death – Page 4

Helen’s last will and testament

July 30, 2012 by Billy Coffey 3 Comments

The division of Helen Long’s estate was fairly straightforward. Her two story Cape Cod was to be sold and the proceeds divided between her daughter, Tina, and Mark and Matthew, her two sons. Personal items that held sentimental value were evenly distributed, stocks were liquidated and moved to provide for the grandchildren’s college education, and the vacation home in the Outer Banks was to be shared by everyone as a way to keep the family from drifting apart.

That last bit wouldn’t happen. Not to Helen Long’s family. She had spent too much time and given too much effort in keeping her family together to have them fall apart once she was gone. It was her mission in life, her purpose, and she could think of no better goal to devote her life to fulfilling.

She had done a good job, too. Having your last remaining parent pass away can bring out the worst in families, but this wasn’t the case for the Long family. In the months between the news that Helen’s cancer had spread and her death, she took great pains to ensure everything would go as smoothly as possible.

Funeral arrangements were made. Last minute bills were paid. And though Helen didn’t frequent church nearly as often as her children, her pastor visited often in the last weeks.

In a way, Helen’s passing was to be her crowning achievement. She, not her husband, had kept the family close over the years. There had never been rifts or disputes between the kids, never so much as an argument. Her dying wish was to keep it that way, to give her family something that would allow them to remember their mother’s love. Even in death, Helen would teach them.

And oh, did she teach them.

The funeral services were handled with both precision and ease. There was sadness, much sadness, but there had been ample time for goodbyes. Mark, Matthew, and Tina held their own. Even the grandchildren didn’t cry. The pastor himself said it was one of the most peaceful funerals he’d ever presided over.

When the lawyer called a week later for the reading of Helen’s will, it was only the children who attended. Their spouses and children didn’t feel a need to play referee or look after the best interests of their mates. After all, everything had already been settled. Everything would be fine.
They were right about the former assumption. The latter, not so much. Because while Helen had included her children in all of the planning, she neglected to mention the letter.

The lawyer presented the envelope to them and asked that they verify it had not been tampered with. Tina gave a sideways look to Matthew, who echoed it to Mark.

The lawyer lifted his reading glasses to his eyes and leaned back in his worn leather chair as he carefully slit the envelope open, revealing a single sheet of paper upon which a single paragraph had been written:

Dear Children,

Do not mourn for me because I will not know it. I’m gone. That’s it, just gone. Don’t go fooling yourselves into thinking that I’m sitting on a cloud somewhere with a smile on my face and wings on my back, because I’m not. I’m dead. There’s nothing after this life, so remember what I always told you—all you have is each other.

For the first time since her mother’s death, Tina began to cry.

Helen’s three children sat silent as the lawyer then proceeded to review the contents of the will, all of which didn’t matter before the letter and only mattered less after. Because the money and the trinkets and the vacation house wouldn’t make up for the fact that they would never see their mother again.

All this time, and they never knew. Tina and her brothers all attended church regularly, and they all were certain of their eternal home. They simply took it for granted that Helen was certain, too. After all, she had sat beside them many times in church.

But neither of them had ever bothered to make sure. They never asked that question. And now, suddenly, it was too late.

Two years after her mother’s death, Tina still carries that letter tucked inside a pocket of her purse. She showed it to me last week. The ink was worn and the paper crumpled, as if it had been thrown away and reclaimed time upon time.

“I can’t let it go,” Tina said. “I never will.”

I don’t expect she will. I wouldn’t, either. Tina still carries the burden of never asking her mother if her soul was secure. She holds out hope Helen’s mind was changed in her last minutes of life. That the letter was written in a bout with hopelessness and despair that was lifted in that last breath, and she will see her mother again.

I hope so, too.

Who is James Holmes?

July 26, 2012 by Billy Coffey 8 Comments

mugshot image courtesy of nydailynews.com

I was going to be silent about James Holmes and Aurora, Colorado. I think when tragedies such as this happen (and tragedy is a good word, I think; many others apply, but I’ll stick with that one for now), the first thing people do is say how horrible it is, and the second is that they ponder how such a thing could happen. In the past week, I’ve heard a lot of smart people offer a lot of not-so-smart reasons why James Holmes dyed his hair red, called himself the Joker, and shot seventy people. The truth is that we may never know exactly why, and that is a hard truth to accept.

I also tried keeping this whole mess far from my children, all the while knowing I couldn’t for long. It lasted until Wednesday evening, when my daughter saw him on the news.

I don’t know how much she heard or from that how much she understood. However much it was, when I walked into the room and turned the channel, she had only this to say:

“Daddy, why is the world so beautiful and so bad? Why’s everything dim?”

The reason I gave her was the sort of generalization every parent offers to every kid when it comes to things they’re still too young to understand. Something about how things have always been that way or how God was still in control, something that made her feel better but not so much me. And her question stuck so much with me that I knew I’d have to sit down and think some things out as well, offer my own reasons for what this man did, if only to appease myself.

We loathe this man. Let’s begin there. We say he is evil and broken and, if we’re honest, we also say he scares us. And why wouldn’t he? After all, the people sitting in that movie theater were us. They were parents and children, brothers and sisters. They were the young and the old and that great expanse in the middle. They were ordinary people who wanted nothing more than a temporary reprieve from their ordinary lives, and at some point over the past week, I’m sure we all have paused to consider that it could have been us in there. It could have been someone we love.

For me, at the beginning, that is why I hated him.

And then I considered what punishment could be meted that would be most just, and I thought it best that he stand defenseless inside a darkened movie theater and be set upon by a man wielding an assault rifle and a shotgun and a pistol and canisters of tear gas, and I thought even that would be too lenient and too decent, and then I realized that maybe the reason I hate him is also because there is some of me in him and some of him in me.

How can the world be so beautiful? In the stories of this horribleness we’ve heard victims offer forgiveness and the dead sacrifice themselves for loved ones. We’ve seen the courage of the first responders. We’ve born witness to the very best that we are in the midst of the very worst we can be. That’s how the world can be so beautiful.

How can the world be so bad? How can evil roam free? How can such hate and apathy boil over in someone whose only criminal infraction was a simple speeding ticket? How can it be that we no longer feel safe in a movie theater or a school or a city street?

And how is it that any option to curb such evil will never succeed? Easier access to mental health experts will do nothing if those who need it most refuse to seek it. Strict gun laws in Japan and Britain have drastically reduced the number of shooting victims, and yet violent crimes involving other weapons such as knives and baseball bats have skyrocketed. That’s how the world can be so bad.

But how can the world be both? Why doesn’t it ever seem to get better (as some say it will) and lead us into a new dawn? And why doesn’t it ever seem to get worse (as others prophesy) and plunge us into a midnight?

I don’t claim to know. But I do have an idea.

Perhaps it is because there is a darkness in us but also a light, and it is by their mingling that our world rests in a lasting eventide that is neither bright nor black, but only dim.

RIP Rainbow

March 8, 2012 by Billy Coffey 6 Comments

It seemed fish would make a good pet for the kids. Fish are low maintenance, always stay in one place, and, as far as I can tell, are generally happy creatures. Not to mention the fact that their food is inexpensive, trips to the vet are not required, and there’s no need to get up in the middle of the night to let them out so they can do their business (my son: “Know what the best thing about being a fish is? You can poop ANYWHERE.”).

So when pet time came, yes. Fish.

I have no idea why my son christened his blue betta fish Henry, other than the fact that he said it looked like a Henry. But that’s another story for another time. What I want to talk about is Rainbow, my daughter’s fish.

Purple and flowery and somewhat aloof, Rainbow has spent her days fluttering around in her fishbowl and napping behind two tiny ceramic columns perched in the corner of the gravel. Rainbow doesn’t do much other than that, though that hasn’t stopped my daughter from being endlessly fascinated. It’s the way her fish glides through the water, she told me. The way her fins and tail splay out and wave. The way she will dive deep and rub herself against the gravel and then ease her way upward to scan for food on the surface. It’s all so pretty, she told me.

And I suppose it was, in a way. But in another way I also knew it wasn’t. I wouldn’t say I’ve been around a lot of fish in my life, but I’ve been around enough to know when one is nice and healthy and when one is…well, not so much.

Looking back, I probably should have broached that touchy subject. I didn’t. It’s a mark on my Daddy scorecard to be sure, but honestly I simply put Rainbow out of my mind. Really, how often do you think about a fish?

Rainbow died two days ago.

Worse, my daughter was first on the scene.

The preliminary (and very amateurish) investigation concluded that the cause of death could have come from either of two possibilities. The icky gooey white stuff oozing from Rainbow’s stomach suggested that whatever bomb was ticking inside of her finally went off. And a particularly cold and blustery March night had left my daughter’s room downright cold to the point that Rainbow’s water was a cool 58 degrees.

None of that mattered, of course. What mattered was that this fish, my daughter’s pet and the object of her fascination, was dead.

It was something my daughter had thankfully never had to face until then. All of her grandparents and aunts and uncles are still alive. All of her friends and acquaintances. All still here, still living and napping and floating in our own fishbowl world. She’d never had ponder the imponderable that is death.

My daughter did what we all do when faced with that bitterness—she cried, then she picked herself up and went on with the business of giving Rainbow a proper farewell. There was a private ceremony in the bathroom where she talked about how fish went to heaven just like people did, and how there wasn’t a beginning and an end to life but simply a beginning and then another beginning after. She thanked Rainbow for being her pet and God for sending Rainbow to her. There was a moment of silence that was followed by a long, somber flush.

My daughter’s better now. The spot where Rainbow’s bowl once stood is bare and will likely be so for a long while. Sometimes I’ll spot her staring at that emptiness, remembering. That’s okay. I think we all give such stares at the emptiness our loved ones leave behind in their passing. But she’ll pull through. She must. Life is ever forward.

This morning I found taped above the toilet that became Rainbow’s final resting place a small paper tombstone. Written on it in a little girl’s cursive scrawl were these words:

“Rest in peace, Rainbow the betta fish. May you float in water that’s the perfect temperature.”

And so may we all.

Dinging the universe

October 10, 2011 by Billy Coffey 15 Comments

Steve Jobs image courtesy of photobucket.com

I’ll admit I’m a little late on the death of Steve Jobs. Truth be told, I didn’t know he’d died until two days after the fact. It was all over the news and the internet, people tell me. And you couldn’t pick up a newspaper without seeing his face on the front page. I guess that’s why I hadn’t heard. I don’t really keep up with the news. I’ve found it helps me enjoy the world more.

More truth: I hate computers. Maybe that’s the half-Amish side of me talking. Maybe I’m secretly afraid technology will steal my soul. Or maybe it’s the simple fact that I’ve never been able to work them well. Whichever the case, I count myself among the few who trust pen and paper more than keyboard and screen.

I heard last week that his biography, titled simply Steve Jobs, will be released sooner than expected. Evidently he granted his biographer unparalleled access to his life and sat for hours of interviews. Quite a coup, given that Mr. Jobs was a pretty private man. The book is already number one on Amazon. Sony purchased the movie rights for a million dollars.

Imagine, someone paying a million dollars for the rights to make a movie about your life. Your accomplishments. Imagine being called this century’s Thomas Edison. Or being compared to Leonardo da Vinci.

Imagine.

And yes, that’s the sort of person I’d like to be. Shouldn’t we all? I’m around college kids five days a week, almost ten hours a day. You know what? Most of them don’t want to become great. Most of them have somehow become convinced that they’re already great. They don’t want to affect the world, they want the world to affect them. I think that’s kind of sad.

I think there should be more people who say “I want to put a ding in the universe,” as Steve Jobs once said.

That’s what he did. He dinged the universe. But I wonder at what cost. His biography was written with his permission, he sat down and did all those candid interviews, not for the reason you might think. Not to inspire or inform the world Steve Jobs helped to transform, but simply because of this:

“I want my kids to know who I am.”

Of all the things I’ve read about Steve Jobs over the last week or so, that’s the one that stands out. Not the iPod or the iPad or the iPhone, but the iWant.

It takes a lot of effort to put a ding into the universe. A lot of time and failure and trying again. A lot of passion. It demands that priorities be set clear. Things like work take precedent. Things like family do not. And while I’m thankful for the Steve Jobs of the world and their dedication, the sacrifice the make is one too steep for me.

Steve Jobs’ death struck me. By all accounts he was a brilliant man who changed our world. There are a good many people in this world who long for those two things—to be both brilliant and remembered. I don’t mind saying I count myself among them. But honestly, the odds are good I’ll be neither. Maybe you, too. More probable than not, I will pass through this life just as the billions before me. My footprints upon this earth will be small and vanish. My picture will never grace the front page. The world will not notice my passing.

I will not ding the universe.

But when my time comes to trade this world for the next, I will pass with a smile. I’ll be ready, because I may not have much, but my kids will know who I am.

Dear Casey Anthony

July 13, 2011 by Billy Coffey 12 Comments

Dear Casey Anthony,

I have to say I’m probably the only person in the world who didn’t know about you two weeks ago. That’s not to say I keep myself ill-informed of what’s going on in the world. I don’t. In fact, I think I probably know more than I should.

It’s just that when it comes to murdered children…well, that’s the sort of thing of which I do try to keep myself ill-informed. I have kids, you see. I worry about them and fear for them enough. I figure I really don’t need another reason to do more.

That’s why I ignored you as best I could. Sure, there were a few times when I’d come across a newspaper story or some television commentary. But I turned either the page or the channel. I didn’t want to see you, didn’t want to read about you. No offense intended. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

But then came the trial and then the verdict, and it was pretty much impossible for anyone to do anything without hearing about you. So I did start to pay attention. I wanted to know what it was about you that had struck such a nerve in so many people, and I wanted to know what that said about us.

I’m neither theologian nor philosopher, just a guy in a hat. I won’t use this space to excoriate you (plenty have done that, right or wrong) or laude our justice system (ditto). I’ll just say this:

I’m not sure why you got all that attention. Ours is a world in which many children such as your own go missing and are found dead. And like you, their accusers are brought in front of judges and juries to be found guilty or innocent. I’ll leave the answers as to why your case became the focus rather than another to those smarter than I. But I do think ours is a society that must be entertained. We may walk straight in our going about, but inside our hearts are hooked downward. We crave the terrible and the depraved, and we found both in you.

We also found in you the culmination of our baser, more selfish selves. What parents in their weakest moments have not fantasized of a life of freedom from their children? Who has not secretly considered any means necessary to exchange a bland existence for one of fame and fortune? I suspect the difference between you and most is that those frail moments remain in our hidden places and yours were cast out into the world.

Much of the anger directed at you is justified. Much of that outrage, I think, is also a kind of fear. In you we see what evil results when we are untethered from responsibility and left to ourselves. We are reminded of the ease by which we can rationalize even the worst acts. We see the depths to which human beings can plumb.

I understand you’ll be free soon, at least the sort of freedom that imprisonment denies. I’ve heard of death threats and relocation plans. I’ve also heard of agents being hired and books being planned. Movies being discussed. And a desire for more children.

I think in the end, that’s what bothers people most. We have an inherent desire for justice, for the guilty to be punished and the innocent redeemed. For many, you are but one piece of evidence among many to prove that desire is an empty one that cannot be filled in this world.

Fair or not, in the end we see that a blameless child has been killed and her mother will now receive the wealth and attention she so coveted. I suppose that’s where we’ll end this. So much has already been said by so many people, and I hate to add to the pile. But I will say this before I go—you are not the first person to be hated in this world, nor the first to perhaps put your own wants before the needs of others in a search for some sort of earthly heaven. But as you step out from behind bars and into the world, you would do well to remember the many who have found that heaven and discovered it to be a hell.

Regards,

Billy

“Shouldn’t we be sad when even the bad man is killed?”

May 2, 2011 by Billy Coffey 24 Comments

The weekday morning routine begins with a cup of coffee and the news, that latter of which is turned off when the kids wake for school. They don’t like the news, they say. And I tell them I don’t like it much either. Those few minutes before our days begin and we are all on the sofa are usually spent watching something else.

But not this morning. This morning was different.

Perhaps I was just lost in the story, my eyes locked on the bold words in all caps at the bottom of the screen—BIN LADEN KILLED BY US FORCES. Or maybe it was the fact that my mind was divided between May of 2011 and September of 2001, leaving no room to ponder the blond-haired little girl who entered and sat beside me. Her eyes were puffed, sleepy. She yawned.

“Who’s bin Laden?” she asked me.

I remembered asking myself that very question almost ten years ago—Who is bin Laden and what has he done and why Jesus, why?—sitting on the edge of my bed in my bathrobe, just sitting there. Staring at burning buildings and soot-covered people who were bleeding and shaking and crying. I knew they were the lucky ones. The ones jumping from the upper floors of the Towers, choosing death by gravity over death by fire, they were the unlucky ones.

“He was a bad man,” I told her.

“Is the bad man dead?”

“Yes.”

“Who killed him?”

“Remember those men we see at the beach sometimes?” I asked her. “They killed him.”

She yawned again, a high-pitched, little-girl exhale that ended with, “What did he do that was so bad?”

I saw those soot-covered people again, the bodies falling. I remembered the panic that day, of fear and uncertainty so overcoming it could only be expressed in silence. The little girl beside me was in her mother’s womb then. Sitting on the table beside me were her first ultrasound pictures. I remembered looking at the screen and looking at the pictures and—God help me—wishing she would not be born into such a world. That she would be spared of such evil.

“He killed a lot of people.”

We sat in silence as the people talked on the television, relaying the events, the soldiers involved, the particulars of the raid. When they described the death, my daughter asked, “What’s a double-tap?”

“Nothing,” I said. She was too sleepy to notice my smile.

The picture on the television changed to scenes from the night before. Crowds outside the White House and in Times Square. People chanting and singing and laughing.

She asked, “Why are those people happy?”

“Because the bad man is dead.”

Another yawn, this one smaller. She put her head on my shoulder and I wished it could just stay like that forever, us there and the rest of my family close, the birds singing outside and the sun rising over the mountains.

“Is God happy, too?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. I told her so.

“Are you happy, Daddy?”

“Yes. If I could, I’d shake the hand of the man who killed him.”

She didn’t know how to take that, this little girl, who’s world is small and bright and populated by fairies who alight around her room nightly as she sleeps.

“Shouldn’t we be sad when even the bad man is killed?”

I wondered, my mind divided again between the present and the past, between feeling the little girl’s head on my shoulder and seeing her still-forming head in a grainy picture while the planes fell and the people cried and the whole world seemed to end. I wondered what has become of us since, of those who wish nothing but death on our enemies and those who would rather bow than fight. I wondered of those who believe it wrong that Gandhi should reside in hell, and I wondered if they believe it equally wrong that Osama bin Laden should reside in heaven.

“I don’t know, honey,” I told her.

And I still don’t.

But I know that my daughter will grow up. Her small and bright world of fairies will one day become a big and dark world full of monsters. Monsters like him.

She yawned once more, her hand now in mine. I thought of these words from George Orwell: “We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.”

I don’t know if God expects me to be sad, but I know I am not.

And I don’t know if He expects me to make peace with the monsters, but I believe He would rather we fight them.

Connect