Billy Coffey

storyteller

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Why I’m saying goodbye

September 9, 2014 by Billy Coffey 4 Comments

image courtesy of photobucket.com
image courtesy of photobucket.com

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.

Filed Under: change, distance, friends, social media, technology, writing

Best friends

July 28, 2014 by Billy Coffey 2 Comments

best friendsEvery morning on my way to work the road takes me up a hill that offers what may well be the best possible view of our town. It’s a scene I never get tired of appreciating, though for the past week or so I haven’t taken the time to turn my head and do so. Because that’s just about the time Randy crests that same hill in the opposite direction, and I want to see if he waves.

We worked together in my previous job, suffering alongside one another through shift work and factory life. We were close in the way guys are, which means we’d laugh share our gripes and make fun of the other’s favorite sports team and punch each other in the arm. Male bonding is a complicated thing.

When I quit to take my current job, we kept in touch through phone calls and emails. A few months later, the phone calls stopped. The emails stopped soon thereafter.

He was laid off from the factory about a year ago and took a job that brought him my way every morning. I’d pass his jacked-up Chevy along the road and we’d both throw our hands up and wave. That’s the way it was for a while, our once close friendship reduced to a two second mention of the hand every Monday through Friday.

Then last Monday, I was fiddling with the radio station and he snuck up on me. No wave.

The next day, he was on his cell phone. No wave again. The day after that, I sneezed. Another no-wave.

There were no complications the day after that. We saw each other coming, my radio was good, there was no cell phone, and my nose was clear.

We passed each other as strangers.

I was thinking about all of this yesterday as I listened to a message on the answering machine. Thirty-seven seconds of observations that covered everything from lunch to clothing to the newest must-have technological doodad. I played it twice to catch it all and was impressed to notice that it had all seemed to be done in a single breath. The caller identified neither herself nor to whom the message was for, but her tinny, high-pitched voice could only mean it was one of my daughter’s classmates.

Her rambling continued, brushing up on the latest Suite Life episode and some juicy gossip. Satisfied that all bases had been covered, she then said goodbye, but not before offering this one promise:

“We’re going to be best friends forever, I just know it.”

I smiled to myself at those words and saved them on the machine for my daughter to hear later. It may not have been the most important message of the day on our telephone, but it was without a doubt the most interesting.

Such phone calls have become pretty regular in our house in the weeks since school has let out. My daughter is quite the social butterfly, a facet of her personality she did not inherit from her father. As such, she has a steady influx of friends who seem to have our phone number on speed dial.

But the girl who left a message? She’s different.

Her and my daughter have been classmates since kindergarten. There have been sleepovers, play dates, birthday parties, and even an exchange of gifts every Christmas. Given that both of their names begin with M, they are known by students and faculty simply as M & M. Where you see one, you will see the other. To say they’re close would be an understatement.

At twelve, they’ve known each other for more than half of their lives and about three quarters of their memory. It stands to reason that to them, it will always be such. There are no doubts and no hesitations. Life is simple, like one long and unbroken line that stretches on forever.

That’s how it is when you’re young. Everything seems so certain because there’s so much you don’t know. And a friend is a friend forever.

Maybe M & M are right. Maybe sixth grade will turn into high school and then college and then, one day, bridesmaids. I hope so.

One of the harshest lessons we must learn is that the tides of time will wash some into our lives and then out again. There are those in our lives destined to remain on our shores, and others meant only to find rest there before sailing upon other seas.

But rather than mourn the many those tides take away, we should rejoice in the few left behind. For they are the ones who walk alongside us.

Filed Under: children, friends, future

Eddie’s story

October 7, 2013 by Billy Coffey Leave a Comment

Screen shot 2013-10-07 at 10.15.27 AMI see him raise a hand out of the open passenger window and think he’s shooing a bee at first. He’s allergic to bees and swears the little buggers can smell that in a person. But no, that’s not what he’s doing. He’s instead waving to the bum who has taken up residence at the guardrail abutting the interstate onramp. That isn’t so surprising. Neither is the fact that the bum waves back, flittering his cardboard sign (HUNGRY, LONELY, TIRED is printed in black Sharpie on the front) and grinning back.

“That’s Eddie,” he tells me.

“Eddie.”

“Yep.”

I keep my eyes to the windshield and nod. “And you know this because—”

“—I stopped to talk to him the other day—”

“—Of course you did,” I say. Because that’s what the man beside me does. He talks to people. Talks to anyone. Anywhere. He’s a property owner by day, running a mini-kingdom of rented homes and apartments. I think he’s secretly a combination of St. Paul and Andy Griffith. To him, there are no strangers, there are simply people he isn’t friends with yet.

“And he’s Eddie?” I ask.

“Yep.”

He turns and sticks his head out the window. I look in the rearview. Eddie’s still looking, still shaking his sign. A blue SUV stops beside him. The driver hands him something that might be a dollar bill.

“Did you give him something?”

I’m nodding even before he says, “I bought him lunch,” because that’s what the man beside me does, too. The HUNGRY and LONELY and TIRED are the people he tries to love most because those are the ones he says Jesus loves most. We both love Jesus, my friend and I. Sometimes I think he might love Him a little more.

I smile and ask, “What’d you get in return?”

“What I always get.”

And here is my favorite part, it always is. Some say no act is truly altruistic, that there is a bit of selfishness in everything. That might be true, even with my friend. Because he wants to help and he wants to love just as Jesus said we all should, but he always asks for something in return. He always asks for their story. They all have one—we all have one.

“Did you know Eddie’s been to every state?” is how he begins. I just drive and listen. “Born in Cleveland, but he didn’t stay there long. Parents were awful, that’s usually how it goes. Drunks that beat on him. He ran when he was sixteen. That was twenty years ago.”

“So what’s he do?”

He shrugs and says, “Just drifts. Went west first, all up and down the coast, then made his way east slow. Even went to Thailand once. Worked on a steamer. Only job he’s ever had.”

I don’t say anything to this and wonder for a moment if it’s a trap. We’ve had this discussion many times, my friend and I. I’ll start by saying people like Eddie really could find work. Menial work will still bring money. There’s help out there if Eddie wants it, I’d say, but a lot of people like him live the way they do through choice rather than necessity. My friend agrees in principle. He also doesn’t think that matters much.

“He was married once,” he continues. “She died. Had cancer while they stood in front of a justice of the peace. Eddie knew it and married her anyway. Told me he loved her, and that was reason enough. That was eight years ago. He came east after that. I think he’s trying to run from the memory.”

“I think we all do that,” I say.

“Eddie’s smart. Not with that,” he’s quick to add, “I mean smart like other people are smart. He has dreams.”

That’s the last my friend says of Eddie—“He has dreams.” We end up at the Lowe’s to get what we’ve driven to town for. By the time we head back, Eddie’s gone. I don’t know where he’s gone. My friend probably does, but he doesn’t offer.

I’ve told him many times I wish I could do what he does—stop someone, notice them, help them. Ask them their story. I guess such a thing just isn’t in me. I’m a shy person. Maybe I don’t have enough Jesus.

Still, I think we all need the reminder that all those lost souls we see and read about—those people we sometimes lie to ourselves and think aren’t like us at all—really are. They’ve loved and lost. They’re still searching. We’re all people, and in many ways we’re all hungry and lonely and tired. It’s such an obvious statement, and maybe that’s why it escapes us so often.

Filed Under: burdens, dreams, friends, help, Jesus, poverty, story

The last thing I’d ever write

November 2, 2011 by Billy Coffey 26 Comments

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The note above was penned by an eighty-five-year-old man named Robert. One day last month, he drove his car down a steep rural road to look at a pond. When he tried to drive back the way he came, the car rolled off the path and became mired in a ravine.

Robert was unable to walk out of his situation due to back problems that left him only able to get around with the help of a walker. He had no food. The only water he had barely filled an 8 ounce bottle. He honked his horn until the car battery was depleted.

Robert sat there, alone in his car, for two days.

With no food, little water, and temperatures in the upper 90s, he realized things didn’t look good. So he grabbed a pen and began writing on the car’s armrest.

Look closely and you can make a bit of it out. The first—and Robert said the most important—was that he make sure everyone knew it was an accident. Robert didn’t want anyone thinking he committed suicide. He wrote that the car’s wheels spun out. He asked that his family give him a closed casket.

About forty hours later, Robert was found. Turns out that final note wasn’t needed after all. As you can imagine, the whole ordeal changed him. Robert has a new outlook on life. He understands its delicateness. He knows every moment is precious.

It’s a good story with a happy ending. But me, I can’t stop thinking about that note.

What would I tell my family? What would I tell you? What would I say if I could never say anything more? Those questions have preyed on my mind since reading Robert’s story. I figured the only way I could start thinking about something else is to go ahead and write my letter.

So here it is, the last thing I’d ever write:

Dear All,

I don’t know how I managed to get myself in this mess. I think a lot of times you can’t see the trouble that’s coming until it’s on you. This is probably one of those times. I guess I should hurry. I never used to think much about time. Suddenly, time seems pretty important.

To my family, I want to say that the very last thing I want to do is leave you behind. You need to know that as much as I’m ready for heaven, I’m thinking the angels will have to drag me there. But don’t worry, I’ll find me a bench somewhere near the gate and wait for each of you.

To my wife, I’m sorry I was never the man I wanted to be. I’m thankful you overlooked that. Take care of the kids. Raise them to believe like you and fight like me.

To my son, there are few things more difficult in life than knowing how to be a man. I’ll give you a quick summary—work hard, laugh much, pray often. Love dignity rather than money. Face your darkness. Let your word be your bond. You’ll do well in life if you cling to those things. Know that I will always be proud of you.

To my daughter, you’ve taught me more about faith than anyone I’ve ever known. Remember this: we seldom have any choice as to the wars we must fight, we can only elect to face them with honor or cowardice.

To my friends, I know it may appear at times that I prefer silence to speech and solitude to company, but you mended the gashes I had rent into my own heart. Whatever goodness is in me was fostered by you.

I ask that you dispose of my remains as you see fit. I have no preference. Whatever flesh and bone is left behind is not me, it is merely an empty house that God has deemed I’ve outgrown.

Do not mourn, laugh.

Do not look back, look forward.

Live intently.

And last, know that all that separates the two of us is but one stroke of heaven’s eternal clock. Life is but a dream. Death is simply when we wake.

Filed Under: family, friends, future, life, regrets, time

A Little Help

April 5, 2009 by Billy Coffey 22 Comments

“HELP ME!! WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME?!”

One voice rising above the many in Wal-Mart. Three rows over and two rows down. The dull roar that had just moments before been a sort of white-noise to the crowd was suddenly silent, and an air of unease drifted over the people around me.

“IS THERE ANYONE THERE WHO CAN HELP ME?”

The dozen or so people in the canned vegetable aisle, myself included, are now faced with a choice. What to do? Stay? Quietly move into the opposite direction and thereby be safely removed from whatever trouble may be going on? Or head toward the voice and help?

“PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME!!”

Many, most, take that moment to discover they have forgotten one particular item on their list that just so happens to be on the other side of the store. Away from the shouts. They retreat with heads bowed, as if they have just been caught doing something they shouldn’t.

Others, I notice, immediately jump into action and race toward the noise. These are people who seem inherently well-equipped to handle the situation:

An elderly lady with WORLD’S GREATEST GRANDMA stenciled on her sweatshirt and ten boxes of tissues in her shopping cart. Yes. If someone’s in trouble, you need a grandma around.

A twenty-something young woman with a radio clipped to her jeans and an EMT hat pushed down over her eyes. Her face is flushed with adrenaline and her steps are brisk. If these are shouts of pain, she’ll be necessary.

A cowboy, complete with battered hat, bandanna, and boots. I’m not sure what his purpose is, but everyone knows it’s always good to have a cowboy around when the natives start to get restless.

Also joining the rescue party is a young man in his twenties, dressed in fatigues and carrying a brown beret. His presence is obvious. Soldiers don’t run from trouble, they run toward it.

And then there is me, who follows the motley crew of do-gooders not because I have any necessary talents (I don’t) or because I think I can add anything to this rescue mission (again, I don’t), but because I just want to know what’s going on.

“I NEED HELP!!”

We converge on the voice and find that just about every Wal-Mart employee in the store is doing the same. Some amble with the please-God-what-now? attitude of those used to such occurrences. Others speed walk, anxious to get there but not first. A few, I notice, are nearly sprinting.

The Shouter is standing in the middle of the cookware aisle. Older man, dressed neatly in khakis and a white shirt. His face is red with exertion and his eyes have the crazed and confused tint of desperation. His left hand is raised into the air, begging for recognition. In his right is a skillet.

Everyone stops.

“What’s wrong, sir?” asks one of the employees, breathless from the trip from the other side of the store.

The Shouter looks at the crowd that has gathered around him, elated that someone has heard him. Help is finally here.

Grandma inches her buggy closer. The EMT has her radio ready to summon the ambulance. The cowboy and the soldier move to form a protective perimeter around the aisle. And me? I’m just standing there looking stupid.

Finally, the man speaks: “Can you tell me how much this skillet costs?”

Silence all around.

“Can…what?” the employee asks.

“I need to know how much this skillet costs,” the Shouter repeats, waving the pan in front of her. “There’s not a price on it.”

An almost uniform moan is breathed over him from the people gathered, to which he replies with a slight shrug.

“You mean you were doin’ all that hollerin’ and screamin’ for a price check on a skillet?” the employee asks.

Another shrug. “Yes, ma’am.”

She rips the pan from his hand and says, “Hang on.”

“Thank you, kind lady,” Shouter answers.

The crowd begins to disperse. Grandma is laughing now. She is used to this sort of thing. The EMT, however, is more than a little put out. Her adrenaline supply has emptied, and she’s tired. The cowboy and the soldier, I notice, are still standing guard. Just in case, their postures say.

And me, I’m still standing there looking stupid. But there is a smile on my face. A smile of knowing. Because even though this man has managed to aggravate about thirty people this day, he has my admiration.

It takes a lot for some people to admit they need help, whether it’s help as big as fixing a life or as small as pricing a pan. Pride gets in the way. “I don’t need anyone,” we say. “I can handle it myself.”

Not true, I think. Because no matter how self-reliant we say we are and no matter how strong we believe ourselves to be, we still need each other. We’re not living in a world of Me, no matter what we might think. No, this is a world of Us.

Even the strongest among us need a shoulder to cry on. Even the most confident need an ear to whisper into.
And even God needs two mountains to make a valley.

Filed Under: friends, nature purpose, trials

Eleanor’s Story

March 24, 2009 by Billy Coffey 24 Comments

If the UPS man hadn’t delivered a package to her that day, I would never have stopped to say hello. Funny how that happens sometimes, isn’t it? How those little, inconsequential things that happen to us every day are really big things in disguise.

When you see a UPS man, you get out of his way. This is for your own safety. UPS men (and women, of course) are in a hurry. They have to be. They have a truck full of packages that must be delivered before their day can be considered done. No exceptions.

So when on a morning walk I spotted a UPS man delivering a package to a lady in the neighborhood, and when I saw him actually stop and talk to said lady in a conversation, I paid attention.

Older woman, smartly dressed. She smiled and laughed and touched his arm in a motherly sort of way, and he nodded and smiled and tipped his cap as he left.

Funny thing about that house: I didn’t recall ever noticing it. Our neighborhood, though rural and against the mountain, is still a pretty big place. Very likely a few hundred houses in all. I supposed that with so many homes, misplacing one or two in my memory was bound to happen.

My kids did not trick-or-treat there. I was sure of that. And I was equally sure there were no Christmas decorations there last December. I would remember.

I passed by just as the UPS man paused at his truck to type something into his electronic clipboard.

“How ya doin’?” I called.

“Good,” he answered. “You?”

“Good. Busy today?”

He laughed. “Always busy, my man. Especially here.”

“Oh yeah?”“Oh yeah. I’m here every day.”

So began a rather lengthy conversation about the unseen woman in the unseen house. Eleanor, whom I had neither met nor seen in all my years in the neighborhood. Which was, according to the UPS man, a forgivable offense. No one else had really met or seen her either.

She was alone. No family. No children. She spent her life inside for the most part, venturing out for groceries rarely and only when the needs outweighed the trip. She wasn’t a recluse, he said. She was just shy and didn’t want to be a bother.

“Nothing wrong with that, right?” he asked.

“Not a thing.”

He turned and stared at the house. I did likewise. A corner of the living room curtain waved, as if someone was peeking out.

“But she’s lonely. Real lonely. I drop off something for her most every day. She gets these catalogs in the mail, see. Every catalog you can think of. She’ll call and order stuff all day long.”

“Guess everyone needs a hobby,” I offered.

“Ain’t a hobby,” he said. “Like I said, she’s lonely. She orders stuff just to have someone to talk to. Knows all those operators by name, mostly. Talks about ‘em like they’re her family. Which I guess they kinda are.”

“Shut up,” I said.

“Seriously. Told me so herself. I guess they don’t mind. They get her money, she gets some company. She started talking to me because I always delivered the stuff. I always hustle on my other stops because I know she’ll want to sit and talk a while.”

The curtain moved again.

“Gotta go, my man. Take it easy, huh?”

“Yeah,” I answered, still looking at the house. “You, too.”

He left. I stood. Staring at the house.

The curtain moved again.

I could imagine Eleanor in her living room, scared to death and wondering what the strange man by the driveway was doing. She probably had the phone in her hand, ready to call for help. Not 911, though. Given what I’d learned, it was more likely Pottery Barn.

I always considered the forgotten among us to be confined to some faraway city street, huddled beneath park benches or in soup kitchens. That many resided here in my peaceful town was unthinkable. That one resided just down the road from me was heartbreaking.

I walked up the driveway and rang her doorbell. The curtain moved again. There was silence.

Then the door opened.

***

Eleanor passed on recently. I can say that we had many a good visit with one another. I can also say, however, that loneliness is one of those things that doesn’t disappear at once. It takes time. Time she didn’t have.

If I have one consolation, it’s that I’ve learned the company she lacked in this life was found in the next.

Because according to the nurses at the hospital, her last words were these:“I see angels everywhere.”

(photo courtesy of photobucket)

Filed Under: faith, friends, purpose

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