A Tribute
                Charles Joseph Conley
                                                      7/6/1936 - 1/31/2008
                                                          
 Charles = Manly        
Joseph = God Shall Give

        

                                          Birthplace: White Plains, New York
                                            Deceased:  Puyallup, WA  

Today Tony called me around 2:02pm, i've met him one time before in Torrence, California, when Grandma Connie (Chuck's mom), drove me there to see-meet Chuck again.  It was ackward because this was "my dad" but what do you do?  I don't know him, so i asked Grandma "what do i do" because of being nervous and it seemed like she told me to say Hello and give him a hug. This is what happened and it felt very natural.  Tony is my brother by marriage, his mom Judy married by dad Chuck. Both were married before so Tony wasn't Chuck's biological son.

     My mom and dad got married in Las Vegas but we lived in California. Charles & Elisabeth

They had good marriage.  February 22, 1968 they named their first daughter
Christine Angel Conley Sis is 17mos older than me.  Mom came from Hamburg, Germany with our 9yr older sister Gabrielle Ester Seidig.
   Cynthia Anne Conley showed up September 13, 1969 so on the day i became big enough, we girls joined in the family courtyard for a bicycle ride. Upland, California

Things were going well until one day mom went to church and got saved... Dad wasn't ready for that and said he wasn't going to be married to no Christian... well that did backfire but the marriage had trouble, at about the age of 1 1/2yrs the divorce came and we were separated.

Years would pass.  The relationship that once was, had become no more than that of a perfect stranger.  What's interesting about the bloodline is in the creative instantaneous compatibility to become aware without needing many years to figure something out because something already "is" the same.

The relational contact was inconsistent.  Sin separates, and neither one of us were living for God.  There were no phone calls or visiting, just infrequent mailings.  In junior high he mailed a box of presents and inside was this pretty blue shirt.  Then on November 17, 1981 he was mailed a 4pg letter while living in Paradise (Magalia actually), California...
 Told him that FM 102 played the songs i liked and that "Jessie's Girl" was playing.  Gave him my phone #'s & address, told him i was in 7th grade & Christy was in 8th.  Gave him a detailed list of my 7 school classes with each of the Teacher's names.  Shared about being on year book staff committee and had a meeting the next day.  Mentioned that i got a new horse with an upcoming agenda to help a friend work her pony and how we entered the horse show to run the Rescue Race. 

He held on to this letter for 24 years.

A couple of years ago a package came from him and one of the things inside was this letter... it was in there for a reason...  He wanted to prove what he had never been able to prove... that he was sorry, he was keeping track of my life as best as he could with all that life had thrown him and he wasn't purposely throwing anything about me away, and he needed me to know that.  See, when we are overtaken in sin, when sin works through our flesh or our family lines, there is never the result of Love that we want.  Never the unity or the peace.  But the reason that you are seeing this restoration is because we still have a Father God Who is able to heal the brokenness and form a new relationship.    With Father now having us both on His side, it was much easier to work through us.  Notice his writing is all cap's... in the forming of this new relationship i had learned he had a strong opinion.  When you write in all caps on the net it's like shouting your opinion.  He got this personality trait from Grandma !  Before we got to this place in the relation, there will be a few more stories to share.

See, the down side of not knowing your own bloodline-biological father is the identity comes from the dad so you struggle with your image.  Ever wonder how Jesus was a virgin birth?  Well, the blood lines of the mother and baby don't mix.  All the food, water, nourishment and waste products travel through the umbilical cord and that's why we get a blood test from the guy when we want to know who the daddy is.  Jesus is a virgin birth because Mary's blood never touched Jesus.  His Holy Blood came from Father God.   

February 7, 1990 - The child support settlement letter.

Remember me sharing about my mom's phlegmatic personality and always wanting peace.  Mom couldn't find it within herself to demand all that he owed, because this was about the past and times were hard for people, she decided that $1,000 would be enough to help catch up some bills while still getting to bring peace/closure to all of this.  There failed to be good contact with my dad so the words in this letter made me feel good.  Waited for those letters but didn't get any...

God dealt with me about issues with dad as time went on and God will go deep in your spirit to work a work.  There was a time of confrontation when i really needed to know where i stood (i'm such a die hard, fight to the end kind of a thing, especially when i want something especially when i can't see anything wrong with it).   Here's the condensed story version.  While at mom's i called him.  He didn't recognize who i was so after explaining it we ended up by him saying that some things are better left in the past (that would be me) and then we gave the spiritual platitude of "see ya in heaven."  It was pathetic.  Mom was dusting, listening to the conversation on my end, she turned on the TV right as i hung up and John Osteen (in heaven now) was on and right then, i kid you not, right then he said, "and forgetting those things which are behind, and God is your Father!"  It was so timely!!! I jumped up and down and cried out, "that's for me, that's for me."  It hurt me what my dad said but my heavenly Father, who stirred up this confrontation, came right in on the wings of rescue & love.  On one hand it felt bad but on the other hand it felt good! 

But then something changed.  More years had passed.  Grandma called one day to tell me my dad had a stroke.   We flew from the midwest to California then rented a minivan to drive Grandma up to Washington so she could see him.  He was in speech therapy at this time and we went to his appointment with him.  Without the privelege of contact or growing up around him, no one else could understand what he was trying to say as well as me .  That felt good.

From this meeting things started to change.  He had accepted Christ and did talk about him.  We exchanged #'s and addresses.  Only this time he started sending packages...   he reached for the relationship~

   ~it started with Christmas 2004 when he blessed me with these words
 

  it felt so GOOD to hear "my dad" talk about the LORD, YAHOO!!!  That's the most important, cause technically we all sin so much down here it's sick so who really has the finger to point?  Nobody.  But you know what else my dad did, he sent me a check for $500, it was awefully surprising!  Amazing~

~we began sending cards to each other and sharing...

in the summer of '05 he sent me this package of goodies and the goodies revealed alot about him...

 ~he too collects stuff that seem important to him then holds on to them for a very long time
 ~he has a desire to let me know he is believing in something real and important and wanted
    to communicate that although his life has been bad or hard, somewhere deep down he
    did want this


felt here his desire to use things like this to comfort himself, encourage himself, something he wanted  to share with me and rally around a good cause like bible scripture

 His need for life to mean something came out as this was pulled out of the packing tube... we were so much alike.

He learned from the visit how important Christ is to me so he found this book on Revelation...  i could see how he wanted to know and get me what i like, he's not just wasting time by buying some stupid gift then hoping you'll like it or hope that gets that over with... i could appreciate that he didn't do it just to get it over with like some people do when they buy you a gift because it's the obligatory thing to do.

Then he included some photos to show me what his life had been like while living up in the mountains.

his melancholy personality revealed the need to be alone,
he shared his deep appreciation for loving animals and beautiful landscape~ God's Creation
he shared the things about his life that were good, peaceful, and full of love


Then in '06 for my birthday present, he dealt with the subject of my birth and wanted me to know that he 
                              NEVER FORGOT THE IMPORTANCE OF THE DAY I WAS BORN

                     

Thanks Dad, I Love You and am Glad You are in Heaven.