love – Page 2

Real Men Don’t Text

September 16, 2013 by Billy Coffey 6 Comments

Somewhere along the way, my daughter has turned into a pre-teen. I’m not sure exactly when it first started, but I’d peg it at some point in the last two weeks. When school started. Middle school, to be exact.

In the back of my mind, I always knew it would happen this way—my quiet, funny, lively, ever-optimistic baby girl would leave for school one morning and come back home that afternoon sullen and attitudinal. Right now, all that’s missing is the Goth clothes and the black fingernail polish.

Last year, ask her how her days was and you’d be entertained for an hour. This year, ask her that same question and the response (if there is one) will be a shrug and a stern “Nothin’.”

Asking her what’s wrong yields the same answer.

Trying to figure out what’s going on inside the big brain encased in that little head is impossible. I’m not well equipped with such a task. I cannot understand my daughter. Which is only right considering I’ve spent the last twenty years or so trying and failing to understand her mother. It’s exhausting.

I’ve had help with all of this, of course. The aforementioned mother I’m still struggling to understand actually understands my daughter’s current state quite well. She remembers how it is, growing up. The memories of that murky place between little girl and young woman are still relatively fresh. “She’s just growing up,” is what my wife says. As if that is enough to make everything better. It doesn’t, not to me. To me, it just makes everything worse.

Because really, I don’t want my daughter to grow up. I like her just the way she is. Growing up means things I don’t even want to think about at the moment—things like the Family Planning class she’s getting ready to take (which I will not get into here other than to say DANG). It means things like smart phones. Things like boys.

The boy thing rests especially heavy on my heart. I was a boy once. I know what they think about and just how often they think about it. But I’m on the ball with that one, too. I recently got my copy of Ruthie and Michael Dean’s book Real Men Don’t Text. If you have a son or daughter (or niece and nephew, or etc.) between the ages of 11 and 30, that’s the book you want. My own copy’s going straight to my daughter in another couple of years.

In the meantime, I’m just trying to do what I can. Mostly, I’ve found that just means being there. Right there, right with her. Because it really is tough to grow up. At a certain age all of the shine you thought was on the world begins to fade and you find that what lies beneath isn’t always the bright and beautiful stuff you thought. You’re not supposed to save your kids from finding that out, you’re supposed to help them through it when you do.

Mabe Man

April 15, 2013 by Billy Coffey 4 Comments

guangdong I read an article last week about how scientists are just now getting results from tests they ran on a 126,000-year-old human. Mabe Man, they call him, because he was found near Mabe in China’s Guandong Province.

Not really the sort of article I would be interested in, but I had some time to kill and it was either that or stare at the wall in front of me. So I kept reading.

I’m glad I did.

Seems Mabe Man had a rough go at it. That in itself isn’t surprising—I would imagine life back then was fraught with all sorts of peril, not the least of which was where to find the next meal. Life expectancy hovered around thirty years. Our place in the food chain was somewhere south of saber-toothed tigers.

When Mabe Man was first discovered in 1958, his bones were cataloged, shoved in a museum basement, and promptly forgotten. It was only recently that he was rediscovered again. Fortunately, science has progressed quite a bit over the last 60 years. There’s a lot we can know about him now that could only be guessed then, and a lot of fancy tests that can help bring out the humanity in our ancestors. Things like a simple CT scan, for instance. When the scientists did just that, what they found was morbidly interesting in the same way as witnessing the aftermath of a car wreck.

To break it down to a level I could understand, Mabe Man had gotten the hell beaten out of him.

His skull had been fractured. Scientists concluded it was the result of blunt force trauma. Not your everyday sort of blunt force trauma, either. This poor guy didn’t receive his injuries by tripping over a rock in some primeval forest. No, he was beaten. The conclusion was that his wounds could have only been given by some sort of clubbed weapon.

The scientists seemed surprised at that finding. Not me. And I doubt that deep down you’re not very surprised, either. Recorded history is full of violence. Full of war and hate and bloodshed. I read once that when all the annals of every nation’s history are combined, what you get is a total of seven years of peace. Seven out of tens of thousands. We’ve always hurt each other. We always will. It’s a basic tenet of the Christian faith—we all sin and fall short of the glory of God.

Mabe Man’s story could end there, but it doesn’t. There’s more. His wounds would have caused excessive bleeding and a severe concussion. Brain damage would have been likely. He was helpless. And 126,000 years ago, being helpless meant you were dead.

But he didn’t die.

His wounds healed.

And not only did they heal, but he lived for years afterward.

Why? Because he was cared for. He was nursed back to health. His wounds were bound and his stomach was filled and he was given shelter.

Scientists seemed even more surprised at that. Mabe Man survived because he was loved.

Me, I find a beauty there, and also a profound truth. It means love has always sought to put back together that which hate has broken. It means that our hands have always been able to heal as much as harm. It means that since the dawn of humanity, each of us contains three people—the angel, the demon, and the one who decides which we will obey. That’s what it means to be human.

That’s a basic tenet of the Christian faith, too.

ILUVME

February 14, 2013 by Billy Coffey 6 Comments

I was sitting at an intersection yesterday, passing the time between stop and go by studying the car in front of me. Vehicle: a rusty, broken, and tired Toyota. Driver: young lady, no more than seventeen and blissfully unaware of her surroundings. A sound system that was worth much more than the car itself vibrated everything from the windows to the doors to the license plates.

Vanity plates, of course. If you’re seventeen and cool, vanity plates are a requirement.

They also say a lot about a person. Vanity plates are tiny windows into a personality, a creative assemblage of letters and numbers that offer a glimpse into what matters most to the owner.

And it was pretty obvious what mattered most to that young lady. Her license plate used the term “vanity” in a more literal way.

ILUVME, it said.

I shook my head and grinned in an I-can’t-believe-this sort of way. ILUVME? Really?

A little arrogant, I thought. Then again, maybe there was much to love in being her. Maybe she really did love herself, and justifiably so. Maybe who she was, what she knew, and the direction her life was going was so perfect, so wondrous, that loving herself was natural and right and good.

Ha.

If true, then she should give herself a little time. Five years or so. Maybe ten. Let her grow up a little and get out into this big, beautiful world. Let her dreams crumble, her heart break, and her faith bend. Then we’ll see how much she loves herself.

I wrinkled my brow, struck by the coldness of those thoughts. Was I really that pessimistic of a person? Was I really hoping for her life to unfold such that she would one day regret putting such a thing on her license plates?

Why was I so upset because she loved herself? Was it because she possessed something I did not?

Did I love me?

An interesting question, that. Are we supposed to love ourselves? I flipped through the pages of my mental Bible for any scripture that confirmed or denied that question, but nothing stood out (though, admittedly, the pages of the Bible I hold in my head are not nearly as complete as the pages of the one I hold in my hand).

But I did know this: whether I was supposed to or not, I certainly did not love me. I knew my weaknesses and faults. The hidden things I thought and said and did. I knew what I paid attention to and what I did not. The struggles I faced, the times I feared and worried and doubted too much. What and who I hated. I knew, more than anyone else, the kind of person I was.

And that was not the sort of person anyone could love. Should love.

Besides, the point of life isn’t to be content with the person you are, right? No, it’s to try to do and be a little better every day. To keep becoming. That’s tough to do when you’re happy with who you are. When ULUVU.

Still, something bothered me. Wouldn’t hating yourself for who you are, for what you feel and think and do, be just as bad?

My thoughts were interrupted by the stoplight turning green. ILUVME turned left, and as I watched her I realized she was pulling into the parking lot of a church. Black letters that spelled out GOD IS OUR FRIEND glittered in the sun on the marquee at the entrance.

Yes. God is our friend. My friend. So powerful that He could do anything, He chose to die for me. So omnipresent that He could be anywhere, He chose to live in my heart. My heart. Not because He had to. Because He wanted to.

Because God loved me.

Loved me despite knowing my fears and worries and doubts. Despite knowing my failures and faults. Despite knowing me better than I knew myself.

If an all-powerful, all-knowing God could love me, why couldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I?

The foundation of the Christian faith states that we are flawed beings. Sinful souls in need of a Savior. I knew that to be true. Perhaps just as true, though, was that our worth didn’t depend upon what we did or did not, but upon the spark of the Divine that gave us life. There is a beauty within us beyond our flaws and failures. A beauty worthy of our compassion, of our acceptance.

And of our love.

Love bears all things

August 23, 2012 by Billy Coffey 6 Comments

Love has always intrigued me as one of those divine aspects of life that is both fleeting and permanent, fragile and strong. For thousands of years Poets and philosophers have tried to define it, but to no avail. You can’t speak about love and get it just right. You have to see it in action to really know what it is.

Which is why I can appreciate the spectacle of a fine wedding.

I’m sitting in a church pew on a bright Sunday afternoon looking very James Bondish in a suit and tie. Because what I expect to see in the next fifteen minutes or so is not just a marriage ceremony, not just candles and pretty music and maids all in a row, but true love made visible.

The groom stands at the front of the church, hands folded in front of his cummerbund. He is not nervous, this man. There are no pre-wedding jitters or thoughts of a quick escape through the side door. No, he knows exactly what he’s doing. Not marrying this woman never crossed his mind.

The organist launches into a fevered rendition of “Here Comes the Bride,” and the gathered stand and turn to face the opening doors. A beaming bride and her proud father make their way down the aisle.

Hand in hand. Not just out of love, but out of necessity.

The father passes off his princess to her prince, and the two stand facing one another. I’m sure they have spent many moments over the past weeks staring into each other’s eyes, wrestling in their own way with the prospect of this moment. And though they are surrounded by God and a few hundred friends and family, I can tell that to them no one else exists. The world has been shut out and the door barred.

There is just them and nothing else. For now, anyway.

The preacher begins the standard reading of 1 Corinthians 13. I wonder how many times I’ve heard that scripture read. How many times those words have skidded over the surface of my heart but not really plunged to its core.

Love is patient, love is kind…

They’ve known one another for about four years now, this bride and groom. About a year and a half ago over a nice dinner picnic in the park, he pulled out a diamond ring along with the potato salad. Marry me, he asked. Yes! she answered.

…love does not brag and is not arrogant…

That their love was pure and true was unquestioned. God had crafted them as the only two pieces of a beautiful puzzle. It was cliché, yes, but true—they completed one another.

Both knew they didn’t deserve such happiness. But both praised God daily for allowing them to have it. And now that they had found each other, they would be together always.

…bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things…

When you’re in love, everything seems possible. There are no sudden bends in the road ahead, no ruts to fall into. There are only clear paths and sunny skies. Whatever darkness your life was under is now bathed in sunny skies.

And it’s true. Everything is possible.

Not just the good. The bad, too.

When the bride began suffering headaches a few months ago, the doctors told her it was likely migraines. Don’t worry, they said. Just the stress of planning a wedding. When they continued despite medication, tests were ordered. Don’t worry, they said. Just a precaution.

She worried anyway. Her fiancée did what any man would do for the woman he loves. He comforted her, held her, and told her everything would be okay. After all, their love was meant to be. He busied her with thoughts of caterers and flowers, but he busied himself with that same worry.

A few days later, they both sat numb as the doctor informed her of the cancer eating away her brain.

…endures all things…

After the tears and the confusion and the silence, the two talked. How could this be? How can God let this happen? What can we do now?

They had no answer to those first two questions, but they knew what to do about the third. They would marry. They would celebrate their lives together as long as they could. Their love would endure.

It must. Because as I watch them staring into one another’s eyes, my attention returns to the words of the preacher. He is finishing his scripture reading, and I whisper to myself the last three words he speaks to them:

“Love never fails…”

Yes.

Here this bride and groom stand, in front of God and two hundred people, testifying to those three words. They are true love made manifest. And we are all witnesses.

And now, so are you.

Redneck love

June 14, 2012 by Billy Coffey 10 Comments

I’ve been following them now for five stoplights, all of which have turned from yellow to red just as we approached. Sitting here, staring at the rodeo decals on the back of his battered ’74 Ford.

Hanging from the gun rack in the back window are the two prerequisites every teenaged country boy must display in his truck—an axe handle and a lasso. Neither of which seem to have been touched since he first put them there.

But I suppose he hasn’t had the time to either get into a fight or rope a steer. Not with the young lady beside him. Right beside him. The absence of bucket seats and a console has allowed her to sit practically on top of him. “That’s the problem with those old trucks,” the older men around town say. “No power steering. Takes a fella and his girl both to drive the things.”

The lack of power steering, of course, has nothing to do with it. Love does. Despite all the red lights, I should have been halfway home by now. I just happened to get stuck behind two people who consider a red light as the perfect excuse to kiss.

And boy, do these two know how to kiss.

It’s been the same scenario every time—red light/brake/kiss/breathe/kiss. And then, a few moments after the light turns green, she pulls away and mouths I love you. He stares, not quite believing someone this special, this perfect, could ever say such words to someone like him.

I could pass them. Could blow my horn to get his attention onto the road rather than her. But I do neither. Not because I’m some sort of highway peeping Tom. Because I am witnessing one of the truly great things in this cold, dark, depressing world.

Young redneck love.

It is a marvelous thing, this phenomenon. Not rare, at least around here. But special nonetheless. Here are two people barely out of high school, waging war together against both fate and circumstance. Common sense and reality says that neither are college material. Both have likely moved into the job force, occupying one of the many barely noticed positions in town. Cashier or factory worker, maybe. And whether together or apart, both will face the very future that so many here have been given: lots of worry, lots of struggle, and not a whole lot of rest.

Yet here they sit anyway. Despite all the odds. Because they no doubt feel the odds don’t matter. In fact, nothing matters. Nothing in the world. They are together. Apart they may be down and out, struggling to find their own places in the world. Powerless and lost. But together? Together there isn’t anything they can’t overcome.

Love does this to people.

It convinces them neither that the world is too big or too little, but that the world just doesn’t matter. They have their own world, one full of rainbows and blooming flowers. Dinner at McDonald’s might as well be dinner at Sardi’s. Watching the semi-pro baseball team play on the field behind the fire department might as well be watching the Cubs at Wrigley. To them, there is no best place in the world. The best place in the world is wherever they happen to be at the moment.

The final light turns green. One more kiss/breathe/kiss/I love you later, and he turns his signal on for the next right. I drive past and cast them one more look. She’s sitting even closer now, her head on his shoulder. Riding off into the sunset, just where they belong.

Tonight when my head hits the pillow and I thank God for both today and the promise of some tomorrow, I’ll pause and think of this young couple. I’ll say a prayer that the angels watch over them.

And I’ll say another that they hang on.

The Confident Writer

April 9, 2012 by Billy Coffey 12 Comments

photo-388 I found the gift when I walked upstairs over the weekend to begin this piece. Sitting here on my desk waiting for me, propped up against my notebook and held in place by my pen.

I flipped on the desk lamp and settled into my chair, then unfolded the piece of paper. The neat, balloon-like words of half script and half cursive seemed to reach out and peck me on the cheek:

Surprise!

Don’t work yourself too hard tonight! I found this book in the attic. I wondered if you ever saw it or read it. I’m pretty sure you need it since you are almost officially an author now. Just as a heads up it looks like a really old book. Some of the pages fell out. I stuffed them back in there. It’s the Second Edition. I wonder if you have the First Edition. Anyway you might need it sometime. Remember don’t stay up too late and again don’t work yourself too hard. I Love You!!!

The word “love” had been written again at the bottom of the page in a ten-year-old’s attempt at Elizabethan flourish. My daughter had signed her name below that and added a pencil-drawn heart beside it.

Beneath the letter was the treasure she had rooted out from the attic—an ancient grammar book, the origins of which escaped me. I noticed the font of the cover mimicked the “love” she used for her complimentary close. I ran a finger over the title—The Confident Writer.

That my daughter managed not only to find the book but write this letter, place it here for me to find, and then sneak back downstairs without spoiling the surprise is a testament to her resourcefulness. Also to her understanding of her father. I sat the paper aside and turned my attention to the book. After all, she was right. I may indeed need it.

It was all there in those 525 pages—nouns and verbs and sentence structure. Punctuation and prepositions. Referential words and phrases. Everything anyone would ever need in order to become an “official author.”

Most everything, anyway. Because while all the nuts and bolts of proper writing were there in abundance, the most important things were not.

It’s said that writers are a notoriously fragile lot, given to fits of everything from low self-esteem to a worry that borders on paranoia. I won’t say that’s all completely true, but it’s not completely false. There are a great many rewards that can come by living your life from the inside out and scribbling down what you find along the way. But there are drawbacks, too. Every profession has its hazards, myriad ways to be banged up and injured and sickened. The only difference between writers and most everyone else is that our welts and abrasions lie hidden beneath the skin. They’re visible, but only to us and only when viewed through the nearest mirror.

That is why we look for comfort wherever we can and lean upon our loved ones and those who work for our success. Small acts such as my daughter’s note beside me become life preservers of sorts, something to tether us to a safe harbor and keep us from drifting into murky waters. To accept them and then offer your own small acts in return is all the proof you need that putting pen to paper may at times be an exercise in isolation, but never in loneliness. That, I think, is how a confident writer it made.

And that is why I’m setting the book in front of me aside. It won’t go back into the attic, but neither will it stay on my desk. It will instead remain close at hand, ready to offer another nut or bolt to whatever story I build.

This letter, though.

That stays here. Right here next to me, where my eyes can wander to it. Where my lamp can cast its glow upon these balloon-like words and I can trace this pencil-drawn heart with a finger.

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