By Guest: Billy Coffey
I’ve been a father for eleven years and a father of two for nine, but I’ll be honest—I still have no idea what I’m doing. There is no how-to guide for fatherhood, no instruction manual the doctor hands you along with your new child. We’re in the dark about a lot of things.
Like what to do when your three-year-old accidentally locks herself in the bathroom and starts crying because she can’t figure out how to free the door (what I did: Kick the door in. Result: louder crying). Or what to do when your four-year-old manages to shove his peanut butter and banana sandwich into the DVD player just because that’s not where it goes (what I did: “What were you doing?” Result: “I dunno.”).
That’s life as a dad. Every father endures circumstances such as those, and every father walks away realizing he doesn’t resemble Ward Cleaver nearly as much as a turtle flailing on its back.
The things with most dads is that they keep this self-knowledge hidden deep inside them. Call it a guy thing. We’re scared (many times, we’re scared to death), but that’s not something we like to spread around. Right or wrong, we equate fear with weakness. And right or wrong, I’m no different. But I am a little different in this one specific way—I write down what I feel rather than keep it all inside. That’s what I’m going to do here, for Father’s Day. I’m going to tell you what I feel when it comes to being a dad. And I’m going to trust you’ll know either your father or the father of your children feel the same way, even if they don’t always say it.
To the daughters out there:
Yes, we’re protective. And because of that, we’re hard on you. This is especially true if you’re mired in high school. We remember well what we thought about as teenagers, and how often we thought about it. As much as I’d like to say we’ll change, I can’t. We won’t ever change. We’ll always subliminally threaten your dates and secretly distrust your husbands, and we’ll always think no man is worthy of your love. You’re just going to have to deal with that.
The day will come when you’ll give your heart to someone else and Daddy will get eased aside in your heart. We know this. It kills us anyway. So please be kind when that happens, and remember that no matter how old you are, in our minds you’re still the little girl in pigtails who ran to greet us at the door when we got home from work.
To the sons:
We’re harder on you, no doubt about it. We expect more, demand more, and need more. There is nothing in the world more difficult than raising a boy to be a man, if only because our culture now demands the opposite. There are a lot of people who’d rather you remain a boy. They believe the strong, silent types are archaic and hurtful. They’re not. They’re needed. The world needs more men, ones who will love always and fight when needed, who will bow to no one but God, and who will dedicate their lives to standing for something bigger than themselves.
We don’t know everything. We don’t have all the answers. But we’re here for you and we want the best for you, because we understand that our country is defined not by its politics or its entertainment, but by the sort of men who walk its streets.
And to our wives and the mothers of our children:
We don’t always show it, but we take being a dad with the utmost seriousness. We work hard to provide for you, and we endure much that we never bother you with. Yes, we know we should. But we also know that our home is our haven. It’s the one place where we can trade the world that makes us weary for the world that keeps us going.
We’re quiet sometimes. Withdrawn. We don’t mean to be. It’s just that we’ve managed to conjure within us a love we once thought impossible, one that has taken us utterly by surprise. It’s a breathtaking love, what we feel for you and our children. It’s also frightening. We know what the world is like, we know what shadows lurk, and we know we are the ones responsible for keeping those shadows at bay.
Deep down, whether you know it or not, all we want is to be your knight. The one who protects you, the one who makes you feel safe. All we do in life revolves around that one thought.
We want to be needed. To be your hero.
To us, little else matters.
A BIT MORE ABOUT BILLEY COFFEY:
Billy Coffey is the author of three novels, all set in the fictional Southern town of Mattingly. He lives with his wife and children in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Visit him at www.billycoffey.com.
Leah is a child from away, isolated from her peers because of her stutter. But then she begins painting scenes that are epic in scope, brilliant in detail, and suffused with rich, prophetic imagery. When the event foreshadowed in the first painting dramatically comes true, the town of Mattingly takes notice.
BILLY’S BOOKS:
When Mockingbirds Sing
Leah attributes her ability to foretell the future to an invisible friend she calls the Rainbow Man. Some of the townsfolk are enchanted with her. Others fear her. But there is one thing they all agree on—there is no such thing as the Rainbow Man.
Her father, the town psychologist, is falling apart over his inability to heal his daughter or fix his marriage. And the town minister is unraveled by the notion a mere child with no formal training may be hearing from God more clearly than he does.
While the town bickers over what to do with this strange child, the content of Leah’s paintings grows darker. Still, Leah insists that the Rainbow Man’s heart is pure. But then a dramatic and tragic turn of events leaves the town reeling and places everyone’s lives in danger. Now the people of Mattingly face a single choice:
Will they cling to what they know . . . or embrace the things Leah believes in that cannot be seen?
Click here to get a copy of Billy’s newest release, When Mockingbirds Sing!
Paper Angels
I remember as a child a painting that hung in my bedroom—an angel watching over two children as they navigated a rickety bridge. I wondered for hours how they arrived in such a place, if they ever made it across. If there was an angel watching over me as well. I pondered how wonderful it would be if I could speak to him and him to me.
Andy Sommerville has that opportunity. He’s seen and spoken to the Old Man since the age of ten. Yet far from wonderful, Andy has come to see his angel as a curse keeping him from a meaningful life. Now as he falls victim to a horrible attack, Andy is forced to cross his own rickety bridge. The Old Man isn’t there. Elizabeth is. As well as the wooden box that will unlock the beauty and mystery of one ordinary man’s life.
Click here to get your own copy of Paper Angels.
Snow Day
In this debut novel, Peter is a simple man who lives by a simple truth–a person gains strength by leaning on his constants. To him, those constants are the factory where he works, the family he loves, and the God who sustains him. But when news of job cuts comes against the backdrop of an unexpected snowstorm, his life becomes filled with far more doubts than certainties.
With humor and a gift for storytelling, Billy Coffey brings you along as he spends his snow day encountering family, friends, and strangers of his small Virginia town. All have had their own battles with life’s storms. Some have found redemption. Others are still seeking it. But each one offers a piece to the puzzle of why we must sometimes suffer loss, and each one will help Peter find a greater truth–our lives are made beautiful not by our big moments, but our little ones.
Click here to get your copy of Snow Day.
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