Faith and fear
December 12, 2011
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I knew sleep wouldn’t come for me when my wife said, “Your face is melting.”
It came easy enough for her—she rolled over right and was gone in seconds, before I could even reply. Which I suppose was a good thing. How could I have responded to that? The only thing I could have said was roll over and get some sleep, which she did.
It’s unsettling to hear something like that from an otherwise rational person—“Your face is melting.” And it’s downright fearful when it comes from someone who only hours before had been in surgery to have an organ removed.
Thanks to modern medicine, these days few patients actually stay overnight in the hospital. I learned that today. I also learned that the things doctors and nurses tell you when you’re taking that patient home can scare the living bejesus out of you. They said to watch for leakage from her bandages, cautioned me not to let her toss about in bed, said there would be pain and a bit of mental discombobulation. They did not say it would appear to her that my face is melting.
So I knew sleep wouldn’t come. And now, four hours later, it still hasn’t.
A lack of weariness has little to do with why I’m still awake. I’m tired. And I’m not still awake because I need to make sure she’s still breathing, even though that’s what I’m doing. I know that sounds ridiculous, but in those small hours of the night what is ridiculous has a funny way of becoming what is important.
No, I’m awake because I’m afraid. Pure and simple. And just as being afraid is a choice, so too is my decision not to sleep.
I will be awake all night. That isn’t a problem. I’m a writer and a father; sleepless nights go with the territory. I have a pot of coffee in the kitchen, some chapters to edit, and reruns of Frasier on the television. I’m set.
I’ve prayed. I think there’s a validity to the notion that God hears the prayers of the desperate a little clearer than anyone else’s, if only because those supplications spring forth from a sense of helplessness and humility. I prayed that there would be no leakage, that she would not toss, that her pain would go away and that she would not get sicker. But those words tasted like pennies in my mouth. I suppose that’s a symptom of fear as well—when you pray, it’s not to ask for good things to happen but to ask that bad things won’t.
She’s still breathing, still keeping still. Frasier has just lost yet another in a long line of loves. That he did so in a humorous way doesn’t make me laugh as it usually does. I just see his loneliness and know what a powerful thing that is, and I know that life isn’t the bulwark we make it to be. It is fragile and can be snatched away at any time, and that is why I am afraid. It is a choice that does not feel like a choice.
The problem is that I want to sleep. I want to close my eyes right now and wake in the morning to find I’ve stopped writing mid-sentence, because then I will know that I chose faith over fear. That I let God and his angels tend to my wife and not my worry.
But I can’t.
My son said this evening that he’s happy his mother his home. He said there are angels here. He’s seen them. He’s said once he even heard one. He said the angel didn’t talk so much as sing, and that it sounded like a wave pulling back into the ocean over a million tiny shells.
I wish I could hear that song now.
Maybe I can. Maybe I just have to sit here and listen hard enough. Maybe the point isn’t to never feel fear, but to see fear for what it is: the large shadow of a tiny thing.
Maybe it’s enough to know the angels are here and God is here and—
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Dear Santa
December 7, 2011
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 attic, along with a few other things that will come as a pleasant surprise to her on 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, though, that she thinks every child should get a set of Crayolas. I think that’s a good idea. The world needs more color.
I remember asking Santa for a set of Crayolas. The big box of ninety-six with the sharpener in the back. Got it, too.
I wrote a letter to Santa every year until I was nine, when The Dreaded Truth finally came to light. After that, my annual wish list was devoid of carefully planned sentences and colored pictures at the bottom of Christmas trees and elves. Instead, it came in the form of a few scribbles on scrap paper that I handed to my mother.
But the magic of Christmas that was gone then is back now, though in another, purer form. My thoughts this year aren’t focused upon what I want or even what the kids want. They seem deeper somehow. Better, too.
My son asked me this morning if I had written my letter to Santa. I told him no, that only kids write letters. “Grownups are old enough to take care of themselves,” I said. He thought about that, and then said that nobody can really take care of themselves and that the Bible said so. He had a point. So we sat at the table together, trying to figure out what I wanted and what I really didn’t.
The result:
Dear Santa,
Hello from Billy. I know it’s been a while since I’ve written you, but I’m hoping you understand. And there have been times when I really wasn’t a very good boy, but I’m hoping you understand that, too.
It is with full clarity of mind that I wish for no presents this year. I wish my stocking empty and my customary place beneath the tree bare. I do not need gifts that can be purchased from catalogs or shopping malls. They will not make me a better man, a better husband, or a better father. Instead, I merely ask for another year of what I have received my entire life.
I ask for love to accept my imperfections and failures, not through excuse, but through the understanding that no matter how horribly I may act, there is not a day that begins without my solemn vow to make it a better one than the day before.
I ask for companionship in those days of drear (of which I am sure there will be many) as well as those days of cheer (of which I hope there will be just as many).
I ask for faith to push me forward when I wish to turn away, to never surrender to the poisons of doubt and despair, and to convince me that God would rather lose His Son than lose me.
I ask for hope to give me the strength to see the world in all its cruelty and injustice and still believe that in the end good will triumph over evil, right will overcome wrong, and peace will reign forever more.
Lastly, I ask for the magic to believe that the spirit of Christmas can be found throughout the year, that the giving and sharing of our blessings and our lives draw us not only nearer to one another, but nearer to God, and that miracles and angels abound every day.
Love. Companionship. Faith. Hope. Magic. These are My Wishes for this year. Gifts that require the opening of hearts rather than checkbooks. Gifts intended for us all, given freely on that first Christmas two thousand years ago, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.
Hope to see you soon,
Billy
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The wandering wise man
December 5, 2011
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.
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The Why and the What
November 30, 2011
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If you’ve been around here for very long, chances are you’ve caught me discussing my daughter’s diabetes. Talking about it, wrestling with it, trying to find the reasons behind it or trying to find out if there’s a reason at all. It’s one of those things that can be tough to figure out if you subscribe to the idea of a loving God.
To say my daughter’s disease is a part of His will leaves a bad taste in my mouth (it’s metallic, that taste, like having pennies in your cheeks).
To say that it’s meant as a blessing tastes even worse. Come stay with her for a couple days and see if you can say that. You might still be able to, but I bet you won’t be able to look me in the eye.
But to say that there isn’t a reason at all, that it’s just one of those things because life just kind of sucks sometimes, doesn’t really sit well either. That just makes me think that it all either caught God by surprise or He just didn’t care enough to do anything about it. And as jaded as her diabetes can make me sometimes, I’m not willing to abide by either of those theories.
So I usually just keep quiet about it. I focus on making sure her sugar is the best it can be. Make sure she eats the right things and exercises and gets the proper dose of insulin. I tell myself that the Why doesn’t matter because that’s something I can’t control, that it’s the What I’m supposed to worry myself with because I can somewhat control that.
Still, that Why has a way of sneaking up. It preys on my mind. I’m sure you understand. We all have our own Whys.
It was preying on my mind last night at three o’clock in the morning. The Witching Hour, some call it. That time of night when the darkness is the darkest and supposedly the veil between the worlds of the seen and unseen thin enough that they intermingle. Her sugar had bottomed out. I was trying to keep her awake enough to drink some juice and not doing a very good job. She kept nodding off, and I’d have to shake her. That’s when the Why came again.
“I’m sorry you have to do this,” I whispered to her.
She nodded—she always nods at three in the morning, that’s all she can do—and felt for the straw in her cup.
“I wish I could make it go away.”
Nod and slurp, and I figured that if she wasn’t asleep yet she would be soon, which meant I’d have to shake her awake again so she could finish. And then I’ll have to wake her again fifteen minutes later to make sure her sugar was going in the right direction.
“I know it’s not fair.”
But not a nod that time. That time, it was, “It’s okay. We love each other through it.”
She finished her juice and curled up under the blankets again. I sat there watching her, trying to figure out if what she said was just her sleep or herself. I figured that didn’t matter.
I also figured that if there really was a reason, maybe that was it. Maybe that’s why God allows so much suffering. Because through suffering we learn not just to love, but to love more.
And if this world needs anything, it is that.
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Future Billy
November 28, 2011
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It seemed an easy enough thing—fill up the gas tank on Friday afternoon so I wouldn’t have to do it on Monday morning. And in all honesty that’s exactly what I meant to do. But as I was nearing the gas station in town, my favorite song came on the radio. I was so busy singing it that I drove right past.
I could have turned around—the Food Lion was right up ahead—but I didn’t do that, either. The song was still on, for one, and so I was still singing. And for another, I’d decided by then that none of it really mattered anyway. I had enough gas to get home and enough to get back out again, and I wouldn’t be driving my truck all weekend. Besides, it was Friday afternoon. Weekend time. I’d fill up later.
Later came this morning. Monday morning. Monday morning at 6:30. Monday morning at 6:30 in near total darkness and pouring rain. And as I stood there wet and shivering watching the dollars and gallons tick away, I discovered two things. One was that the very last thing anyone should have to do on a Monday morning is stop and get gas. The other was that Past Me had screwed Present Me yet again.
The sad thing is it wasn’t the first time that had happened. In fact, it happens quite a bit. Call it what I will—being an adult, not putting off for tomorrow what I could do today—it all sounds good in theory but tends to fall apart in practice. Because when it comes right down to it, I’m pretty much living for the now. That’s not a bad thing, really; most of the advice we get on how to live says the present is all that matters. The past is gone, so there’s nothing we can do about that. The future isn’t here, so there’s no use worrying about that. All we have then, and all we need, is this moment. This now.
So that’s what I’ve tried to do most of my life—live for this now. Be in the present. And you know, it often doesn’t work very well. I’ve also tried living in my past. That works even less.
This morning, in the middle of pumping gas and shivering and yawning, I realized what I’d been doing wrong all this time. Living in the present kind of sucks. Not right now, maybe. Not usually. But later. And most of the time.
Because none of us are really only one person, we’re actually three—there’s the person we were earlier, the person we are now, and the person who comes later. Where I screw up is that I tend to think more often about Present Me and not nearly often enough about Future Me. Which, to really confuse you, often makes Present Me really not like Past Me very much at all.
It’s confusing, carrying three people inside you. And yet that’s what we all do. No wonder we seem so tired and stressed all the time.
I’m big on the idea that the simpler we make our lives, the better off we’ll be. If we don’t have too much and don’t do too much and don’t want too much, chances are we’ll be much happier. I really believe that.
That’s why I’m going to think more of Future Billy. I’m going to try and do more now so he won’t have to do so much later. And I’m going to be more willing to put up with a little discomfort so he’ll be able to smile.
It’s perhaps the sincerest purpose we can have in this life—to live today with the intent of making tomorrow better.
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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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