Closet cleaning

It started off as a mission to rid the closet of excess clothes while simultaneously clothing the poor. It turned into a journey of self discovery, a size line of my existence. Before all was said and done, I was content in the realization that we would have the best dressed homeless population in the whole of the world. I wondered what they would do with my designer suits and I must confess a few interesting scenarios caused me to burst out laughing. I wondered if I should include some cuff links and tie clips.

Now mind you, I am not a neat freak, but messes, I don’t like either. The truth is, stuffing the clothes in was really starting to get to me. I swear one time, I heard the closet roar, or maybe it was growl, I don’t know. At just this time, our church announced a clothing drive. They wanted our old clothes! Perfect I thought. We could clean out our closets and help others in need. We talked about it for weeks before we did anything. I am an optimist, no doubt, but even my optimism didn’t cause the closet to clean itself. Knowing that we had to get started, my wife and I got to work.

The first step would be to remove the clothes that no longer fit. I pulled out some pants that I once wore. I knew better than to try those on, just threw them on the floor. So I continued for a while, moving up in sizes until I got to ones that might fit. Then I started to try them on. The first pair of pants, I should have known better than to try on, but alas, I didn’t. So try them on I did. As I struggled to get my first leg in, I concluded these would never fit. If I couldn’t even get the thigh of the pants past my calf, I needed to stop. In disgust, I added to the growing pile. And so this went on for over an hour.

Once, in a fit of optimism, I purchased my own tuxedo. Though I did accidently wear it to a business meeting one time when I got dressed in the dark so as to not disturb my sleeping wife, it never really did get the use that the cost would have justified. At the outset of the meeting the customer casually noted ‘my, aren’t we quite formal today’. I just smiled wondering what he meant. It was around mid day when I understood the genesis of his opening comment. I stood in the bathroom, my attire staring back at me from the mirror. It was then that I discovered that a tuxedo has a sense of humor as it smugly laughed at me the whole while I stood there in shock, mocking my out of place appearance with each cackle. As I stood there stunned, not knowing what to do at that point, I considered my options. Perhaps I should add a cummerbund or just take off the jacket. Choosing the latter, I attempted to explain to my customer how I ended up in a tux, but it just sounded stupid as I stumbled to find the right words. Quickly I decided to just move on, there was nothing to say, like when you lose bladder control and pee yourself.

Focusing on the closet, I had devised a strategy. I would first attack the pants and then move onto the shirts, suits and jackets. By the time I had finished the pants, I realized that there were many phases to getting larger. Apparently, you get fat in stages. You start off skinny, gain a little weight, moving up a size. Continuing, you move up again and perhaps even again. Reluctantly, you find the size that you think wont split open if you have to squat. As you continue to move up in sizes you reach a point where the pant starts to offer you options.

The first option you are awarded with is the ‘regular’ fit option. I remember clearly the very moment I made the transition from the athletic fit to the ‘regular’ fit. I was being measured for a suit. The shopkeeper asked me if I wanted an athletic fit. I said yes. Chuckling he gurgled “I don’t think so”. I can still remember the smell of those words as they slithered out of his foul, filthy mouth. Why did you ask I naturally wondered, realizing deep down that he relished that part of his job. He seemed to love that part, the part where he could destroy you with just a few words. He instantly called into question my whole life. Not only did he challenge my opinion of myself, carelessly dashing any hope that I might still have; the damage continued as the weight of the remarks still wafted through me. Ruthlessly he crushed my dreams, perhaps I couldn’t play in the NFL. The carnage didn’t stop there; my whole diet had been called into question. I ate too much, I made poor choices, maybe I should have picked the flavorless non-fat milk and spread the plastic on my toast instead of the delicious goodness that came straight from the utters of God’s perfect blessing, mother cow.

Yes, that man was wielding the paper tape measure like a machete and had cut right to the center of my existence, smiling the entire time. I wanted to fight back. Maybe I wasn’t all that athletic anymore, but he was disgustingly skinny. He was so skinny, he couldn’t even wear a belt, he had to use suspenders, I wore my suspenders by choice. I envisioned this shell of a man walking by the back of a room fan and getting stuck as he was sucked into it. “Are those pants you’re wearing or is that a pencil case?” I nearly said. If you turn sideways, we’ll have to issue a missing persons report. Clearly a heavy smoker I surmised that most of his weight was tar. I thought- If they sucked the nicotine out of your body, your skin would collapse. If you laid flat on the ground, people would think you were a tar pit. I almost offered, “Your one dimensional personality matches your one dimensional body”. I thought about attacking his man hood too. I mean really, how big could it be when he turned sideways and had no profile. Felling sorry for his wife, I thought better of it. Instead, I just kept my mouth shut and accepted his thoughtful suggestion of the ‘regular fit’ suit.

Once you have consumed the regular fit, you find some solace in the relaxed fit. I mean, I didn’t really need them, except by the highly inflexible standards of our culture. I had devised my own solution for relaxed fit pants. I learned soon enough that it wasn’t acceptable to go out in public with your top button undone and your pants a little “loose”. OK, maybe it was a bad idea, but did that little girl have to run through the store yelling pervert? I mean really, I didn’t do anything. So, back to the store we went. This time, relaxed fit was on the menu. I devoured them quickly and moved up in size, discovering more options along the way.

Option three was a surprise to me. Who knew you could combine the comfort of the sweatpants’ with dress pants? The pants said they were made by Haggar, but secretly I wondered if they were made by Champion. I mean really, stretchy waistband? This was great, I didn’t have to size up, just keep the same size with the elastic waistband option. This was marvel of cloth engineering. They hid the stretchiness as pleats. Content that I could continue to believe that I hadn’t moved up another size, I eagerly shelled out the necessary cash.

Eventually the waistband reached its maximum stretchiness and the pleats disappeared into straight expanses of fabric. It was then that I learned the scientific wonders hadn’t stopped. The clothing geniuses had created another surprise option for me. Somehow they had managed to sew two pants together so it looked like one pair. No-one had to know except you and your dry cleaner. When you exceeded the first pair, you could release the hidden pair of pants inside. With just a few quick release buttons the pants grow instantly to your new size. Adding wonder to the genius, all this was possible without having to concede the next size up. Miracle pants, that’s what they should be called.

Looking at the piles of clothes strewn about the floor, I was embarrassed and ashamed all at once. Did we really have that many extra clothes? I had to laugh, knowing two things were true. We were incredibly lucky to have been blessed with all the resources to buy those clothes and we ate too much. Yup, it’s one thing to pontificate on the subject over a Big Mac and a super-size french fry lunch, and another all together to see the truth staring right at you as a mountain of clothes.

I had avoided filtering through my closet for years. My closet was packed, I had expanded into the guest bedroom, and even into the attic. Running out of room, we stored additional clothing in the attic. We tested the skills of the carpenter that put our dressers together by cramming in things when there was no more room. But when I had to start wearing thong underwear because I couldn’t fit a pair of boxers in my drawers anymore, it should have been a sign that it was time to purge. There was no clear way to put away your clothes and forget about what lay underneath or behind, you had to pick from the top. Lord knows I didn’t want to disrupt the clothes underneath, I couldn’t muster the necessary g-force to pack the clothes back in again; they could not be disturbed.

Finishing the pants, it was time to move onto the shirts. I found a shirt that I hadn’t wore in ages. I loved this shirt, so of course I had to make sure it would fit. I got one arm in, but hit a snag when I attempted to push the second arm in. My arms thrust backwards, straight out from my back. My right shoulder cried out in pain. Believing that I had dislocated my shoulder, I had no choice but to go Mel Gibson on the bedroom wall, popping my shoulder back into place. I was going to have to let that shirt go. I tried on a few other shirts, stress testing the buttons and feeling quite proud of the quality I had purchased, then tossed them onto the growing piles.

When we were done with our closet purge, we had amassed thirteen 55 gallon garbage bags of clothes to donate to the needy. I was so embarrassed that I declared that we would have to leave very early in the morning so we could be first to the collection point. I didn’t want anyone to see the back of our van stuffed to the roof with excess clothes. Despite her need for sleep, she agreed and cheerfully arose the next morning before the sun so we could make our donation in peace and quiet.

I am still embarrassed that I grew through that many clothes, but I am also grateful to have had the opportunity to help some of our needy brothers and sisters. I am reminded of the flowing instruction:

(Deu 15:6) For the LORD your God will bless you, as he promised you, and you shall lend to many nations…...

(Deu 15:7) "If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother,

(Deu 15:8) but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be.

Now as I drive around the streets of Pottstown, Pennsylvania, I will be looking for the sharply dressed homeless man without the cuff links and cummerbund for he is my brother.

Death is ugly

Eight years ago I lost my mom. It was an unexpected death that took us all by surprise. As she lay in a coma, the family posted at her side, each of consumed with independent thoughts, we hoped and prayed for what looked like a miracle. As it became increasingly obvious that we would not likely find a medical miracle, we discussed her life, the quality of it and if we should continue keeping her alive solely through medical equipment.

To me, the choice was simple, almost unemotional. I could not continue to look at my mom like this. With all the hoses and instruments erupting from her, a machine to control every essential function of life, could we even call this alive? Is this even living? It struck me that there was an in between time, where we are not alive, but our loved ones are not ready for us to be dead.

Medical technology has made it possible for us to appear to be alive, doing all the heavy lifting of our essential functions, but in reality, there is no life there. The miracle we prayed for never came, eventually, even with the technology and watchful care of the medical professionals, there was nothing left. She passed on her own.

The image of my mom lying there, heaving in and out with the rhythmic timing of an appliance, but otherwise motionless, is etched in the permanent archives of my mind. During that time, I jotted down my thoughts in a ‘poem’, which I have never really shared with anyone. But here it is, online for anyone to read.

Death’s putrid odor washed across the room
It was agonizingly slow and thorough in its attack
The walls were systematically stained with the dark purplish blood that had once coursed through her veins
The dimple marks on the wall filled in one by one, there was nothing we could do
We were grasped by deaths ugly hands

Please let us escape from this nightmare
There must be some mistake

She was too young
Too alert
She had so much more to do
She was not ready

I had so much more to say to her
I did not tell her that I loved her enough, how will she know?

Will I ever see her again?
What will she look like?
How can I talk to her?
I am not through yet
I am not ready for her to die

She lay there

A pile of flesh, swollen with the remains of life periodically pouring out her nose into a hospital bag

There was no escape from deaths lethal grasp

Decomposing before our eyes, bile pouring out, blood vessels rupturing
The once organized composition of life had collapsed and was rotting as we watched

Was she even alive? Was it just a vessel that remained? Why did we hook her up to all the machinery, heaving her lungs in and out, giving you a shred of hope that she might once again do that on her own?

It is so ugly, so shocking and horrific that you cannot stand to witness it. But neither can you look away.

Give to God what is God’s.
Sounds simple, but hope springs eternal.
Please God give me back my mother


As I read this, it reminds me of how dark that time was in my life. It’s something that all of us will eventually experience, and yet for each of us, it’s a unique experience. I wish I could say that after eight years, I feel better about it, but I don’t. I still don’t understand, but I have quit asking why. As I said in the poem, give to God what is God’s. In the end, we are all his children, and a death here on earth, is only here on earth. We are not dead to God. We are very much alive. The question of why is not one that I can answer, so I had to let it go. The question that remains for all of us is where we are at that time. Where will you spend your eternity?