Christmas wishes
December 14, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 3 Comments
photo by photobucket.com
Maybe it’s the writer in me, but I really like letters to Santa. It was my favorite Christmas tradition growing up, and it’s one of many I’m trying to pass down to my children. You can have the lights and the cookies and the secret stashes of presents. Just give me those letters, and I’m good.
The great thing about our local newspaper is that around this time every year they’ll publish two pages worth of Dear Santa letters from local children. It is also as far as I can tell the only news that is ever worth reading. In the span of a few short words, the curtains drawn over these tiny individual lives are pulled back to reveal both triumphs and heartaches, hopes and fears. They are amazing, each and every one.
It’s in honor of that occasion that I’m posting a few of those letters (along with some thoughts of my own) over at katdish’s blog today. Stop over there. Maybe you’ll remember those letters of your own. Maybe you’ll be inspired to write one yourself. But either way, the words of those children will touch your heart. And maybe you’ll realize what I did–that they’re not letters at all as much as prayers.
Turning Inside Out
December 11, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 35 Comments
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Tap…tap…tap…
I tossed my cup into the iron receptacle—PUSH, it said, as if pulling were an option—and followed them, past the theater and the courthouse and all the way down to the antiques shop with the armless mannequin pouting in the window. They were given a wide and somewhat guilty berth by those who passed, pedestrians who averted their eyes as if to even the score.
They paused at the next intersection and so did I, though from that perfect distance of being able to hear and yet remain unknown. The young man’s cane had ceased its tapping and was now transformed into a flimsy but suitable leaning post.
“What do you hear?” the teacher asked.
The answer was “Four cars to the right coming fast. One car ahead idling. Three cars are behind me, one backing up and the other two parking. There’s a boy coming out of a store, and he’s crying.”
The teacher’s voice was low and calm with timbre that seemed to italicize the last word of every sentence—“Good job”, “That’s it.”
The boy rocked slightly at the words, dancing in darkness. His eyes held the appearance of a long-ago blink that never quite finished, freezing the area between his cheeks and nose into a semi-permanent grin.
“What are the cars around you doing?” came the question.
He leaned forward and listened. “Nothing. They’re doing nothing.”
“Okay then, let’s go.”
Tap…tap…tap…
I followed them across just as the neon stick figure by the stoplight blinked. The three of us continued on through town, two teachers and one student trailing just behind.
“You can see,” came the instruction. “You don’t need your eyes to see. You can see through your cane and your mind, through your senses. All you need to do is reach out and feel. All you need to do is turn yourself inside out.”
I nodded to no one.
“Tell me what’s happening around you.”
“There’s a restaurant just ahead to the right,” he said. “Mexican. The trashcan we just passed needs to be emptied. There’s a cat on the sidewalk. And the lady who just walked by is in a hurry to meet her boyfriend.”
I wondered at that last bit of information. His companion, too. “Why do you say that?” she asked.
“She was running in heels,” the boy said. “And she has too much perfume on. Why else?”
The three of us smiled.
We snaked out way through three more streets while the play-by-play continued. A shopkeeper was aggravated at the bit of dirt he couldn’t sweep away; two squirrels were arguing on the limb of a tree; two women were sharing a joke.
The three of us paused once more at the river near the parking garage. No reason was apparent to me other than the fact that the boy just wanted to enjoy the sound of the rushing water. Which, I decided, was the very best reason of all. They left a few minutes later to climb the steps to their car. I remained behind, pondering.
It was without a doubt the greatest walk I’d ever taken. The notion was an ironic one given the locale; I’d much rather walk over ground rather than pavement. And yet even upon the tallest mountains and deepest forests I had never perceived so much. There was indeed one blind person among our small group, and it was me.
And I wondered this—how much more could we all see if we walked as if blind, relying less on our eyes and more on everything else.
If we reached out and felt.
If we dared the courage to walk through this world inside out.
A writer’s problem
December 9, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 50 Comments
Simple words can become clever phrases
And chapters can turn into books
Yes if I could just get it on paper
But it’s harder than it ever looks
–Jimmy Buffett
Sitting here on the table beside me is a two-inch-thick stack of paper that comprises all 53,647 words of my novel. My editor at FaithWords, Holly Halverson, emailed the final edits late last week with this warning—this would be my last chance to make any substantive changes. After that the manuscript would be sent to typesetting, and I would only be able to correct typos.
I printed the book out and spent the weekend going over the usual suspects of flow and plot and voice. I smiled and pondered and swallowed a lump or two that developed in my throat, and then I turned the last page facedown.
I’ve read that manuscript countless times in the past year, but that occasion seemed to possess an air of finality. There had been many times when I felt my book to be done, though it was a done with an ellipsis following—done…for now. But at that moment things seemed to change. Then my book seemed more like Done with a period.
I turned the pages over and began reading again, this time forgoing attention to all the technicalities of what makes a book and instead concentrating on this one point—did I say what I meant to say? Because in the end, that’s what mattered.
A writer’s true passion isn’t selling books or reaching an audience, though both are certainly in the top three. No, it’s the pursuit of that perfect sentence. It’s saying something new in a way that has never been said before.
It’s saying what you mean to say.
That notion seems so uncomplicated and effortless, but in fact it’s just the opposite.
The difference between the right word and almost the right word is really a large matter—it’s the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug.
–Mark Twain
Reading the book with that in mind didn’t change its quality or appeal, at least not to me. It’s a great story that offers what people need most in these times. It will make you laugh and cry and believe and—most of all—open your eyes to a world that exists just below what your eyes and ears cannot perceive but what your heart most certainly can.
Did I say what I meant to say?
Yes. No, too.
A book is never as good as it’s author thinks it could be. Should be. We’ll never quite get them just right. There will always be a clearer way to say something or a better story to tell. A writer will fail at that endeavor just as he or she will fail at anything else. We are strange creatures, knowing that perfection is impossible and yet aiming for it anyway.
When we take pen to paper we embark on a journey for only the stoutest heart. Our existence is a constant state of wandering. Like knights of old, we are questing for our own grail, battling the dragons within us. Always searching, never quite finding.
And in our deepest hearts, hoping we never will.
A writer’s problem does not change. He himself changes and the world he lives in changes but this problem remains the same. It is how to write truly and having found what is true, to project it in such a way that it becomes a part of the experience of the person who reads it.
–Ernest Hemmingway
Missing Jesus
December 7, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 10 Comments
Decorating for Christmas is serious stuff around here, and generally a task that requires much in the way of planning and aesthetic talent to pull off just right. The props to this little extravaganza vary from house to house and taste to taste, but the basics are always there.
There is always a tree of course, usually positioned in front of the living room window. At least one tree in the front yard will be adorned with lights. Battery-powered candles may or may not be lit in the windows, but a wreath will always be on the front door.
And there is always the Nativity scene.
Always.
At least it’s that way at my house.
The Nativity is the centerpiece of Christmas for us, represented in physical form by forty dollars worth of plastic bought at Walmart. We have lights and candles and a wreath, we have a tree in the living room window, but it’s still not Christmas without a 60 watt bulb making Baby Jesus shine.
You can imagine the alarm, then, the sheer panic, that resulted when our Baby Jesus went missing last week.
To hear the story, jump on over to katdish’s blog. And if you happen to have your own Nativity and live in a place that is rather windy, take my advice–make sure you don’t let it all blow away…
The Ten Dollar Challenge Continues
December 4, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 32 Comments
image courtesy of photobucket.com
I wonder sometimes of Christmas.
I wonder how a season filled with such joy can cause such despair. How hope can become hopelessness. How a holiday meant to bring us together can leave so many feeling alone.
I wonder sometimes of my blessings too, those things I too often take for granted and so cheapen. Not so during this season. Christmas has always been my favorite time of year. It is magic and faith and wonder. The stuff of dreams.
There are many who aren’t privy to such truth. Just the other day the local news carried the story of a man who robbed a Salvation Army kettle in front of a nearby Wal-Mart. According to the reporter at the scene, the man ran away with over six hundred dollars in donations and was heard screaming, “I hate Christmas!”
I wonder of him, too.
There are those who say that Christmas is for gifts and those who say it’s for The Gift. I suppose they’re both right. For Christians December 25 is a holy birthday party. Last year my kids even baked a cake with candles and a makeshift manger in the middle. (And when the first piece mysteriously disappeared, I said Jesus ate it. That won’t get me into trouble, will it?)
I like that notion of a birthday party, I really do. Christmas should be a celebration, a time when the good things of the world are brought to the forefront and the bad things are pushed to the side for later consideration. There should be lights and glitter and candles and cake. And there should be presents, too. Lots.
But how are you supposed to give Jesus a present?
I wonder that most of all.
But then I heard my friend Terri’s story of a stranger’s gift of ten dollars, and I had my answer. I knew that the love we have for God and the joy we feel for His blessings isn’t best expressed in song or prayer, but in deeds.
And what better way to give a gift to Him than in the same manner by which that first Christmas gift was given to us? Given to the undeserving with no fanfare and no expectation of return.
And that’s what the Ten Dollar Challenge is all about.
Katdish and Peter have worked their technological magic to provide both Simply Linked and a blog button for this little enterprise. Feel free to use both to share your story and spread the word. It’s dark out there, folks. Let’s shine some light, shall we?
If you’d like to add a Ten Dollar Challenge blog button to your blog, you get the code for it in the little box to the left.
Christmas Change – My ten dollars
December 3, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 6 Comments
image courtesy of photobucket.com
Last Friday I wrote about my friend Terri, her mother, and the blessing they received from a stranger while eating at their favorite restaurant. At the end of that post I proposed a challenge for this Christmas season — take ten dollars and bless someone with it. Let it be a small act with big consequences. Lift a burden or a countenance. Make someone smile.
My ten dollars sat in my pocket for about a week after Terri told me her story. I looked for opportunities. I found many. But each time I started to reach into my pocket, something told me to keep it there. That there was someone who needed it more.
Dear Santa
December 2, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 5 Comments
My daughter’s letter to Santa. A little fuzzy, I know, but appropriate since I’m feeling a little fuzzy at the moment myself. The fairy charms and jewels and the Guess Who? game are hidden in the closet of my office, along with a few other things that will come as a pleasant surprise to her come Christmas morning.
But what she wants most, for all the children to get thousands of toys? Well, that’s a little more than this Santa can deliver. Funny that she thinks every child should get a set of Crayolas. I think that’s a good idea. I agree that the world needs more brightening…
To read the rest of this post, and to read my first letter to Santa in nearly thirty years, I invite you over to High Calling Blogs . Hopefully it’ll inspire you to write you own wish list. And hopefully you’ll get everything you’ve asked for…
The Witching Hour
December 1, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 34 Comments
image courtesy of photobucket.com
The room is dark save for the pink Barbie Christmas tree on the nightstand that illumines one corner but leaves the other three in blackish confusion. I step carefully around the stuffed animal that’s been kicked from her bed and over the squeaky floorboard near the dresser, pausing to admire the newest piece of art thumb tacked to the wall—a turkey and a pig wishing each other a Merry Christmas.
I stoop over the bed and, as softly as I can, hunt beneath the blankets for a hand. Either of the two will do; it makes no difference right or left and is usually dependent upon how she’s sleeping. I pull out another stuffed animal and part of her Tinkerbell blanket (“Tink’s my favorite,” she says, “because fairies are real enough if you believe.”) until, finally, I unearth a palm.
Her fingers close in on my hand, gripping me as she did almost eight years ago when we first met. She was smaller then, though just as loud. And much more innocent. It would be four years until the claws of this world sunk into her.
I turn her hand palm side up and spread her fingers, holding them as close to the tinkling lights on the tree as I can. I draw my eyes close, squinting to find which of the five are the least scarred by the day’s jabs. Ten, to be exact.
It’s been a long day.
I pull her monitor from my pocket and slide a test strip into the slot, then pull back the white plastic tab of the pricker. The spring loads with a click. I set the business end onto the top of the whorl in her thumbprint and press.
It isn’t the ensuing click! that makes her jerk, it’s the feeling of the jagged piece of metal pressing through her skin, drawing blood. I hold her hand tighter, not only to keep her steady but to let her know everything’s fine. The end of the test strip soaks up a drop of blood, and I wipe the remainder off with a cotton ball.
The backlit screen on the monitor counts backward from three in a manner I suppose it’s meant to be soothing but is in fact its antithesis. I would rather have it over with—321—than with the gut wrenching, patronizing way its program dictates—3…2…1…
I let out a soft exhale that is part desperation and part fatigue. Midnight is known to some as The Witching Hour, that part of night when ghosts and demons supposedly prowl. Until three years ago, I never believed that. I believe it now. Except in our house it comes an hour early. Every night for the past four years.
I turn the monitor to face me, half praying and half willing for cooperation.
3…(it’s going)…2…(to be)….1…(okay)…
The screen blanks, adding to the drama, and then reveals her glucose count in its typical ta-da! manner.
68, it flashes. Printed on the bottom is Time for a snack?
I lay her hand down and she instinctively pulls it under the blankets and curls. I leave her there to thirty seconds of rest, then return with a glass of water and fifteen Skittles.
“Hey Punkin,” I whisper, “can you eat a snack for me?”
She huddles deeper into the bed and mumbles a “No, Daddy.”
“Please? I have Skittles.”
“Kay,” she says.
I help her up and hold my hand out. Greens and yellows and reds and oranges, mixing with the tree light.
She leans her head onto my shoulder and plucks the Skittles one by one from my hand, softly crunching down on them. Her blond hair settles between my lips and itches my nose, but I don’t move my head. The only motion is the gentle rocking back and forth that I give her, hoping to keep her closer to sleep than wakefulness. She’s not aware, but I am. I am aware of everything. Every bite, every crunch. The pock marks on her fingers and the knots in her arms and legs.
And I am aware of the ghosts and demons who visit our Witching Hour, those of doubt and grief who claw at me from the inside out.
I decide then, in that warm bed by that warm Christmas light, that if there is a hell upon this earth then it resides in this room, where there is so much joy but not enough to rid ourselves of the pain, and where there is love abounding but not enough to make my daughter well.
It is a hard fact, but a fact nonetheless. Sometimes in the darkness all we can do is huddle and rock.
This post was written for the blog carnival hosted by Peter Pollock. To read more stories about Grief, please visit him at Rediscovering the Church.
I’m a writer whose first novel, Snow Day, will be published by FaithWords in 2010.
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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