When The Closet Comes Crashing Down

My parents and I were watching TV last Sunday night when we heard a huge crash upstairs. Upon walking up to see what had fallen, I found my closet in complete disarray. After working for a week to get my things settled after moving back from South Carolina, I found myself staring at my work lying in shambles—everything I’d done in my closet undone thanks to a shelf falling out of the wall. I guess after sixteen years of holding stuff, the shelf got tired.

As my mom and I slowly began to go through the mess the next day, I found myself remembering a November day in 2006 when I was staring at a similar mess—only the shelf in the closet hadn’t collapsed—my friend Kay had simply been too sick to put her belongings away…and from what I saw, Kay had been sick for a long time.

Kay was a teacher’s assistant in a special needs classroom, a music minister at a local church, a cat owner, and a dear friend to many. Based off of the condition of her apartment when she died, Kay gave everything she had to the world and then came home and collapsed. Domestic chores were evidently the least of Kay’s concerns. Why deplete energy on self when it could be spent on others?

The stuff from my closet is sitting on my floor, waiting to go either back into the closet, to a different part of the house, or to a local thrift shop. The stuff from Kay’s closet was all discarded because the condition of her belongings was too bad to give away. To this day, the smell of Lysol reminds me of the hours spent sorting through Kay’s closet, wishing that she’d not been too selfless to ask for help while she was still alive.

There were periods of Kay’s life when she was unemployed. There were times in her life when the next step in ministry was unclear—times in her life when the ministry had hurt her. But in those moments, Kay kept going. She kept believing. She kept giving. And she kept trusting that good would come…because she believed that God is good.

I don’t know if Kay cleaned during those times—if, in the midst of uncertainty, Kay tried to create order and certainty through watching what was once dirty become clean. But I know that that’s what I’m doing these days. And that my muscles are sore from washing windows. And that I’m not afraid to ask for help. And that Kay’s life and death continue to influence me in ways I never imagined…like in speaking to me through the closet…especially when the closet comes crashing down.