Billy Coffey
Billy Coffey

When the monsters reached out

September 10, 2010  

image courtesy of photobucket.com

image courtesy of photobucket.com

I was a pretty good kid, more or less. Aside from breaking my arm by falling out of a tree when I was eight and thus ruining our family vacation to Busch Gardens, I only once heard my parents utter anything resembling What are we going to do with that boy?

That one time wasn’t when I fell out of the tree, though. It was when I decided to finally do something about my monster.

My monster was twelve feet tall and covered with green slimy skin. Four sharp horns, three gray and one black, jutted out from its forehead (I can’t tell you how many times those horns nearly impaled me). But it was its breath that was the worst—fiery and pungent, as if it had neither eaten nor brushed its teeth in a very long time. That was where I came in. I just didn’t know whether it wanted to eat me or use me as a monster toothbrush.

It lived in the dark recesses beneath my bed, which made sleep impossible. At night I could hear it moving around down there, stalking me. All attempts at prayer seemed useless. So did my attempts to get my parents to look for it. Parents can never see anything.

So in a fit of sleepless desperation, I took matters into my own hands one night and tucked my cap gun under my pillow. Sometime around midnight—breakfast time for my monster—it began stirring. I counted to a hundred and prayed, then leaped down onto the floor and fired off six shots beneath the bed.
I didn’t know if I’d managed to wound it or, even better, kill it outright. But I did succeed in scaring my parents half to death.

They came running (staggering, really, since it was the middle of the night). After threats of everything from grounding to eternal damnation, they finally looked under the bed. Didn’t see anything, of course. But I thought I spotted monster blood in the carpet.

Whether I had winged it or killed it or simply scared it away, my monster left me alone after that. All the monsters did, really (there was one in my closet and one in the crawlspace of the house, too). I found out what those monsters were really—a clump of toys, clothes that I didn’t hang up, the rumblings of an old furnace. Knowledge goes a long way in battling monsters.

That small but important fact proved itself true over and over again as I grew. There were no monsters, just reasons.

Today, September 10, marks the ninth anniversary of the last day I believed that. Because the next day was September 11, 2001. The day I learned the truth.

There really were monsters in this world.

They didn’t have slimy skin or horns or fiery, pungent breath. But they wanted to kill me just as much.

Maybe more.

I sat on the edge of my bed that day for seven straight hours. Watched as the towers fell and the Pentagon burned. Watched as a plane when down in a Pennsylvania field. And I remember looking down at my hands sometime that afternoon and finding a picture of my first child’s sonogram in them. I’m still not sure how it got there, but I still know what I was thinking. I was thinking about the world my daughter was about to be born into, one that had just turned a darker shade of black.

That was one day I swore to myself I would never forget. Not just what happened, but what I felt while it was happening. And I haven’t. I remember it all.

It was a horrible day. And I guess like most horrible days, the temptation is to move on. To let the past be the past and look to the future.

I suppose that sort of thinking accounts for a lot of what’s going on nowadays. I won’t get into that. All you have to do is turn on the news. It’s everywhere.

But me, I still choose to remember. I’ll let the past be the past. I’ll look to the future. But I’ll still cast a wayward glance behind me while I’m walking on. I’ll still remember that day. Because that’s the day the monsters reached out and grabbed us all.

And that’s the day I vowed that my children wouldn’t just be raised to believe in them, but to fight them as well.

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Comments

  • http://theregoi.com floyd

    Billy Coffey, I found you last year while I was looking for an agent to represent me. I found a gifted man and an old soul as my brother. I have to say you’ve been an inspiration to me and as I struggle every day to deliver my post, I find encouragement and power in your words supplied by God. I apologize for never leaving a post before now. GOOD JOB MY BROTHER!!! May God bless you and yours.
    Your Brother Floyd
    http://theregoi.com/

  • http://mythought-filledjourney.blogspot.com MTJ

    Hi Billy,

    Like you and most Americans, for me September 11th looms over our nation like the tragedy of an earlier generation: Pearl Harbor.

    As I’ve watched the news this week, listening to threats, and announcements, I cry out to God that we live in a world that bridges us closer through technology; yet divides us further apart through ideology.

    I’m reminded of the song by Andrae’ Crouch:
    We need to hear from You
    We need a word from You
    If we don’t hear from You
    What will we do?
    Wanting You more each day
    Show us Your perfect way
    There is no other way
    That we can live.

    Blessings and peace brother.

    MTJ

  • http://hikingtowardhome.blogspot.com Sharon

    I sat, 9 months pregnant, praying I would not go into labor THAT DAY. Two days later, on the 13th my son was born and the only thing on the hospital telly was the video and footage, over and over and over again. I had the same thoughts you expressed here… ” born into, one that had just turned a darker shade of black.” And we were in the process of going to the mission field where some of those monsters are said to train and hide, others of them…
    But God is God and loves us no matter what our geographic location is. I PRAISE HIM FOR THAT. Safety is not the absence of danger.
    Proverbs 21:31 “The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD.”

  • http://joyce-fromthissideofthepond.blogspot.com Joyce

    I haven’t forgotten. My confrontation with the ‘real world’ monsters came a few years before 9-11. My next door neighbors, a lovely, loving family we’d lived beside for 15 years, was on the Lockerbie flight. A mom, dad, and two sweet young daughters. The saddest day of my life. The day the world changed for me.

    My youngest daughter celebrates a birthday today. I’m grateful her birthday is today, not tomorrow.

    I don’t think you can just forget about the monsters in this real world. They tend to sneak up on you if you do.

    Wonderful words here as always.

  • http://www.pridelandsmommy.blogspot.com *~Michelle~*

    Great post…..powerful thoughts.

    “And I remember looking down at my hands sometime that afternoon and finding a picture of my first child’s sonogram in them. I’m still not sure how it got there, but I still know what I was thinking. I was thinking about the world my daughter was about to be born into,”

    Ironically…..Sept 11th was the reason that my husband and I decided to embark on the journey that would bring our daughter into our lives…..

    ….without going into all the miraculous details, but one year and one day later, we held our newborn daughter in our arms. Although we named her Nevaeh (Heaven backwards)…..Liberty was on our list of names.

  • http://www.joannesher.com Joanne Sher

    You stirred something deep in my soul. Incredibly powerful post, Billy. And I can’t forget either. I never will.

  • http://middletree.blogspot.com JamesW

    Sharon, my twins were born that day; that same hour, in fact. I can assure you it wasn’t a bad thing, like you thought it would be. It was a badly-needed bright spot. See this, from the 1st anniversary of that day:
    http://middletree.net/911pg8.pdf

  • http://www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com Belinda

    I’m in Canada but I remember the moments as clearly as yesterday, and all that I felt during and in the days afterwards. We are a highly multicultural society up here in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area.) I stopped to fill my car up with gas in the days following 911 and found myself gripped with fear at two men standing nearby, conversing in a middle eastern language. Suddenly, on an instinctive level, they had become a potential threat to my safety.

    I don’t want to let those moments of horror define my view of the world or of a people group. Maybe I am naive but I think the true enemy is somewhere else.

  • http://southernproletariat.blogspot.com/ rhonda

    My anniversary is 9-11 (93), and I wrote this in my blog about it: “perhaps the best memorial is not in brick and mortar but in the love and life that we go on giving.”

    I had just found out that morning, after struggling with infertility that I was pregnant, and like you wondered what type of world I was bringing my daughter (also) into…

    But I do know this now. My faith lies not in the strenght or weakness of my government or the peace or instablity of this world. But it lies in my Father.

    Psalm 46:1-2a …God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear….

  • http://www.endlessimpact.com jasonS

    Excellent post, Billy. Remembering involves fighting and not growing complacent. We as Christians understand that we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood but against powers and principalities in high places…

  • http://aspiretoleadaquietlife.blogspot.com A Simple Country Girl

    Not a lot of words from me today…just a heavy heart. Hoping for the heaviness to be more of Him and less of those nasty monsters.

    Blessings.

  • http://writingwithoutpaper.blogspot.com Maureen

    This is not an event one is ever likely to forget.

    A member of my college class died that day. Another friend lost 24 friends who worked in the restaurant at “the top of the world”. Members of our parish lost family members at the Pentagon.

    The next morning, once inside the D.C. line, were the humvees on corners, the soldiers fully loaded. A city armed. Impossible to forget.

    I saw the Pentagon a day or so after the plane hit, the hole stunning in its depth, the shape it left in the building. Impossible to forget. There is a beautiful memorial there now, a very personal place that begins wide at the mark when the plane first began coming in and narrows the closer it got, the path now marked by the places of those who died that day, arranged youngest to oldest. Impossible to forget.

    When you lose someone you love, the pain eventually moves someplace deeper in the heart.

  • http://www.sueharrison.com Sue Harrison

    Remembering with you. Another monster-fighter. Sue Harrison

  • http://tsholo.wordpress.com/2010/09/11/reads-of-the-week-2010-33/ Reads of the week – 2010 – 33 « Hope In Love

    [...] When the monsters reached out (What I learned today – Billy Coffey – @billycoffey) [...]

  • http://the-stuff-in-between.com Jeannie

    Wonderful tribute. I still can’t find the words or story to give the day the enormous gravity of justice and remembrance that it deserves, so I’m going to set the video of the Twin Towers coming down. Too many people seem to have forgotten and find reasons to mock the victims in the name of political correctness or as a fad or feeling like people should be “over it.” I will never forget. Thank you.

  • http://thetameone.blogspot.com Megan

    Perfectly spoken. We all have that moment of desperation and fear and changing surrounding that day. My oldest was one and I was petrified for him. There was no place safe enough. I remember the horror I felt and when I tell him now, he just smiles and nods, blissfully unaware of how different things were for him for one short year.

  • http://thinkingtoodeeply.blogspot.com Karin

    Powerful post once again! Very moving! — We lived and had a church in NY for a year – just after the towers were completed in the 70s! Now, whenever anything is mentioned on the news about the places we’ve lived in the USA I perk up to listen. It was gut wrenching, heart breaking to watch as this tragedy was reported. – Like Belinda, I also didn’t want to see everyone from that same people group as a potential threat to our safety. May God give us the strength to love our enemy and pray for those who persecute us.

  • Josanne

    I greatly appreciate your style of writing, Billy Coffey. It gives me assurance that there is a place for me in the published world. The nook I have been trying to cram myself into just never works. And you make it sound so easy. When I got to the end of your 9/11 story, tears welled up and my fists clenched a satisfied “yeah!” My emotions were mixed that September day thinking how my mother, who died in October 2000, had escaped to the bliss of Heaven’s gates. As my mind was glued on each horrific detail that morning, my heart clutched the thought of my brand new granddaughter born in January 2001. I flinch at each anniversary of that day, detesting the residual affects of these real-life monsters. As you alluded…we find out day by day. Only in the God of our Savior can we find strength, peace and safe harbor, resisting the temptation to settle for less than God’s best for us.