Always
December 29, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 29 Comments
image courtesty of photobucket.com
When Roberta Hernandez died early last summer, she left more than a few unpaid doctor’s bills and a nice collection of china. She also left Ernesto. I doubt he’ll ever be the same.
But I suppose that’s what’s supposed to happen after you spend almost sixty years with the same person. Over sixty if you count the three years that Ernesto said they “courted.” Regardless, the two were inseparable
Until now.
It was cancer that took Roberta—“The woman cancer,” he’ll tell you. It stalked unseen and unfelt in her body before finally making itself known, and by then it was too late. She barely had time to say goodbye to her family and her priest. And her husband. Ernesto was the last person on earth to whom she spoke. Her words were as simple and direct and full of love as they always had been.
“Don’t leave your shoes in the middle of the floor or you’ll trip,” she said. Then she closed her eyes and was gone.
Ernesto swears that in the six months and twenty-seven days since, not once has he left his shoes in the middle of the floor. The first thing he does when he gets home from the park or the store is take them off and put them in the closet. He doesn’t say, but I think it’s his way of keeping Roberta close. Of honoring her.
His dear Roberta.
Ernesto isn’t exactly a Christian in the truest sense of the word. His Catholicism is more a matter of culture than faith, passed down to him from his parents like a family heirloom that is placed on the shelf and taken down only when the need or the curiosity arises. Ernesto took that faith off the shelf in the weeks before and after Roberta’s death. He held it tight, begging and bargaining with God, pleading his case against the taking of his bride and best friend. In the end, he lost that verdict. And with the pounding of death’s gavel went what little faith Ernesto had left.
He spends his days now much like before. There is his walk in the morning from the small brick ranch on Sunset over to the 7-11 for a paper and a coffee, then it’s to the garage to tinker with whatever needs tinkering. Lunch is promptly at noon, though the more extravagant fare of chicken or pasta has been replaced with a sandwich and some chips. His company, too, is different. Instead of Roberta, Ernesto tries to content himself with Drew Carey and The Price is Right or, if he’s feeling particularly down, cable news. Hearing that the world is about to end brings him comfort. It convinces him that his time away from the only woman he’ll ever love may be drawing short. He prays, but only for that.
The nights are the loneliest. The bed is cold, and the extra pillow Ernesto places longways beside him does little to make him feel less alone. On those occasions when the darkness is especially so, he will drive out to the cemetery where Roberta now rests. He will stay by her grave through the night (or in the car when it’s especially cold) and talk to her, trying to will her back into existence.
He’s said sometimes in the moonlight he can see the shadows of the dead roaming among the tombstones and walking along the ridge above the graveyard. They are to him the lost, the truly alone, and he’s vowed to never allow Roberta to take her place among them. I asked him once if he was afraid of those shadows. He looked at me and shook his head. I suppose Ernesto believes that makes him brave. To me, it means he’s become a ghost himself.
Love is a strange thing. So valuable and so strong, yet so easily spent and broken. Our hearts are made so that they may be given away to another. And when you find that other, that perfect person, it feels so right that it’s almost necessary. The idea that one day that person may not be there doesn’t factor into the equation. Because he or she always will be there. Alway.
This post is part of the One Word blog carnival: Love, hosted by Bridget Chumbley. To read more stories about love, visit her at One Word at a Time.
New Years Resolutions
December 28, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 12 Comments
photobucket.com
After suffering numerous broken bones, sprains, ligament tears, a rotator cuff explosion, and a torn knee, I’ve learned to develop a pretty high tolerance for pain. Physical pain, anyway. Emotional and spiritual pain, though? I’m still working on that.
If there is one thing that separates people from God, it’s the pain in their lives. And it doesn’t matter what that pain is. Acute arthritis hurts. So does the loss of a loved one. There are some who would attempt to rank one above the other, but I don’t think that’s possible. Pain is pain, and none of it is good. Period.
We work so we don’t have to feel the pain of hunger or wanting, love so we don’t have to feel the pain of loneliness, and play so we don’t have to feel the pain of stress. As citizens of the United States, we’re even told that we’re endowed by our Creator with the right to pursue happiness. To avoid pain.
I decided the other night to make the avoidance of pain my New Year’s resolution. Sounded good in theory, but not so good in the end. To hear why, hop on over to katdish’s blog. Who knows, maybe you’ll resolve to do the same thing I did in the end–hurt a little more, not a little less.
Merry Christmas!
December 25, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 17 Comments
Instead of being a time of unusual behavior, Christmas is perhaps the only time in the year when people can obey their natural impulses and express their true sentiments without feeling self-conscious and, perhaps, foolish. Christmas, in short, is about the only chance a man has to be himself. ~Francis C. Farley
The Wandering Wise Man
December 24, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 27 Comments
What you see to the right is the last remnants of the Coffey family’s most cherished Christmas tradition—the Wandering Wise Man. Dropped earlier this afternoon by two very excited hands and onto the ceramic tile of the bathroom floor. May he rest in pieces.
In order for me to fully explain the enormity of this event, I need to tell you about before. About three Christmases ago, when we were unpacking lights and ornaments and garland. And, most importantly, our manger scene.
My daughter was the self-appointed Nativity Setter-Upper, and it was a task she approached with the utmost holiness and care. Animals were positioned first, then shepherds and angels, Mary and Joseph, and then Baby Jesus. The wise men came last. Three of them usually.
But that year, there were only two.
We rooted through boxes and overturned ottomans and scoured the dark places beneath the television stand. Nothing. Which meant Daddy had to climb back into the attic with a flashlight and a prayer. Both worked. I found him upside down and backwards in a corner guarded by a hairy-looking spider. Problem solved.
But then a thought occurred to me. One about how we all seek Christ but sometimes get turned around and lost, and how it’s important to keep looking anyway. I put the wise man in my pocket, walked downstairs, and said nothing.
A while later my son happened to walk down the hallway and see the wise man in the middle of the floor along with a note—Have you seen Baby Jesus? By the time he ran back into the living room to summon the rest of the family, it had moved again. This time to my daughter’s bedroom.
“Guess he fell out of the box when we put the Nativity back in the attic last year,” I said. “Now he’s gotta find Jesus before Christmas.”
Thus the Wandering Wise Man was born.
He has miraculously emerged every year since in the weeks before Christmas, moving daily—often more than once—from room to room in search of the Savior. It is as far as I can tell the best idea I’ve ever had. The kids are so engrossed in his progress that come Christmas morning they head to the Nativity first and the tree second, just to make sure he’s reached his destination.
Earlier tonight the wise man appeared by the sink in the bathroom, where he was found by my daughter. In her excitement to spread the news, she knocked the figure to the floor. He shattered into a hundred pieces.
She did, too.
I found her on the bathroom floor cupping as many shards as she could find into her hand.
“I broke the wise man,” she sobbed. “I ruined everything!”
Uh-oh.
I gathered her off the floor and passed her to my wife, who took her to the living room for some rocking chair therapy. I snuck away long enough to swipe another wise man from the Nativity, scribble a new note, and place both at her bedside.
She found them a while later. Christmas was saved.
I checked in on her a bit ago before heading off to bed. Beside the wise man was a note written in seven-year-old scribble:
Dear 2nd wiseman thank you for showing up. I’m so sorry for hurting your friend.
I smiled. Both at the words and the little girl who wrote them. Then I took a pen from my pocket, turned the note over, and wrote a reply:
Please don’t be upset. Everyone makes mistakes. We’ll always love you, the wise men.
I’m pretty sure that note won’t mend her broken heart, but it might be enough to get the needle and thread going. Sometimes that’s all you can hope for.
Because the lessons that count the most also tend to hurt the most. Lessons like the one my daughter learned today. No matter how careful we are, we still break stuff. And not just wise men. Hearts, promises, trust, and dreams, too.
No matter how hard we try, we still make a mess sometimes. We still shatter the sacred and the special, leaving nothing but the shards of what was once whole that we’re forced to pick up through our tears.
Thankfully, the One whom the wise men seek doesn’t believe in everything being ruined. He’s in the business of putting together and making new.
And like my daughter’s wise men, He’ll always love us.
Ignore the Wrapping
December 23, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 27 Comments
It is standard knowledge that men cannot wrap a present, and I am proof of that. I can cover them with paper, yes. I can disguise their true identities. Which in essence means I can wrap a present well enough to guarantee their intended purpose—to surprise. And the recipients of my gifts usually are surprised. They just can’t show it well because they’re so tired from getting through all the paper and tape.
It isn’t for lack of trying, either. I’ve been wrapping Christmas gifts for almost thirty years. Not too shabby. But even with all that experience, this one fact cannot be overlooked—I really, really suck at it. Just look at the picture.
My wife refuses to allow me the pleasure of wrapping our children’s presents (“Elves would not wrap like that,” she says). She also seems a bit perturbed that I use more wrapping paper and tape or her five presents than she uses for the rest of the family combined.
The kids, too, are unimpressed. It’s fascinating that even at their young age they can discern what is beautiful and what is not. Last year was my son’s turn to hand out the presents. He took one look at the packaging job on my gift to him and said, “What’d I do that was so bad, Daddy?”
But I persist. I refuse to bow to the notion that the better option would be to have the friendly retirees down at the mall wrap them for me. Or, even worse, to shove them all into gift bags. Not my style. Besides, the wrapping doesn’t really mean much. It’s what’s under the packaging that counts.
I was sitting in the middle of my office floor yesterday and thinking along those lines. Three of the five presents that fell under my purview had been wrapped (using two rolls of paper and one roll of tape—I’m getting better, at least in that regard) and the fourth was proceeding nicely. Harry Connick, Jr. was crooning about what he prays for on Christmas, the neighborhood was encased in nearly three feet of snow, and I decided in that moment that while my life was not perfect, it was certainly good enough to warrant a smile and some reflection.
That’s what this time of year lends itself to. Reflection. And yesterday, I was reflecting about God’s wrapping paper.
Though this may sound a bit sacrilegious, God is much like Santa. He sees me when I’m sleeping and knows when I’m awake. Knows if I’ve been bad or good, too. And He gives me gifts. Many of them.
As I folded and cut and taped (and taped some more), I realized that some of the gifts God had given to me came wrapped flawlessly. I could look at the package and tell it was something good.
But there were others He gave that looked much like what I will put under the tree for my wife, lumpy and ugly and barely hanging together. And I’ll admit that my reaction to those gifts was much like my son’s last year—What’d I do that was so bad?
God would never answer that question, choosing instead to nod and smile and tell me to just open it. “Trust Me,” He’d say. “You’ll see.”
I didn’t always trust. But I still always saw.
Those gifts disguised in ugly wrapping were often not as good as the ones in pretty paper, they were better. Like the time He gave me a gift draped with a job loss which, once unwrapped, became one of the best presents I’ve ever gotten. Or the gift He offered of over forty rejections from agents and publishers. That was a lot of paper and tape to get through, but beneath was not only the perfect agent, but the perfect publisher as well.
It’s tough to say that everything God gives us is a gift. Tough, but maybe true. He’s given me things that I’m still haven’t found the blessing and joy in, but I’m still looking. Sometimes we just have to keep unwrapping to get there. But it’s there.
“Trust Me,” He says. “You’ll see.”
Snow Day!
December 22, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 51 Comments
I’ll be back tomorrow to post about my penchant (or lack thereof) for wrapping gifts. But for today, I want to tell you about another sort of gift. An unexpected one.
Yesterday I received an early Christmas present from my publisher–the cover art for Snow Day. The fact it was sent by the folks at FaithWords on a day when the weather had given me a day off from work was not coincidental. Which goes to show just how cool they are.
So, whatcha think?
Joseph’s Christmas
December 21, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 9 Comments
photo by photobucket.com
If there is anyone in Jesus’s life who captures my attention, it’s Joseph. Strange, I know. But Mary is venerated by Catholic and Protestant alike. Jesus too, of course. But Joseph? Not so much.
The Bible records how Mary, the shepherds, and the wise men reacted to the birth of Christ. Nothing about Joseph. And while I’m never one to quibble about how God wrote the Bible, I for one would like to hear how he felt about things.
Over at katdish’s blog today is what I would imagine was going through Joseph’s mind that night. About the hard trip he and Mary had endured, about the fears and joys he felt, and about the awesome responsibility he knew he had. It’s a Christmas letter from an unlikely source. Hope you enjoy.
The Battle of the Chandlers
December 18, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 23 Comments
Tommy and Betty Chandler have been together since high school, almost forty years ago. They’ve endured recessions, job losses, three children, six grandchildren, and one bout with cancer. They’ve also endured each other. There are those around here who say that’s the miracle. You would also be hard pressed to find two people so diametrically opposed in both taste and personality.
Their two-story farmhouse sits at the entrance to my neighborhood and is a wonder of style and sophistication, thanks in large part to Betty’s knack for having things Just So. That may well be Betty’s motto in life—Just So. Everything in its proper place in an anal-retentive sort of way. Tommy doesn’t seem to mind, though he did confess this to me one lazy afternoon:
“Betty’s a freak.”
Said in a loving way, of course. Tommy adores Betty and Betty adores him right back. They’ve reached a sort of balance over the years, a compromise designed with toleration in mind. Betty can do whatever she wants with the house, but the garage is Tommy’s alone. Manland, he calls it. Where there are tools and dirt and grease and where Longaberger baskets and frilly placemats go to die. Betty never ventures into Manland. It’s sacred ground. And Tommy is the benevolent, all-powerful, all-knowing ruler.
All of this goes to show that love really can overcome differences. Usually.
Betty’s taste for Christmas decorations is much like her personality—Just So. Tommy, however, tends to lean toward Clark Griswold in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Not a good combination. But as the house was agreed to be Betty’s domain (the yard too, since she contends it’s an extension of the house), Tommy can’t do much with his decorating style (big and gaudy) but sulk.
However.
Two days ago Tommy happened upon a huge plastic Santa at the hardware store. Complete with silly grin, blinking lights, and a continuously waving hand. And thanks to a motion sensor under his cap, he even turned his head and shouted “HO-HO-HO!” at passing cars.
It was without a doubt the most overpriced, over-hyped, overdone monstrosity Tommy had ever seen. And also the most beautiful Christmas decoration he could have ever dreamed of putting up at his house.
Tommy knew what Betty would say. Didn’t care, either. He brought it home strapped to the bed of his truck, slapped it smack in the middle of the yard, and dared his wife to say one word about it.
Betty took that dare.
She said Tommy had better get that no-good, white trash, trailer park hunk of ugly out of her front yard now. And said Tommy had about as much sense as the idiot who dreamed up such a travesty of a Christmas decoration, and that he’d better thank God Almighty that she was around to keep things respectable around their house.
The Santa is no longer in the front yard.
“Sometimes in a marriage, you gotta do a little sacrificing,” Tommy told me.
But the story doesn’t end there. Tommy still had one card to play. Driving past his house just a little bit ago, I noticed the garage doors on the Chandler’s house were open. Tommy was on a throne disguised as an old lawn chair, presiding over the kingdom of Manland. He wasn’t alone, either. Right beside him blinking and shining and Ho-Ho-Hoing to all was the ugly Santa, safely out of reach of Betty’s rigid standards. After all, Manland is sacred ground.
I blew the horn as I drove past. Tommy toasted me with his can of beer and patted Santa’s belly.
I smiled. Two refugees from Prim and Proper Land, seeking asylum in a place where it’s Come As You Are. I liked that. There’s a certain rightness in being accepted despite the fact you’re not quite up to snuff.
I think we often get the impression that God’s in Tommy and Betty Chandler’s house. That if we want to see Him we’d better wipe our feet and dress nice and have everything Just So. But I don’t think that’s true. I think God’s out in Manland with the dirt and the grease, sitting in an old lawn chair with Tommy and admiring his Santa.
Slot A and Tab B
December 16, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 2 Comments
Photo by Ann Voskamp
That Christmas should be a time of joy and peace is a given. That it’s often instead a time of stress and disagreement is also a given. No matter how much we try peel back the stress of gift buying and meal planning to glimpse the holiness beneath, things can get complicated.
A case in point:
My wife has taken the kids to town under the ruse of some last minute shopping. But the truth? She wanted to put a little distance between my children and me. It’s been a rough morning in the child-rearing department. Lots of crying and screaming and tantrum-throwing. And that’s just on my end…
(Today’s my bi-weekly spot over at highcallingblogs, so please hop on over there to read the rest. And if any of you knows how to put an easel together, holler at me, will you…?)
Learning how to pray
December 15, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 37 Comments
image courtesy of photobucket.com
A friend recently confessed that not only had he never prayed, he had never found an adequate opportunity to do so. Why bother, he asked, to resort to empty words to a God who is at best noncommittal and at worst uncaring?
I gave him an appreciative nod. There had been times in my life when I suspected God to be both, but in the end the opposite had always held to be true. But his words struck me. Prayer was much a part of my life even in my darkest days. Not praying, no matter how far the distance between myself and God, was never an option.
I’d always assumed there were many in the world who never lifted their voice to heaven. I’d just never known one.
I figured I prayed about seven times a day. Not bad, really, until I started thinking about some of the things I prayed both for and about. Asking for God to watch over my loved ones is a lot different than asking Him to let the Yanks win and the Phillies lose. I asked for both yesterday.
And while asking Him to make my headache go away is maybe an okay thing, asking Him to give the person who caused my headache sudden and uncontrollable diarrhea probably wasn’t.
It all got me thinking not only about how and when I pray, but how and when others do the same. Prayer is something many of us take for granted. I doubt we pause enough to consider the gravity of actually speaking to the Creator of the universe.
Prayer is serious stuff. Fascinating, too. Nothing says more about us than how we talk to God. So I decided to take last Sunday and observe both family and friends in a sort of super secret prayer survey. I wanted to know who got it just right, who didn’t quite, and why.
Church seemed like a logical starting point. Lots of people pray in church. I listened to the Sunday School teacher, the pastor, and an usher pray with both an eloquence and spirit that I could aspire to but never quite accomplish. Eloquence has never been my strong suit. Me often don’t talk like that pretty.
Lunch with my wife’s family, however, seemed more promising. There are a lot of things country folk can do better than others, and talking to God is among them. Country prayers are not as flowery as church prayers. There are plenty of ain’ts and gonnas. It’s not praying, it’s prayin’. Big difference.
So we prayed for the hands that cooked the food and the ground that grew it. For the rain that would make the corn grow and the closeness of family. That prayer was nice. Homey. But it still wasn’t quite…right. Something was missing.
Bedtime found my family gathered around my daughter’s bed, knees to floor. And though I normally assume the traditional pose of head bowed and hands folded, I cheated that night. I kept my eyes and ears open as my children prayed. Together.
“Thanks, Jesus,” my son said, “for all the cool stuff You showed me today.”
“And,” said my daughter, “for the green grass. It’s my favorite color.”
“Thanks for the macaroni, because I love macaroni,” added my son.
“I didn’t like the broccoli,” my daughter said. “Can you please do something about that?”
“You made pretty clouds tonight.”
“I love you, God.”
“I love you too, God.”
“We both love you.”
Then, together: “Amen.”
I walked outside a while later to make sure the stars were still there and say goodnight to God. I’ve always liked praying outside. For some strange reason, I’ve always thought my words could go through a ceiling of clouds much easier than a ceiling of plaster.
I’ll be honest. Prayer has always been a little confusing to me. Like the people at church, I’ve tried to be eloquent and flowery. Like the people I shared lunch with, I’ve tried to be folksy and homey. And like my children, I’ve tried to keep things simple.
It isn’t always easy to put thoughts and feelings to words, no matter to whom we’re talking.
I guess in the end it isn’t so much what we say to God as it is the heart with which it’s said. What we can’t explain, He knows. What we can’t say quite right He knows exactly.
Which is why that night, there beneath the stars, I simply looked to heaven and smiled.
Because sometimes the best prayer is one that’s felt rather than spoken.
What are you praying for today?
(This post is part of the One Word: Church blog carnival. To read more, visit Bridget Chumbley. And tell her I said hey.)
Author of Snow Day and Paper Angels (November 2011), both by FaithWords. But don't let that fool you. I'm just as confused as anyone.
And that is fine with me, because the great thing about wandering around in the fog is that you never know what you might run into.
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