day, I entered my bedroom and kicked my shoe off. My shoe soared through the window and I froze in space like a rabbit before a python. If I could I would have pushed a button and rewound time. I knew I was in trouble. My mother reinforced my immediate feelings when she said my father was going to be upset when he arrived home from work. Fear descended over me and consumed me like a strong sedative. I got undressed and got in the bed under the covers and fell asleep. I don't know how long I was asleep before waking up to my father beating me with his belt, hitting me over and over with all his might. I just woke up crying and trying to protect myself from his lashes. There was no conversation, questions, or ultimatums. I was just guilty and this was my punishment. Yes, I was afraid of my father; the whole house was.

In another incident, I had broken my wrist playing in the backyard, and my father had to leave work to take me to the hospital. Once he arrived, I got into the car. With this painful injury at every red light between our house and the hospital, my father beat me in the car. He slapped me around as if I was an adult because I was the reason he had to leave work. I took a lot of hits in my earliest years, but my family took some very big