Some of my widow warriors were unable to dismantle their husband’s closet for a year, telling me they found comfort in smelling his jackets or wearing his shirts. Others said it was torture having his clothes in their usual places, a daily visual of him that couldn’t be completed by his presence. I fall somewhere between them.
When I sent a group email to our children asking if they’d like any of their father’s clothes, it was satisfying when some asked for a necktie or a t-shirt. His black socks were popular, and his flannel shirts went. I kept his bath robe. But most of Nate’s wardrobe consisted of white dress shirts and dark suits in sizes too big for his four lean sons.
Nate wasn’t a clothes horse by any means and didn’t think twice about wearing a shirt with ink stains on the pocket. Most of his ties were, as he put it, “christened” with a splotch of salad dressing, and because he carried quarters in his suit pockets (for commuter train parking lots), many had holes.
“I use my clothes till they’re used up,” he’d say.
Looking through his closet and drawers, I didn’t see much of value, but to someone with nothing, a worn shirt is better than none. I surveyed our hall closet and thought of people on Chicago streets who could use Nate’s four warm coats, a motivation to get everything bagged up and given away. Its winter in the Midwest, and Nate’s coats weren’t helping a soul.
As I began taking things off the hangers and lifting clothes from the drawers, I felt funny “taking” them. My mind told me, “They’re not yours. Put them back.”
I remember the same feeling when my mom invited Mary and I to “take whatever you want” from our Aunt Agnes’ drawers after she died. This meticulous, private, elderly aunt had never in her lifetime allowed us to look through her drawers. It was almost impossible to take something in good conscience.
Of course I’d handled Nate’s clothes hundreds of times, washing, folding and putting away, again and again. Taking them out, however, was new. As I stood at the closet fingering his suit jackets, it swept over me how faithful he’d been to go to work each day. I didn’t know until after he’d died, what intense pain he was feeling as he dressed each morning.
Once in a while he’d tell me about another lawyer he watched in court who dressed in custom-made three thousand dollar suits and silk ties. “Clothes don’t make the man,” I’d say. I suppose Nate would have felt self-assured in a custom suit, but I often told him he looked handsome, like “a butter and egg man,” as he left the house each morning.
When I knelt to pack up Nate’s shoes, there were his brand new cowboy boots. He wore cowboy boots instead of motorcycle boots when he and the boys would ride their motorcycles together. After foot surgery for bunions and bone spurs, his old boots no longer fit. I bought him new ones, but the extra wide width he needed came with too much length. Putting the boots in a bag, I stopped to pray God would connect them with a man who’d always wished for a pair just like that.
Thinking of how Nate’s clothes might bless others was a great motivator. At the end of the packing process, it dawned on me like the proverbial bright idea (ding!) that there was now extra closet space. Drawers, too, were available. And suddenly the task seemed like Nate’s gift to me rather than my invasion of his privacy.
He doesn’t need his ink-stained, holes-in-the-pockets clothes anymore. I’m not sure what he’s wearing now, but anything made in heaven has to be better than what he wore on earth, trumping even a three thousand dollar suit.
“The angel said to those who were standing before him, ‘Take off his filthy clothes.’ Then he said to Joshua, ‘See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you’.” (Zechariah 3:4)
What is it that makes you cry when you see someone in their buoyant youth…muddy shirt, lopsided grin…looking like he owned the world? In that sense, these clothes defined the man and the definition is…”work to do, fun to have, people NOT to impress” Your husband with his ink-stained pockets and defiance of convention continues to speak, though he is dead, with vigor and integrity. And you keep giving him a voice, which we on the other end are all too eager to hear. It rings true. And that is a gift!
I believed the love and understanding that you both have share till death separate you both is the most beautiful blessing that a married couple could have from the lord in this earth. I am really moved by the way you cheer up your husband as he leave for work each day.
I believed the love and understanding that you both have share till death separate you both is the most beautiful blessing that a married couple could have from the lord in this earth. I am really moved by the way you cheer up your husband as he leave for work each day. I have seen in others life and experience myself the lost of someone dear to us, for most people including me, its with pain that we remembered our love ones and the reason for it is that we have not shown or given enough love, care or affection to them when they are still alive. May you count it blesssing for being a loving wife to your husband.
Hi Margaret,
Looks like Nate was installing his own garage floor there… at least he changed out of his suit.
Going through the closets must be overwhelmingly difficult- may His grace be abundant for the task.
LOVE that Zechariah verse- there’s old Satan showing up, condemning us… rightfully so… truth is we are clothed in filthy garments, sinners by nature. But the Lord Himself took that sin upon Himself, and in that transaction has the authority to exchange those rags them for festal robes.
Reminds me of the parable of the wedding feast in Matthew 22- the dinner guest came in without wedding clothes and got summarily dismissed. Sounds awfully judgmental until you realize it was customary to provide an appropriate garment for the guest right there at the door if he didn’t have one. He simply refused… thought what he had on was good enough. But when confronted by his choice, he was left speechless.
This is a clear example of What Not To Wear when we stand before Him. The choice is my own filthy rags of self-righteousness (Isaiah 64:6) for which I will be terribly under dressed… or to take Him up on His offer of an appropriate garment, described in Isaiah 62:10- “He clothes me with garments of salvation, He wraps me with a robe of righteousness.”
I have often heard the adage that God does not change the suit; He changes the man inside the suit.
Nate made the right choice,and while his outer man was decaying, his inner man was being renewed. He is clothed in fine linen now, without spot or wrinkle.
“Lord, thank You, for Your work on the cross, that made exchanging my own filthy rags for festal robes possible. I could never enter Your presence on the basis of my own efforts or goodness. I can only do so by humbly receiving and putting on Your robe of righteousness. Amen.”
Love,
Terry
I felt very emotional as I read how you lovingly and unselfishly chose to share Nate’s no longer needed coats, shirts, shoes and socks with needy people. Just as he was so practically minded about his clothes, I think he would like it that they can help someone else. Even with the motivation that Nate’s clothes would bless needy people, that must have been a hard thing to go through them. You’re a brave woman, Margaret, doing your grief work with courage while thinking of others.