memories – Page 3

The heart of the tree

November 26, 2012 by Billy Coffey 4 Comments

I’m a linear guy when it comes to decorating for Christmas. That means working from the outside in. Lights on the trees, garland on the porch banisters, wreathes on the windows, spotlights in the yard. When all that is done and right—and it always has to be right—we’ll move to the inside: nativities, candles, lights.

The tree comes last. Always has, too, even when I was a child. I think that’s as it should be. The manger is the soul of Christmas and the reason we celebrate our blessed assurance, but the tree is its heart. I firmly believe that. It is in most instances placed in the room in which we gather and spend our time together, whether living room or family room. We wrap them with lights that by some magic cast a glow upon us that seems warmer than any sun and more comfortable than any blanket. We place stars or angels at the apex to remind us of what shone in that bright sky so many years ago as heralds of the Good News to all men.

But if the heart of Christmas is the tree, the heart of the tree is its ornaments.

It was only recently I realized that, and I have my children to thank for it. The tree had been set and straightened in its stand, the lights had been strung, and the star had been put up. Both kids were in the throes of the seasonal hyperactivity that seems to pour out of them once the Xs on the calendar creep toward December. But the constant torrent of that excitement began to ebb and flow once the box of ornaments was opened.

They quieted.

It was not the sort of silence that signifies boredom or joyless work. It was instead an almost holy stillness, the sort of which I would imagine accompanies some great discovery long buried by dirt and time.

They didn’t reach for the shiny baubles purchased on sale at Target, not even the Star Wars or Winnie the Pooh ornaments from the Hallmark store. What my kids reached for were the treasures wrapped in paper towels and tissues that had over the last eleven months slipped through the cracks to the bottom of the box. The ones that cost nothing but time and effort. The ones they made themselves.

Chances are you have the same sort of thing on your own trees. The house made out of a school milk carton. The reindeer made out of clothespins. A bell made out of a Styrofoam cup.

They sorted these ornaments into their own separate pile. Only after they were secure (and only after repeated pleas by both of them for me not to sit on them) did they reach for the fancier accessories. They tied bows and plugged in the mechanical ornaments. My daughter hung the colored bulbs by rainbow order. It was all lively and punctuated by jokes and cheer—the flow. But every few trips to the tree would be to hang one of their own ornaments onto the tree, ones made in kindergarten or pre-school or even last year. Those trips would be made in that awed silence–the ebb.

I didn’t ask my children why they acted such. I wasn’t sure if they knew, and I wasn’t about to spoil their unknowing. They’ll learn that soon enough.

In a few short years what my children see as the magic of Christmas will yield to a new understanding. They will know that Santa isn’t real, but that their memories are. They can see them each year as they hang them on the tree and all their outward talk turns to talk directed inward. They’ll remember where they were when they made them, whom they were with, what they were feeling. They will glimmer in the sun during the day and in the bright lights during the evening. They will look and they will remember.

Maybe that’s where all the warmth of a Christmas tree comes from. Not from the lights, but the thoughts.

That’s what I think now. Christmas is a time where memories are made tangible and we glimpse the thin line of life that connects our yesterdays and tomorrows, all wrapped up in milk cartons and pipe cleaners.

They’re fragile, like us.

Precious, like us.

Why not forget?

August 9, 2012 by Billy Coffey 7 Comments

It’s called propranolol.

A mouthful, to be sure. The reason why so many medicines have require long, unpronounceable names has always eluded me. I once asked my doctor why such a thing was necessary. He looked at me like I was stupid and answered nothing. I don’t think he knew why, either.

Propranolol is a beta blocker, used for everything from cardiac arrhythmias to high blood pressure to controlling migraines in children. A wonder drug with fantastic benefits.

A recent study by Dutch scientists has revealed another fantastic benefit, one that has led to a lot of thinking on my part.

Propranolol, it seems, also dulls memory. Dulls it to the point where these same scientists are boldly predicting a time in the very near future when we could rid our minds of bad memories all together.

Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? To get rid of all those nasty reminders of the bad moments in our lives. It certainly sounds wonderful to me. Much of my daily life is still lived in the past, whether knowingly or not. It’s fingers still grip me. Loosely perhaps, but enough that I still feel them. Feel them in my decisions and reactions and worries.

And I’m sure I’m not alone. I dare say that I’m not the only one who carries around a little excess baggage. So why not lighten that load a little? Why not forget?

I can certainly see the value in such a therapy being used to treat those suffering from some form of post traumatic stress: victims of abuse or soldiers returning from war come to mind. These people are particularly prone to the agonies of bearing what may well be an unbearable weight. Such memories can lead not only to depression and psychosis, but even death.

But what about the rest of us? The ones who are plagued not by horrendous moments, but horrendous decisions? Are our bad memories made less so because they are not as powerful? Because they foster more guilt and regret than terror and numbness?

I’m not so sure.

We are largely the product of our experience, the end result of the countless choices and innumerable decisions. Many of those choices and decisions were good. Many were bad. But both worked together in an intricate and holy dance that has culminated in bringing us to both here and now.

But what if that dance were interrupted? Would we truly be made whole if those bad memories were taken from us, or would we somehow become less than we should?

Would the lessons we’ve learned from our mistakes be dulled along with the memories? And so would we then be doomed to repeat them?

Is there value in the things that haunt us?

That’s the question. One worth pondering, too.

We don’t mind accepting that the good in our lives was ordained by God. I’ve never doubted that my wife, my children, and my job are gifts from heaven. They provide my life with a healthy dose of meaning. They have purpose.

But if the good God has given us is endowed with meaning and purpose, then shouldn’t also the bad? And can we, with our limited vision and understanding, really label something as “good” or “bad” in the first place? How can we know for sure until the end result of our lives is played out and our story is done?

The blessings of my wife and children and job were born of horrible memories of the person I once was. It is because of those bad memories that I realize, finally, how blessed I am now. I love these things not because of the goodness I enjoy now, but because of the bad I suffered through then. Because the bad taught me what mattered. Would I give those memories back? No. Because I think the grace that has been given to me would be lessened in the forgetting. Because forgetting the pain of who I was then would dull the joy in Whose I am now.

We are all scarred by life. No one leaves this world as perfect as we entered it. But it is those very scars that shame us that make us all the more beautiful in God’s eyes. Rather than hide them, He beckons us to give them to Him.

Better than forgetting our memories is surrendering them. Better than pushing them down is lifting them up.

Why not forget?

May 10, 2012 by Billy Coffey 11 Comments

It’s called propranolol. A mouthful, to be sure. The reason why so many medicines have require long, unpronounceable names has always eluded me. I once asked my doctor why such a thing was necessary. He said nothing and looked at me like I was stupid. I don’t think he knew why, either.

Propranolol is a beta blocker, used for everything from cardiac arrhythmias to high blood pressure to controlling migraines in children. A wonder drug with fantastic benefits.

A recent study by Dutch scientists has revealed another fantastic benefit, one that has led to a lot of thinking on my part.

And I’m sure I’m not alone. I dare say that I’m not the only one who carries around a little excess baggage. So why not lighten that load a little? Why not forget?

I can certainly see the value in such a therapy being used to treat those suffering from some form of post-traumatic stress: victims of abuse or soldiers returning from war come to mind. These people are particularly prone to the agonies of bearing what may well be an unbearable weight. Such memories can lead not only to depression and psychosis, but even death.

I’m not so sure.

But what if that dance were interrupted? Would we truly be made whole if those bad memories were taken from us, or would we somehow become less than we should?

Would the lessons we’ve learned from our mistakes be dulled along with the memories? And so would we then be doomed to repeat them?

Is there value in the things that haunt us?

That’s the question. One worth pondering, too.

Better than forgetting our memories is surrendering them. Better than pushing them down is lifting them up.

Looking back

February 20, 2012 by Billy Coffey 9 Comments

A friend of mine is drowning in ancestral paperwork. Books and papers are strewn across the floor of his study. Piles of legal pads are stacked at his desk. And a giant world map hangs on one wall with brightly colored stickpins inserted not only into various countries, but specific parts of those countries.

He’s been at this for years, he says. And there’s no end in sight. It’s tough work, hard work, but ultimately very rewarding. He’s slowly gathering the pieces to the puzzle of his past, trying to answer the very riddle that we all at some time ponder:

Where do I come from?

He told me that as a child he found an old family Bible in his grandmother’s house. Inside were the names of her parents and grandparents, and theirs, and theirs, stretching back almost two hundred years. The writing was faded and the pages were yellowed, but he was captivated. Like rolling down the window of a speeding car to take one look back before the next curve.

Sadly, there were just the names. No locations or dates. And as his grandmother was elderly, she could unfortunately offer little help in the way of more information.

That Bible now sits on his bookshelf. A keepsake and a reminder, one that says this is where it started.

He’s Googled and Yahooed. He’s written letters to both our government and foreign ones. He’s corresponded with researchers and genealogists. And he’s uncovered much.

So far as he can tell, he can trace his family back to medieval Italy. Rome, to be exact. His ancestors were quite wealthy. Landowners and artists and poets. And even statesmen. Powerful people. Important people.

He likes this. He’s proud of his ancestors and their position in life. He may be a simple plumber, but he comes from good stock.

Me, I’m a little fuzzy on the history of the Coffey name. My particular branch came to this country in the mid-1600s, mingled with some Cherokee blood, and settled in the Shenandoah Valley. Before that they were mostly Irish and Dutch. Fishermen, from what I can tell, and farmers.

I could dig deeper of course, and someday maybe will. But the truth is that I’m not concerned about the more affluent members of my family tree. I don’t care about landowners and statesmen.

I want to know what cannot be known. I want to know about those fishermen and farmers. The Nobodies.

The ones who carried on my family’s name despite the poverty and the gruel and the taxes paid to oppressive kings. The ones who had to endure sickness rather than be treated for it. The common ones who lived a common existence and dared sail a perilous expanse of water to start over and live better.

I think of them often. And I often wonder if they thought of me.

Did they pause with their hand on the plow or the net to ponder if their name would still be uttered in this world a hundred generations later? Or did their gaze only go so far as the next row of crops or the next wave over the bow?

Was I as fuzzy and mysterious to them as they are to me?

I spend a lot of time convincing myself that only now matters. Only here. This. But as I continue on through my life, I’m finding that a little difficult to accept. Now isn’t the be all and end all. It is the only moment we truly possess, but not the only moment that truly matters. Because I am the result of many moments and many decisions that mattered to people with whom I share a common bond. And those who come after me, my children and their children and theirs, will be the results of my own moments and decisions.

It is, without a doubt, a heavy burden we bear. We, you and I, stand upon the cusp of history. Thousands of years of ancestors have led to us, and perhaps thousands of years more depend upon us.

Not to be powerful and important.

But merely to endure.

Where the magic be

February 16, 2012 by Billy Coffey 9 Comments

The people next to us were an extended family—nine of them, arranged in descending order from grandpa to grandchild, all occupying three tables that had been placed end to end in the middle of the restaurant. Most of their attention was focused on the grandchild. It was his birthday.

He looked eleven, maybe twelve. Bright eyed and brown haired. The first volleys of acne were landing upon his chin. The boy did not seem to mind. He nodded and smiled and offered a few words here and there. It was the typical pre-teen response to nearby family, one that said I love you people but I’m now too cool to show it.

I took all this in (writers will invariably call this sort of thing Research, which sounds much better than plain nosiness) and nearly moved on to the next table when the waiter arrived. He inquired as to the quality of everyone’s meal and if anyone would like dessert. The birthday boy’s face turned the color of his encroaching acne when everyone announced the occasion.

The waiter smiled and asked, “You like magic?”

The boy shrugged and snorted in the same motion. “There’s no such thing as magic.”

“I’ll be right back,” the waiter said.

He returned with a man I assumed was a dishwasher. His jeans and apron were soiled and soggy. He smiled down at the boy and said, “Hey there, m’man. Lemme show ya somethin.”

He produced a deck of cards from his apron and fanned them out face up in one fluid motion. Flicked them back with one hand. He smiled and winked at the family, who had by then already begun inching their chairs forward for a better view.

“You believe in magic, m’man?”

Another shrug and another snort.

“Cool,” the dishwasher said. He fanned the cards out again, this time face down. “Pick a card, birthday boy. Don’t let me see now.”

It took prodding from both mom and dad, but the boy did. He took one from the middle of the deck and held it close. He peeked and then let everyone else do the same.

“Toss it back in here,” the dishwasher said. He tilted the deck up and down and wiggled it. “Anywhere you want, Bossman.”

Back in the middle it went. The dishwasher slid the cards back one-handed again and held the deck beneath the birthday boy’s chin.

“Blow,” he said.

“No way.”

“Come on now. That’s where the magic be.”

Neither mom nor dad could get him to budge this time. Grandma stepped in. The boy blew on the deck and the dishwasher tapped it with his forefinger. He flipped over the top card.

I didn’t have to see the card to know the trick had worked. The birthday boy’s bewilderment did that. The slaps on the table by dad and grandpa helped.

“It’s a trick,” the boy said.

The dishwasher raised his eyebrows. “Okay, let’s try again.”

Another fan of the cards. The boy picked one from towards the back this time. He placed it in the middle. He handed the deck to dad to shuffle, who handed it to grandpa, then back to the birthday boy, who shuffled once more for good measure. Then he handed the deck back to the dishwasher and smirked.

The dishwasher held the deck beneath the boy’s chin, who proceeded to not so much blow as snort.

There was a tap on the deck. The top card turned over.

“Ha! That’s not my card.”

“No?” the dishwasher asked. “You sure?”

“Sure.”

“Dang. I dunno what happened. Guess you’re too good for me.”

I will say I was disappointed. I wanted to see the trick. And I’ll say the boy who thought himself a man was pretty disappointed too, even if he was too old to show it.

“You done with your plate there, Bossman?” the dishwasher asked. “Might as well take that on back.”

The boy nodded and picked up his plate. His mouth fell open.

His card was taped to the bottom.

The family applauded. The dishwasher bowed.

I have no idea who that boy was, but I guarantee I will always remember his birthday. I guarantee this too—whatever presents he was given, the best one came from the dishwasher. It was a reminder that no matter how old you think you are, there’s still a little kid hiding inside.

And no matter what we think, there is magic in this world.

There is magic everywhere.

The post I almost didn’t write

September 12, 2011 by Billy Coffey 9 Comments

I almost didn’t write a post about 9/11 this year. That would’ve been a first for me since beginning this blog. Sometimes it was a post, sometimes a video, but it was always something. If not on 9/11, then right around that time.

But this time I thought maybe not, even though it’s been ten years now. A decade. Anyone else feel as strangely about that as I do? I’ve read that scientists are studying why it seems that time speeds up as we grow older. Something in the brain, if I remember correctly. Some chemical or a certain pattern of neurons. Regardless, I remember a time when my days seemed to stretch on into forever. Now they pass so quickly. If there is anything I miss about childhood, it’s that sense of earthly eternity—that permanence.

That’s one reason I wanted to let this 9/11 pass. It feels like only yesterday I sat on the edge of my bed and watched those towers bleed fire and ash. Watched those poor souls jump from stories high, choosing death by gravity over death by immolation. Even now I see them. Those images will haunt me for the rest of my days. But I did not see that yesterday, I saw that ten years ago, and so much has happened since.

Another reason was how politicized the commemoration of 9/11 has become, how over-the-top. I hear religious leaders are not allowed to speak at Ground Zero this year, nor firefighters, nor policemen. I don’t understand how that could be. Then again, I don’t understand much these days. Sometimes I feel as though we’re all galloping toward some final end, and the ones leading the charge are the ones who are supposed to be protecting us.

But mostly, I wanted to let this 9/11 pass because of how strongly I still feel about it. To this day I cannot see an image of those ash-covered people fleeing for their lives or hear Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” or be reminded of the phrase “Let’s roll” without feeling my eyes sting and my throat tighten. Ten years seems a long time to hang on to such emotions. There comes a point when the mourning must stop and time must continue on. We all must learn to let go. After all, life is a straight line. It isn’t a circle.

That’s why I didn’t want to write anything.

And yet here I am, doing just that.

Because no matter how well-intentioned the people who say it’s time to get over it and move on may be, I know I never will. There are some things that should not be whisked away into the haze of our yesterdays to fuse with other memories until it becomes more fiction than fact. There are some stories that should continue to be told and retold not out of a sense of anger, but a sense of honor.

It is human nature to want to set aside pain and cover up old wounds. It is also human nature to hold onto those things because they are a reminder of both the coldness of this world and the faith we must possess to live upon it.

I could forget. I could move on. I could bow my head each September 11 and pause, and then I could move on as if it were any other day.

But I’m afraid if I do I will also forget the men and women who ran toward those flames rather than away.

I will forget an outpouring of love and kindness, of unity, that I had never experienced in my country.

I will forget the stories I heard like the man who believes he was guided to safety by an angel and the man who chose to stay and die in the North Tower rather than abandon his wheelchair-bound friend.

I’m afraid that I will forget not only the horror, but the wonder as well.

Because on that day ten years ago I saw what evil there lurked in the souls of men, and I also saw what grace abides there, too.