distance

Amish family reunion

July 20, 2015 by Billy Coffey Leave a Comment

Two summers ago:

I spent much of this past weekend at the Amish church along the edge of town, attending a family reunion that turned out to be larger than anything I could have imagined. Uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters, and more second cousins than I can remember. All descending upon that quiet little church with the softball field and the see-saw, and an ancient blooming oak that looked down upon us all.

My mother’s maiden name is Kanagy—a proper Amish name if you’ll ever hear one, right up there with the Yoders and Schrocks and Zooks. The family center is still in Lancaster County, though the years have flung the Kanagys to all corners of the country. It was a strange thing, hearing that. The Coffeys have always been in these mountains. We always will. I suppose it’s an unwritten rule that we should never roam far from our family’s bones. And yet Saturday we parked near vehicles from Kansas, Colorado, and Delaware. Sunday, it was mostly Ohio.

Many of them I’d never seen (though many remembered me as a child, one even commenting on numerous occasions that I smelled very good as a baby—a tidbit of information that never failed to make my son giggle). Others I’d seen only in passing and only years before. And yet all of them looked familiar in the way family always does, whether it was the way all of their faces had the same shape or the way everyone’s laugh seemed to lilt at the end. We all shared something important. We wandered and mingled and introduced ourselves, and we all felt that tugging of a thin cord wound around us all, placed there by some long-ago kin.

Not that things always went so smoothly. My mother’s Amish heritage gave way to the Mennonite faith when she was a child. The Mennonite in her fell away (at least in practice) not long after she married my father. I was raised more conservative country than conservative Mennonite, which was why my family showed up in jeans and capris rather than the accustomed plain blue pants and white shirts, or the plain blue dresses and white bonnets.

(Also this rather important point: If you should ever find yourself in the company of a hundred Amish and Mennonite people and you yourself are neither Amish nor Mennonite, take care to cover the ginormous tattoo running from your shoulder to your elbow. This, I found out the hard way.)

So yes, there was some getting used to things. But the vast majority of my distant relatives were more than happy to put our outward differences aside, eager to use the opportunity as a chance to see how the other half lives.

I was pleased to find many of them had kept up with my wife and children and had read my books. Just because you’re Amish doesn’t mean you’re dim. Indeed, the Kanagy’s are an intellectual lot; in my wanderings around the reunion, I met several preachers and one college professor. Reading is considered not only necessary, but pleasurable. The classics are most encouraged. Dickens is widely read.

(Which brings another rather important point: Amish people do not read Amish fiction. In fact, many of them had never heard of such a thing— its mere mention brought the very same shock and laughter my son offered when he heard I’d smelled excellent as a baby.)

I imagine much like most families, what truly brought us together was the food. Your typical Amish fare—bean soup, moon pies, barbequed chicken, fresh bread, and spearmint tea made to such perfection that I could not help but drink it and think of my own grandmother. We stood in that gathering hall to pray and we said our amens, and when we sat to eat we found that despite all of our differences, we were still all the same. Because that’s when the tales began.

One after another, each fired in succession. Tales of days gone by and times when the world seemed a better, fresher place. The hardships endured. The ones who have gone on. The ones who have come to take their place. And when we shared each of these things we shared not only our memory, we shared ourselves.

I won’t see many of them again until the next reunion. Though from what I hear, this one may be the last. Too many of my relatives have grown too old. The distance is too great between us for the traveling. Its wearying to the bones.

If that’s the case, I can rest knowing I spent my time wisely this past weekend. I learned much of my past. And I learned this as well: what binds a family together is a thing deeper than blood and body, it is story. And that is the story of us all.

Shutting out the world, if only for awhile

June 22, 2015 by Billy Coffey 2 Comments

blue ridge I write this in the early afternoon of this past Friday, looking out the window toward mountains shrouded in summer haze. It’s quiet here, always a blessing, even as the world burns slow in other parts of the country. Sad as it is, I suppose I can use “burns” both literally and figuratively.

Tomorrow morning, my family and I will pack up and trade these mountains for the Carolina coast. My job allows one vacation a year, and I mean to use every bit. It’s always a scramble to get away, part stress and part strain and an overwhelming need to escape, even if some part of you understands that you’ll eventually have to come back again. I can say I always look forward to vacation week. I can say I’m looking forward to this one a little more.

Because I’m tired, you see.

Of everything.

This week has brought news of another shooting, this one at a church in Charleston, claiming nine lives. Aside from the hurt and anger and outrage, I don’t have anything to say. Still trying to process it, I suppose. Still trying to take it all in and turn it over in my heart and my thoughts, still trying to figure out if I should do such a thing or even if such a thing is possible. I don’t know that it is. Some part of my says no, that if I could understand the whys of what would lead such a young man to perpetrate such an evil act, I should then worry much more about myself than about the state of the world. But another part of me begs a yes to that question, at least partway—it may not be possible to understand or healthy to ponder why, but an attempt at both is necessary. Too often, we are confronted by the reality of evil only to turn ourselves away. It scares us (as it should), makes us uncomfortable (as it should), but that’s not the worst that evil inspires. To gaze upon it is to see into a mirror badly bent. It is to behold what we are all capable of, should things come to it, and to know how far we have yet to go. It’s heartrending and soul crushing, and yet the alternative—blaming parents, blaming guns, blaming culture, or ignoring it all together—is much worse.

There was a time not long ago when these reminders would come sporadically, spread out over months or even years. But now they seem to come in a much quicker fashion, don’t they? Maybe it’s the news, now on twenty-four hours a day. Maybe it’s a byproduct of living in an age of constant social media, a heartrending and soul crushing thing in itself. I don’t know. All I do know is what I’ve said—I’m tired.

On my way to work this morning, I stopped at the town BP for gas. A tractor pulled up to the pump beside me, the farmer straddling it already dirty and sweating from the fields. Our talk wound itself around to Charleston. He shook his head, eyes wide and mournful. Said he hadn’t heard a thing about it.

I wondered how that was possible, then stared at that old John Deere. Here was a man with neither time nor inclination for the wider world. Long days outside at the farm, tending to cows and the rising corn, short nights curled in bed, the weather report better told by the winds and the clouds than by some man in a suit coming through a television screen. Of course he hadn’t heard. How would he?

I felt bad, thinking I’d ruined his morning with the news. The way he pulled off told me he took things hard. Church is supposed to be a place of love. Where you’re safe. He probably went home thinking that’s the last time he’s coming to town. Ain’t nothing good away from the farm. Whole world’s going to hell, already halfway there.

They say ignorance is bliss, and they mean that bad. I would agree. Shutting yourself off from the world, refusing to find out what’s going on and to care about it, is a lot of what’s behind the problems we face. But I still think about that old farmer on his tractor, tending to his work as the world flies past unseen and unknown. I think about long walks on an empty beach and tides that carry your troubles away. And I think maybe that’s what we all need right now, if only for a little while.

Why I’m saying goodbye

September 9, 2014 by Billy Coffey 4 Comments

Some friends of ours moved last week. Traded one set of blue mountains for a set of rocky ones. It’s something they’ve wanted to do for a while (he has family in Colorado, not twenty miles from their new home, and she grew up in nearby Boulder). Their move had less to do with the economy than a simple desire for a change of scenery. I nodded when they told me that, but I didn’t really understand. Who would want to leave rural Virginia?

I’ve known them for about fifteen years now. They’ve been to my home, I’ve been to theirs. We’ve shared meals and Christmas presents and birthday parties for our children. It’s a sad thing that in a world defined by hustle and bustle and there’s-always-something-going-on, few people slow down enough to make good friends. That’s what I’d call them—good friends.

But they’re gone now, a thousand miles westward. They will find new lives, and I will keep my old one.

Their leaving was a bit anti-climactic. That surprised me. I suppose deep down I knew what I had yet to consider, which was that they’d still be around. There’s the phone, of course. E-mail. Facebook and Twitter. Skype. No matter that two mountain ranges and a great big river separated us, they’d still be no more than a few button pushes away.

That’s when I realized how much the world has shrunk. Never mind that our technology has made it possible to cure disease and peer into the deepest reaches of the universe and know within moments what has happened in a tiny spot across the world. It has done something more profound than all of those things together.

It has lifted from us the heavy weight of ever having to say goodbye.

I’ve read stories of families separated during the Great Depression, of parents and children cleaved apart as some remained behind and others struck out for new territories and better hope. They had to say their goodbyes. Many were never heard from again. Can you imagine?

I remember looking around at my classmates during high school graduation and thinking that I’d never see or hear from most of them again. These were friends, many of whom I’d known since third grade. They’d shared my life, I’d shared theirs. Yet as I sat there I knew all of that was slipping away. I knew that to live was not about being born and dying later, it was to endure many births and suffer many deaths, and sometimes that birth and death happens in the same moment.

I was right. Twenty years later, I’ve not seen many of them. But more than one have friended me on Facebook, and from all over the world.

This should make me feel good, I guess. Aside from death, there are no farewells now. There is always “Talk to you soon” or “Shoot me an email” or “DM me.”

But I don’t feel particularly good. I think we’re missing out on something if we never have to say goodbye anymore. I think it robs us of the necessity of truly understanding the impact some people have on our lives, and the impact we have on the lives of others. To have to say goodbye is to know a part of you is leaving or staying, either scattered through the world or planted where you are.

I say this because just a bit ago, I received an email (plus pictures) from my friends. Things are well with them. They’re settling in and getting used to things. They’re happy. And that’s good.

But rather than casually shooting an email back, I think I’ll sit down and take my time. I think I’ll treat it as a farewell, even though it isn’t. I think I’ll tell them just how much I’ll miss them even though it’ll be as if we’re still just down the road from each other.

I figure somewhere deep down, they’ll need that goodbye. I know I do.

Closer to our better selves

June 17, 2013 by Billy Coffey 8 Comments

photo-675 For one week a year I exchange the mountains of Virginia for the shores of North Carolina. That’s where I’m sitting right now—sheltered beneath the cover of the back deck, with a family of deer, four sand dunes, and the Atlantic all in front of me. This little island has become more than a vacation spot for my family these past years. It’s been made into a place for us all to take a deep breath from our lives. We set our trifles aside here and concentrate on the big things.

We’re not the only ones, either.

We’ve been here three days now, long enough to meet and greet the neighbors. The couple who each morning stake the plot of sand fifty yards to our right are here to celebrate their fifty-seventh wedding anniversary. Nice folks, both of them. They arrive early, just after the sun has risen, him carrying two chairs and a small umbrella while she tarries behind with a cooler full of sweet tea. There they’ll sit long into the day, staring out over the water. Few words pass between them. At some point, his right hand will stretch out and touch her left. He told me they’ve been coming here for decades, ever since their son and daughter were small. Those were the years before the troubles, he said—back before they lost their son to a motorcycle accident and before the falling out with their daughter. She’s in Oregon now, married twice and divorced once, with grandchildren neither of them have ever seen. It’s just them now, sitting on the beach with the wide ocean in front of them, holding hands.

The family to our left is an active lot. Mother, father, and three young kids. They do everything—swim and boogie board and hunt for shells. Yesterday, they managed to construct a world class sandcastle. The vast majority of these activities are the father and childrens’ to do alone. Mom spends most of her time sitting in the chair beneath a blue and yellow umbrella. She wears a scarf to cover her bald head. The doctors say her cancer is gone now, just as they said it was gone five years ago. They’ve all reached the silent conclusion the disease will be a specter that follows her for the rest of her life. She smiles and laughs often despite of that. Or, perhaps, because of it.

I could go on, tell you about the twenty-something young man in the home nearby, hiding not from a person but from a future he isn’t ready for. He spends his days kite surfing and his evenings sitting in the sand, watching the tides go out. Or I could talk about the widow who brings her husband’s German shepherd out to play in the surf every morning, or the grandpa who hikes up his jeans so he can wade into the water in search of a mystical starfish. There are a thousand stories here because there are a thousand people, and we are all different in who we are and what we do but we are also all the same. For this one week, we are all just a bit closer to our better selves. Not whole, because we’re still broken. Not at peace, because such a thing cannot truly be found this side of heaven.

But close? Yes. Close enough.

And sometimes, that’ll do. That’ll do just fine.

The journey and the destination

October 11, 2012 by Billy Coffey 4 Comments

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.

A letter to me

July 6, 2011 by Billy Coffey 28 Comments

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.”

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