A letter to me
July 6, 2011 by Billy Coffey · 28 Comments
image courtesy of photobucket.com
When helping your parents clean out their attic, it helps if you approach the task as a recovery mission. You aren’t discarding, you’re salvaging. I know this from experience. I did it three weeks ago.
We found the normal things—Christmas decorations long forgotten, toys long neglected, and several items of which no one can remember using, much less purchasing. We found not-so-normal things as well. Like the box of notebooks.
You could say I caught the writing bug early; I was filling notebooks before I understood what words were, drawing pictures of the sun and trees and describing them with an jumble of mismatched and incoherent letters. These, sadly, were not in the box.
The high school stuff was.
Lyrics mostly, as if the words to Skid Row’s “18 and Life” and Cinderella’s “Coming Home” were so moving, so utterly profound, that they warranted preservation for the ages.
There were thoughts as well. Plenty of them, all sopping with the angst and shallowness that define the teenage years. Some were laughable in their naivety—“The suddenness of life is a guarantee the soul is eternal.” Others, to my surprise, weren’t so bad at all—“We have lost much of the language of religion, but little of our longing for a faith in something larger than ourselves.”
Memories, all. Not the false ones either, the ones that are saccharine in the remembering. These were more a mixture of sweet and salty, proof that my recollections were true. Regardless, the decision of whether the box was to be discarded or salvaged was an easy one.
It all went to the junk pile save for a single sheet of paper torn from the notebook on top. The last page, as a matter of fact. Written two days before I graduated.
It was a letter. Not to the me I was then, but to the me I am now.
A portion:
“I don’t know who you are (hard to do that, especially since it’s tough enough knowing who I am). I don’t know what you’re doing, either. But I can make the sort of guess with both that people do when they see a falling star or a discarded eyelash, the sort of guess that has a wish at the end. So I’m guessing you’ve made it. I’m guessing you’re rich and famous and happy, and I’m guessing you’re far away. And I figure as long as I guess and wish those things, I’m going to be okay. Because that means I’ll eventually be you.”
I remembered writing that. It was late at night. I was outside, scribbling in my notebook while watching the stars and sneaking a Marlboro red. I remembered how I felt then—sweet and salty, so it must be true—knowing that part of my life was about to fall away and another was ready to begin.
I was afraid. Afraid of the world and my place in it. And in that fear I wrote that night with a sense of purity and honesty that even now I try to capture each time I reach for pen and paper.
I wrote those words in secrecy, and now, all these years later, I snatched them away in secrecy as well. No one saw me stash that letter into my pocket. I’ve kept it since on the top of my office desk, there and not there, like a sickness hidden from a doctor for fear it is a symptom of something more serious.
“So I’m guessing you’ve made it. I’m guessing you’re rich and famous and happy, and I’m guessing you’re far away. And I figure as long as I guess and wish those things, I’m going to be okay. Because that means I’ll eventually be you.”
I couldn’t let those four sentences go. They weren’t supposed to be disposed. They were supposed to be salvaged. I needed to answer myself.
Today is my birthday. I suppose by some sort of twisted logic, that’s why I waited until now to send a note of my own back in time. After all, birthdays are much like graduations. They are a falling away and a beginning.
So on my porch this morning in front of the mountains and the birds and the rising sun, I wrote this:
“I’m not rich. I’m not famous. And though twenty-one years separate us in time, only five miles separate us in distance. But I’ve found things greater than those, and I’ve become happy in the finding. Because the things you search for as a child are not the things you stumble upon as an adult, and thank God for that.”
A father’s presence
June 29, 2011 by Billy Coffey · 23 Comments
Though Father’s Day is passed, I couldn’t help but write about what was going on in Huron County, Michigan, while I was in the backyard playing baseball with the kids.
That was around the time a frantic driver called 911 and said, “Uh, yes, I’m on Kinde Road outside of Caseville, and believe it or not, I just passed about a 5-, 6-year-old kid flying down the road with a red Pontiac Sunbird.”
Turned out, the kid was a boy. And he wasn’t five or six, he was seven. He was flying down the road, though—70 when the police found him racing down a rural road, standing up on the floorboard so he could work the gas and see over the steering wheel. Two Huron County deputies boxed in the Sunbird and managed to stop it on the side of the road.
They found the boy barefoot and dressed in pajamas. Crying.
You can imagine the shock those deputies must have felt. You can imagine that shock was doubled when the boy told them what he was trying to do.
“He was crying and just kept saying he wanted to go to his dad’s,” Caseville Police Chief Jamie Learman told the Detroit Free Press. “That was pretty much it. He just wanted to go to his dad’s.”
That’s all.
His father’s home was twelve miles away. The boy was staying with his mother and stepfather in Sheridan Township. He took the car while his stepfather was gone and his mother was asleep.
Woke up that Father’s Day morning, and just wanted to see his dad.
I’ll be honest—that broke my heart.
Yes, he could have killed himself. Or someone else. And no doubt he caused a considerable amount of grief to his mother, who was contacted shortly afterward by the police department and had no idea her son was gone. But to me, those things matter little. They’re relegated to the periphery of this story—there, but not enough to matter.
What matters, what I cannot get out of my head, was that this boy simply wanted his father and his father was not there.
Why, I don’t know. There are a great many reasons why mother and father divorce. Some are valid, many are not. Regardless, I doubt this young boy cared what those reasons were. And rather than suffer the silence most children of divorced parents must endure, he took it upon himself to do something, regardless of how dangerous that something may have been.
He wanted to see his dad, and he was going to do whatever was needed to do it.
I can’t get that out of my thoughts.
This post isn’t meant as a denouncement of divorce or proof that regardless of what experts say, children are not always the emotionally pliable and resilient people they are made out to be.
No, this post is about the importance of being a father. Of being there for your children and being a part of their lives. Of allowing yourself to be present regardless of the situation.
I think men tend to define their lives by the work they do. If one man is introduced to another, the first question after pleasantries are exchanged is invariably, “So what do you do for a living?” Always that, at least in my experience.
I suppose this is mostly due to the fact that ours is a gender given to action rather than reflection. We men enjoy doing, getting things done. And I’ll say that’s me at times, though I’m trying to be better. I’m trying to understand that my life won’t be judged by the job I have but the life I live.
It’s the difference I make, not the money.
That’s what counts.
I figure I’ll be doing well if I inspire in my children the sort of love and devotion that would push them to go to any lengths to see me, if only for a few small minutes.
I figure I won’t be doing well at all if they have to steal a car in order to do it.
There are statistics galore that prove beyond all doubt the importance of a mother in a child’s life, but let me tell you this: fathers are just as needed. Good fathers, present fathers, loving fathers.
Just ask a barefoot and pajama-clad young boy alongside a country road in Michigan.
Because but for the grace of God, that could be your son.
Or mine.
Time well wasted
June 20, 2011 by Billy Coffey · 19 Comments
I bought a cheap watch from a crazy man
Floating down Canal.
It doesn’t use numbers or moving hands,
It always just says Now.
Now you may be thinking that I was had,
But this watch is never wrong.
And If I have trouble the warranty said
‘Breathe in, breathe out, move on.’—Jimmy Buffett
I spent last week on vacation. Traded seven days of Virginia Mountains for seven days of North Carolina beaches. Emerald Isle, to be exact. If there was ever a name more fitting of its location, it’s that.
I’d spent a good four months looking forward to the trip. It’s been a tough time at work, a tough time all around, and of course everyone knows the cure for a tough time is an easy place.
But the truth? As the day of our departure drew closer, I didn’t want to leave. There was so much that needed to be done. So much that must be finished or started or continued. Dropping everything to sit in the sand seemed a little selfish and irresponsible. I was too busy to go on vacation. That’s not to say I thought the world would fall apart in my absence. I guess it had more to do with the notion that I’d held on tight for so long that I’d forgotten the value in letting go.
And there is value in letting go. There’s a lot.
At some point we’re all introduced to the fact that we do not make the world spin. But in this age of technological wonder where so many of us are driven—and at times even expected—to share our thoughts and happenings to the world with a simple click of a button, it’s easy to convince yourself that even if you don’t make the world spin, it will nonetheless go wobbly without you. I won’t say I fell for that lie. I will say I was headed in that general direction.
I spend much of my life on the written page. I count that as a blessing rather than a curse. And yet after so much time spent looking outward at the world, I found I was losing a bit of me in the process. Over the past year I have heard from a great many people about a great many things, and yet I realized I rarely heard from myself about the things that mattered most.
In the end that’s why I fled to the ocean, that vast expanse of nothingness that is so big it drowns out the little things and renders the big things bare. No writing, no news, no computer. Just deer, crabs, and the three dolphins that played tag just beyond the waves each morning outside my window.
And you know what I found when I returned home? That I didn’t miss much. Anthony Weiner resigned. More jobs were lost. There were floods and drought. Wars. Accusations. More of the same. The earth spun and I followed, though for seven precious days I chose to trail at my own speed rather than to flail at keeping up with everyone and everything else.
What I learned there will likely fill these pages for the time being. There’s much to ponder and memories to sift. My week at the shore resembled a fine wine in that the flavor is only truly tasted upon swallowing.
In the meantime, I leave you with this:
It isn’t how full our days are that matter, but how fully we live them.
Not how fast we go, but how closely we look.
Not how much we hear, but how often we listen.
Not how often we laugh more than cry, but how often we’re willing to do both.
Time well spent is valuable, but so is time well wasted. I know that now. Because it’s in those minutes and hours that we are still and quiet and watching and listening that the truths we seek are made manifest. They appear like glistening shells washed upon endless shores, offerings for the taking.
Before I left I was convinced that wealth was best measured in happiness and peace and good memories. I know better now.
I know now that wealth is best measured in moments.
The journey
June 8, 2011 by Billy Coffey · 13 Comments
image courtesy of photobucket.com
My family and I took a long trip over the weekend, long being a drive of nearly an hour and a half. Those who have kids understand that five minutes in the car with them can at times be too much. There is crying and complaining, spills and messes, and a seemingly endless chorus of “Are we there yet?” and “How much farther?”
That was our ride.
And this even with all the newfangled trinkets designed to make an hour and a half ride more comfortable. Things like DS games and DVD players. These things do well and good so long as they remain charged and the headaches do not start, which, in our case, lasted a grand total of forty minutes.
With aspirin handed out and the radio turned down, all that was left were those old fashioned games that helped me through some long rides of my own once upon a time. There was the ever-popular I Spy game, won by my son. My daughter won the out of state license plate game. They each tied at seven playing the game where you get the truckers to blow their horns.
But even after all that, there was still a half hour’s worth of driving to go. With the DS games dead, the DVD players on life support, and the radio station that seemed incapable of playing nothing but Van Halen’s “Panama,” there was nothing for us to do but wait.
“Won’t be long,” I promised. “We’ll get there soon enough.”
I knew that wasn’t exactly right. And I’ll say that while I said it, I was thinking of the drive back. Of going back there and getting out of that cramped car. Unbuckling my belt and stretching my legs and looking at the sun and hearing it welcome me home.
I’ve heard that life is all about the journey. The destination is not just irrelevant, it spoils all the fun. Sounds like a romantic notion. And just as most romantic notions, that one’s just plain ridiculous. What’s the use in going if you have nowhere to go? Why start when there is no end?
As I drove, road leading toward a horizon that only yielded more road, I decided there was also something else that could be described as a journey rather than a destination.
Hell.
My sour attitude didn’t last long. And of course I don’t want to imply that spending ninety minutes in the car with my family was hellish. It was not. It only seemed that way for a bit.
But after that bit I began to realize how apropos our drive was to life itself. Because to a certain extent we are all on a road. There are dips and curves, mountains and valleys. There are times when extreme concentration is necessary and times when everything seems flat and boring. Regardless, the point is to keep going. There is no heading back, not for any of us. The road is forward. It always shall be.
We have company along the way. Family and loved ones that sometimes get on our nerves but most times we know we could never live without. They are with us and we them, even though each has his or her own vantage point, his or her own place.
There are others too, sharing a bit of the road with us while we travel. Some pull alongside for a long while and become familiar. Others are there and then gone, never to be seen again. It’s a big road, life, and we all go at our own pace. Some are in a hurry and others take their time. But regardless, we all will reach The End someday.
The End. Oh yes. Because while the road may be wide and long, there is no room for existential thoughts of a journey without a destination. We may be given the freedom to ride as we wish, to be cautious or not, to ride with the windows down or rolled up tight, but that freedom ends there. We were not given the choice to be upon this road, and we are not given the choice to stay upon it.
And if that causes us grief, I say it shouldn’t. I say I look forward to that day when my ride is done. When I can unbuckle my seatbelt and step outside. I will stretch my legs and stare at the Son, and He will say welcome home.
Holding on…
May 29, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 40 Comments
“So,” she asks, “what do you think?”
“I think you should ask your boyfriend,” I say.
“He says he’s not worried. We can still keep in touch.”
“He has a point.”
“But I told him that’s not the same.”
“You have a point, too,” I concede.
Then, she repeats: “So what do you think?”
A year’s worth of accumulated college stuff is packed into her battered Ford outside. It’s been a long year of studying and cramming and writing, enough to make even the most ardent student eager to turn tail and run home for the summer. But she’s stuck around, unwilling to leave because of what she will leave behind.
“It’s not that far, you know,” I offer.
“It’s Utah,” she says. “That’s a long way from Virginia.”
“Could be worse. You could live in California. That would add a few hundred miles.”
I smile, but she doesn’t smile back.
“Why did I have to fall for a guy here?” she asks.
I shrug. “The heart knows what it wants,” I answer. “Rational thought is sometimes left out of the equation.”
“But he’s here, and I’m going to be there.”
“But you’ll be back here in three months,” I say. “That’s not a big deal. And there are plenty of ways to keep in touch until then.”
“But I can’t see him,” she says. “Talking over the phone and emailing isn’t the same as seeing him.”
“Because you’re in love?”
“Yes.”
The nod I give her isn’t a sarcastic one, but an acknowledgment of the truth. They are in love. Truly, madly, deeply in love. Love in its truest sense is not solely the domain of people who have been around for longer than twenty-two years. I see them on campus and I know. Love has a look.
“I don’t want to go,” she says. “I want to stay here. With him.”
“But you have to go, right?” I ask.
I get silence as an affirmative.
“And you want to know if your love for each other can withstand the distance between you?”
More silence.
She sits across from me, chewing on a fingernail. In the background the radio is playing Alan Jackson’s “Small Town Southern Man.” Fitting, I think, because that’s exactly what this city girl from Utah has found. And though I don’t know him well, I know enough to think she’d better hang on to him. Because it’s always been my opinion that those small town Southern men are worth keeping around. My own bias of course, since I’m one of them.
She breaks her silence and says, “So what do you think?”
“I think yes,” I say. “I think if you love him as much as he says he loves you, then distance is irrelevant. I think that wherever either of you are, the other one will always be. Faith is a powerful thing. Hope, too. But love? Nothing stops love. And if it’s as strong as you say it is, then that love will always be something you can stand under whenever the rain starts pouring.”
“We’ll be all right?” she asks.
“As long as the two of you don’t give up on each other.”
She smiles at that. She has hope now. Hope that life and circumstance do not have the last say when it comes to matters of the heart.
That in the end, love always holds on.
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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