Billy Coffey

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Lessons learned at the Walmart

May 24, 2016 by Billy Coffey 1 Comment

WalmartThe scene: Very back corner of the local Walmart. Not the corner with the toys, which plays into much of the drama that is unfolding before me. No, I’m talking about the other back corner. Namely, the applesauce aisle.

The characters: One mother, aged mid-thirties, dressed in a faded pair of blue jeans and a Johnny Cash T-shirt that reads FOLSOM COUNTY PRISON in faded letters. Hair a frazzled blond.

Also her son, aged six by my estimation, wearing a similar pair of jeans and a look on his face that says Watch Out, I’m Gonna Blow.

And then there’s me, standing some ten feet away and playing the role of Gawker. Because this kid is about to get the snot knocked out of him.

Not that I can blame him, really. Sometimes Walmart puts me in just as much a foul mood as it has put this poor kid, who has just about had enough. He’s endured rows upon rows of boring stuff—tomato sauce and cereal and flour and canned soup, not to mention a questionable assortment of produce. Time has gone wobbly. Past and present and future have been sucked away within these four massive steel walls, creating some sort of hellish alternate dimension where Happiness cannot survive for long. He wants to go look at the toys or at least the DVDs, something besides groceries. Mom says no, not yet. She says groceries are more important than toys and DVDs. The boy knows is either a lie or further proof that this woman who gave birth to him, who carried him in her very womb and suckled him at her very breast, is some sort of alien overlord.

He tries to keep quiet, keep himself together. Tries to hang on. But it’s here in the applesauce aisle that he finally loses it, and only after waiting in agonizing silence as his mother spends a full two minutes pondering the difference between the cinnamon applesauce, the low-sugar, and the regular. He’s tired. He’s grouchy. He just wants to look at some toys for a little while.

What happens isn’t the sort of slow-building meltdown with which every parent is familiar. No, this is a full on natural disaster that goes from calm to catastrophic in less than three seconds. The boy wails. He thrashes. He stomps his feet and screams and yells “STUPID!” and “TOYS!” and other words I cannot decipher, all of which draws every eye near. There are sympathetic looks from other parents. A few nearby children offer slight nods of support.

Everybody knows what’s coming. People can go on and on about corporal punishment and the negative effects it has upon children, how it’s even a form of child abuse. But most folks consider those words as little more than academic ramblings that have no place in the real world, and the the world doesn’t get more real than the applesauce aisle at Walmart.

We’re all riveted—me, the young man a few feet away who looks as though he’s just decided he was never going to be a father, the old woman with a cart full of panty hose and microwave dinners who looks at the boy and whispers “Kids these days” in the same way another old woman no doubt had once looked at her. The only exception is the mother herself, still studying a package of low-sugar applesauce and one flavored with cinnamon.

She places both back on the shelf and looks at her son.

He crosses his arms, making a stand.

She bends down.

He steps back too late. Her arms shoot out and take hold of his shoulders the way a spider would its prey, making everyone flinch. The boy, now caught, struggles as his mother pulls him toward her. He fights and squirms and screams more before realizing none of it will do any good, at which point he plays his only remaining card—he goes boneless.

Unfortunately for him, his mother doesn’t care. She continues reeling him in until he is near her face, at which point she lifts his feet off the ground. The eighteen-year-old boy next to me turns to leave, likely remembering his own public spanking sometime past. The old woman only shakes her head (“Kids these days” she says again) and decides to keep watching.

But just as the moment we’ve all been expecting finally arrives, the mother does something that surprises us all. She doesn’t turn her son over and give him a stiff whack on the butt, doesn’t shake her finger in his face and give him a lecture about all she has to do to keep him alive. Instead, she lifts him up to her eye level, staring through those red cheeks and wet eyes and the snot running down out of his nose.

And kisses him.

That’s it, nothing more. Kisses him square on one red cheek and then lowers him back to the floor, where the boy can only stand shocked into silence as she goes back to studying the pros and cons of applesauce.

What crowd had gathered now moves off in search of other entertainment. Me? I linger. I take a minute, because I know something important has just happened here. Anger has been quelled. Rage has been stymied. Not by means of hotter anger or larger rage but by a single kiss—by a simple act of love that said I know you’re upset, but I promise it’ll be okay.

And do you know what I think? I think a lot of our problems with each other could be put away just by doing that. Not to meet screaming and yelling with louder screaming and yelling, but with a simple act of love. With a reminder that we’re all in this place where happiness can never last long, but we’re all in it together.

Filed Under: children, choice, conflict, emotions, family, love, small town life

The game of life

April 20, 2015 by Billy Coffey 1 Comment

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

Work at a college around a bunch of teens and twenty-somethings long enough, and you will begin to ask yourself some questions. “How can anyone wear flip-flops in December?” is one. “They actually call that music?” is another. And then there is the biggie:

“Was I really that stupid when I was their age?”

The answer, of course, is yes. Absolutely.

For instance. When I was twenty, I believed:

That life was simple.

That the future was set in stone.

That love was all I needed.

That there is good and there is bad and there is nothing else.

That faith would make everything better.

That the young had more to offer than the old.

That the new held more promise than the tried and true.

Twenty-two years have passed since then. Twenty-two very long, very frantic, and at times very painful years. Whichever of the above beliefs were not proven ill-conceived through marriage and children have certainly been proven so through experience. I know better now. Much, much better.

For instance.

I know that life is not simple. It is hard and scary and tiresome, but it is not simple. If you think it is, then you’re not really living it.

I know that the future may well be set in God’s eyes, but it certainly isn’t in mine. What happens tomorrow is most often a direct result of what I do today, which is most often a direct result of what I did yesterday. The choices I make this day, this second, reach further and deeper than I can possibly realize. Every moment is a defining moment. Every moment is a moment of truth.

I know that love is not all I need. I know that without such things as grace and forgiveness and effort love will crumble upon itself. Love is not the all-powerful cure that poets and dreamers have crafted it to be. It must be nurtured and fed and tended to. Love is not a firm rock that can withstand anything. It is a delicate rose that can wither without attention.

I know that there is good and bad. But I also know that there is more, and I need to look no further than my own heart for proof. For there resides the good man I could be, the flawed man that I am, and the man who must choose daily which he will become.

I know that faith alone is feeble, that only when it is polished with action does it truly shine. Too many times I have prayed for things to get better but did nothing to make them so. God may move mountains, but that’s because mountains can’t move themselves.

I know that the vigor and strength of youth may power society, but it’s experience that drives it. Life has rules, and unfortunately they are not given all at once, but bit by bit as we go. That’s why parents and grandparents are so important. They’ve been there. And because they have, they know a lot more than we do. Time changes. The times do not.

And lastly, I know the new may be exciting, may be revolutionary, may even be promising, but I also know they may not be that way for long. The very things that have sustained us in the past are the things that guarantee us a bright future, things like the importance of family and God, things like the virtues of kindness and loyalty and forgiveness. Such things are woven into us. They are the foundation of who we are and who we will become.

That’s what I know now. Will those beliefs change? Maybe. Check back in twenty years and I’ll let you know.

Filed Under: change, dreams, endurance, future, life, love

My neighbor and hero

February 20, 2014 by Billy Coffey 9 Comments

Screen Shot 2014-02-19 at 9.28.39 AM
image courtesy of google images.

Time has a way of wiping the memory, compacting chunks of years into months or even days in the mind, glossing over even those recollections we once held as precious. There is much I’ve misplaced about my childhood, but one thing stands out even now: those long days when I sat prostrate in front of the television, my knobby knees tucked under myself, back straight and eyes forward, waiting for Mr. Rogers to come on.

It was much the same with you, I would imagine. Generations of people grew up visiting Mr. Rogers and his neighborhood each day. We grew up with him. Learned with him. No matter who we are or what we’ve become, our childhoods have him in common.

Growing up, he was my hero. I wanted a sweater like his and a sandbox like his, and I pined for a magical train that would run through my house to distant lands. It was time that separated us, no longer made us neighbors. When a boy (or a girl, for that matter) reaches a certain age, Mr. Rogers is no longer cool. Mr. Rogers becomes a nerd. A dork. He’s no longer a friend, he’s the weird old man down the street.

How stupid we all are.

In 1997, after 33 years of teaching us all how to look and listen and act, Fred Rogers was given a lifetime achievement award at the Daytime Emmys. It was quite an odd sight, seeing him and his wife among some of the most famous and powerful people in Hollywood. And yet he took the stage to receive the award accompanied by a standing ovation that ended when he stood in front of the microphone. What happened next can only be described as magical. I ask you to take three minutes out of your day to watch:

Video from KarmaTube

How wonderful is that? How beautiful that this humble man (who was an ordained minister to boot) stood upon that glimmering stage in all that pomp and circumstance, holding a statue coveted by so many, and made it all not about him. And more than that, he reminded everyone else that it wasn’t all about them, either. It was instead about the ones who had been there to support them, to love them, to help them. In an age defined by the individual, Fred Rogers taught us in ten seconds that we are all connected to one another.

But there’s more. What struck me most watching that speech was that such a powerful truth had been given with such meekness and humility. How hard do you think it would be to convince a crowd of Hollywood actors and actresses to pause for a moment and think about someone other than themselves? To forget their fancy dress and their high status? And yet Mr. Rogers did just that, and merely by looking at his watch.

“I’ll watch the time.”

That’s all it took. There is a small rumble in the crowd, a few chuckles, and then utter silence. Because Mr. Rogers wasn’t kidding. He was serious, he wanted them to do this. And when Mr. Rogers asks that you do something, you do it. Not because you’re scared or intimidated, but because a part of you knows that he loves you.

Because he’s your neighbor.

As a result, Fred Rogers got exactly what he wanted that night. Not applause, not a statue. He convinced all of those people that they are indeed special, not because of what they’ve become, but because of who they loved and who loved them.

And that is why Mr. Rogers was my hero growing up. And now that I’m grown, why he’s my hero still.

Filed Under: encouragement, heros, love, success Tagged With: Mr. Rogers

Puppy Love

November 11, 2013 by Billy Coffey 3 Comments

photoAs I write this, there is a dog next to me. She (it is a “she”—my son checked the first time we visited her at the SPCA) is curled up in a tight black ball. Her eyes are closed but her ears are perked; she snores and wakes herself up. As I wrote that last sentence, she pushed her wet nose against my forearm and then settled back into position. There is a slimy spot on my forearm now. I don’t mind.

We call her Daisy. Part labrador and part everything else. A mutt, in other words. Seven months old—still a pup. Had we not claimed her, I expect she would’ve been put down by now. But we had to, you see. Claim her, I mean. One look at her trembling body in that pen, the way she kept her tail tucked between her hind legs and her ears flat against her head. How she wouldn’t even come to me the first time I visited her and then crawled to me the second time. I had to bring her home. Just had to.

The kids wanted a dog. They’re at That Age now. I’m not sure what That Age means, only that it’s what everyone said—my parents, my wife’s, everyone at work: “You really should get your kids a dog, they’re at That Age.”

So: Daisy.

She isn’t the brightest dog in the world. She spent about five minutes the other night chewing on her own leg, trying to figure out what it was. A little bit ago, she got up to scratch or belly and slid right off the couch. She looked at me as she tumbled—ears perked, tail wagging, her eyes wide as though wondering what in the world had happened. When she landed on the carpet, she rolled once and climbed back up. That’s Daisy.

It’s been interesting, watching how a dog can change things. On the floor below me are two socks, three tennis balls, and a rawhide bone. They’re Daisy’s toys. I figure she’s gotten more toys in the past week than I’ve gotten in the past year. And yet no one seems to mind how she leaves these things scattered everywhere or that she sheds or that after she drinks from her bowl she leaves a trail of water stretching from the kitchen to the living room. The kids seem to have the worst part of the deal. They’re outside now with the shovel, scooping up dog poop. It’s funny, seeing the grimace on their faces. I tell them it hasn’t been so long that I was scooping up their poop, too.

I could go on. I could talk about how to have a dog is to have the best companion in the world, how they’ll love you no matter what and always make your day brighter. I won’t, though. If you have a dog, you’ll agree. If you don’t, you probably won’t understand.

That’s fine.

But I will say this: Daisy woke up this morning wagging her tail. We took a walk this morning in the crisp November air and met deer and birds. She’s discovered a love of fetching the tennis balls my son hits with his baseball bat. She’s gaining weight. She doesn’t lay her ears back anymore.

I won’t say Daisy has changed since that first day I saw her through the bars of her cage. I’ll say instead that she’s herself now—her best self.

And honestly? I don’t give any of that to the fact that she gets exercise and eats well and has toys. I think it’s love, pure and simple. I think Daisy’s better now because she knows she’s loved.

You hear about that all the time, how love can make people better, how it can give them hope and purpose. For the last two weeks, I’ve seen that for myself. It’s true, every word.

Filed Under: family, love

Playing catch

October 10, 2013 by Billy Coffey 3 Comments

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

He’s nine now, a beast of muscle weighing more than seventy pounds, but my son still jumps. Most times it’s designed to catch me off guard—when I come home from work, maybe, or as I’m walking into the living room. I’ll catch a blur out of the corner of my eye, a small, fuzzy flash, and then he’s airborne. Reflex takes over from that point; whatever may happen to be in my hands gets dropped or tossed or fumbled, and I stretch out my arms. Next comes the entire force of his body crashing into me, driving me backwards. He wraps his arms and legs around me and pauses, leaving the two of us slowly rocking. It reminds me of how Navy jets land on carriers.

I don’t ask him why he still does this. To the best of my recollection, that act remains one of the few holdovers of years now gone and never to return. My son’s Fisher Price toys are collecting dust in the attic and his teddy bears are gone and so are the Lightning McQueen footie pajamas, but for some reason jumping into my arms isn’t considered childish at all. And given the frequency of these flying sneak attacks, I’m even led to consider that such a thing is important to him. Necessary, even.

Still, I don’t ask why. I suppose some of the reason is because I’m afraid broaching the subject will somehow end things. Maybe the next time my son gets it in his head to leap from the couch and aim for my chest, he’ll think twice. Maybe he’ll wonder himself why he’s doing it, or wonder if the reason I asked in the first place is because I really don’t want him doing it anymore. It’s a complicated thing, having a son who’s nine. Those are boys who want nothing more than to be men. I don’t want to mess this up. And to be honest, I’m not too anxious to see him as a man just yet. I’d rather keep thinking of him as my little buddy for a while longer.

He told me once that he can’t wait for the day when he jumps into my arms and bowls me over. He’ll know he’s big then. I don’t doubt that, but I also don’t think that’s the whole story. I think it boils down to something deeper than wanting to have muscles like The Rock (my son says this often) and to walk around all tough like Chuck Norris (which he says just as often).

I think it comes down to faith.

He’s a smart kid, my boy. Knows more about the world than I think he does. The television is still largely off in our home, especially with regards to the current goings-on in the world, but he still knows. His friends talk at school, as do his teachers. And even if he’s young enough to still be kept safe in a small-town bubble, he knows there is a shadow over the larger world. My son hasn’t seen evil yet, but he knows it’s there. And even if he’s brave enough and old enough to have discarded the notion that there is a monster in his bedroom closet, he’s beginning to see there really are monsters out there, and that most times they look just like people.

He knows that many of the kids in his school don’t have both a mommy and a daddy, and that some of them don’t have either. He’s seen classmates shuffled in and out never to be seen or heard from again, scattered here and there through divorce or job loss or so much pain that their tiny minds simply broke into pieces. A notion like grace is still somewhat foreign to him, but he can grasp the truth that all of those kids could have been him in another life.

That, I think, is why my son still jumps. Because he wants—needs—to know that when he does, his daddy will catch him. His daddy will drop everything and stand firm and hold out his arms, and even if it’s scary flying through the air the end is always both soft and hard and full of love.

That’s what I think. I don’t know if that’s right or not, but I know this—I’ll always catch my son. Every time.

Filed Under: change, children, family, future, love, manhood, parenting

Lightbulb moments

October 1, 2013 by Billy Coffey Leave a Comment

Screen shot 2013-10-01 at 9.54.58 AMOne of the tenets of redneck folklore is the belief that people die in threes. It’s a theory so ingrained around here that there is an influx of patients to the doctor’s office whenever a longstanding member of the community passes on. No one knows who will be next, and they don’t want to take any chances.

I’m not sure how much truth there is in that conviction. People might die in twos or fours just as often as threes. But I do know this—light bulbs die in threes. At least in my house.

It began last week with the light in my son’s bedroom, which much have died a quiet and peaceful death sometime in the night. He rose out of bed the next morning, flipped the switch, and…nothing. A few days later it was the light above the kitchen sink, which yelped a pop! when my wife tried to turn it on.

Then last night I came upstairs to my computer and fumbled for the light switch behind the door. Just as I flicked the switch upward, blue and white sparks sprayed from the ceiling fan in a burst of violence that actually managed to shatter the light bulb itself. It was quite impressive.

What brought about this light bulb mass suicide is beyond me. Our home is not old and the wiring was expertly done. I can only surmise that everything has its life cycle. At some point the odds are in favor of more than one sputtering out at the same time.

The blown light bulb is an exercise in both physics and inevitability. The cause is fairly straightforward: a light bulb’s filament does not evaporate evenly, leaving it to develop spots over time that are thinner than others. Since the electrical current heats the filament evenly, the thin spots heat more quickly. The result is a pop! and then darkness.

What struck me as I stood there staring at the bulb was my reaction, which so happened to be the one my son and my wife had, too. Not anger or frustration. Not even disappointment.

Confusion.

Because a light is supposed to turn on when you flip the switch it’s connected to. I had a vast amount of experience to back that assertion. It was one of the few of my life’s givens, so much so that I’d perform the act without giving it a second thought. Flipping a light switch is faith at its purest, the embodiment of if-I-do-this-then-this-will-happen.

It’s easy to take such things for granted, though. I’ve spent my day keeping track of every light I turned on, from the bathroom light when I first got up to the light in my office nearly sixteen hours later. My total thus far? Thirty. I’ve turned thirty lights on today, and none of them has broken.

I’m already taking the light switch for granted again.

So maybe I needed the gentle reminder that all those everyday things I put my faith in are neither permanent nor flawless. Things that go well beyond light bulbs and into the very center of my life. The job I have today may go pop! tomorrow. The savings account to cushion a fall may be pulled from beneath me just before I land. And the very ones I love most may be the very ones who let me down the hardest.

That’s the nature of life, the consequence of living in a world that isn’t quite what it should have been. We’re all searching for something to hold onto, something that will give us a sense of security and knowing, and yet everything we have is like that light bulb—at some time and in some way, they will all fail in an impressive fashion and leave us standing in the darkness. Which is all the more reason to place more trust in God than man.

Our hearts are pocked with the scars of failed faith and broken trust. There’s nothing we can do about that. Disappointment is built into this world. But despite the fact that those light bulbs in our lives will shatter and explode from time to time, we still must flip their switches. We still must believe. That’s what life is. What Love is, too.

Filed Under: control, hope, life, light, love

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