Closet Treasures
Our bedroom closet was not large yet it housed an amazing amount of possessions. Most of those were Coleen’s. She dominated the closet with her clothes and items she would store in there. Coleen was not the most organized person I have met and she had a propensity for keeping things she should have gotten rid of. I suppose we are all guilty of that to some degree, but she had more stuff in the closet than she ever wore or used. Since her death, the closet has been an almost sacred area to me. One of the places I least want to tread for fear of memories and emotion. Yet each day I am in that closet several times either getting clothes or putting them away. And each time I enter, I focus only on the immediate task and try not to look around very much. And each time I close the closet door behind me, I tell myself that I have to get in there and clean that closet out … someday.For reasons I am not yet prepared to discuss, I decided to deal with the closet a few days ago. I have written before about the emotional impact I have gotten when I disturb Coleen’s things. By converting “our” closet into “my” closet, I was in effect taking another step in making our house my home. Those are always steps I would prefer not to take, but I’m eventually better as a result. The times when I have cleaned her car, moved her books, rearranged her dresser and put things away have created some of my most emotional moments. I fully expected a healthy dose of that as I began the task of removing Coleen’s belongings from our bedroom closet.
I was most fearful of the clothes she had on hangers. I took them down and transferred them to a closet in a different room so they could be gone through more thoroughly. I was not ready to determine a final disposition for them yet. Wisely, I did not look at each item individually as I grabbed them in bunches of six or so. But I couldn’t help but spot some of my favorites as I removed them from the closet. And I would think of her wearing something and be reminded of the occasion or occasions and of me holding her in it. I touched the fabric of some of them and could almost feel her underneath, my hands holding her and our lips touching. Our eyes closed then opening to look in each others eyes. I saw the tops she wore in regular rotation and those funky scarves she loved for warmth and style. And dresses she was in for only a time or two but always for a special occasion. She had a sexy black cocktail dress that she wore to a wedding and on a cruise we took about 20 years ago. I have a photo of her in that and she was so beautiful and young.
As you might have guessed, that was exactly my fear of the closet and why I waited so long to take it on. So many wonderful memories and reminders of such a beautiful life together. I managed to get all her clothes out of the closet, and cleaned out a shelving unit before I moved to the floor. She had a lot of shoes there and bags of random items, most of which would be thrown away. But there was something leaning against the wall that I didn’t recognize. It was wrapped in brown paper and was rather large. I thought it might have been a sketch or something artsy. Coleen’s friend Sue was an artist and often gave Coleen some of her work and I assumed that was what this was. I removed it and placed it on the bed. It had been wrapped very carefully, almost professionally, and that made me even more curious.
I finally got the paper off and found a beautiful handwritten calligraphy of a poem and realized that I had seen it before. The poem was called “Celebrate the Journey” and was one of Coleen’s favorites. And I remembered seeing this artwork years ago when she brought it home with a big smile on her face. Coleen had a friend named Carol who was an unlikely cancer survivor. Carol had a gift of calligraphy and Coleen asked her to work her magic with this poem. Carol did a remarkable job and Coleen was going to have it framed and hang it somewhere prominently. She never got to that. Instead, she put this beautiful piece of art in the closet, where we seem to put so many of our good intentions. Where we put so many things that we want to get to, but end up soon forgotten. Where so much of Coleen’s life resided for me to rediscover that day.
The artwork was beautiful. But the poem was the message. As I read it, the inevitable tears came to my eyes. Once again, I felt like I was receiving another message from Coleen. A message telling me to celebrate the journey and also telling me to tell others the same thing. That seems to be the constant to these messages I find. They are all directed at me but they always need to be distributed to others as well. Sometimes I think I’m just the messenger, the conduit to receive and redistribute and help others. I don’t know how else to look at the discovery of this poem as anything other than a message. It was meant for me to find, to read, to be inspired by and to share. So here it is:
Celebrate the Journey
Who knows why life unfoldsthe way it does; why we chose
one path or another, share the
way for a while or a day, then
say goodbye. There is no
predictability here, and less
control than we might wish.
But there is the quiet urging
of the heart, the knowing in
the soul, the wisdom that’s
beneath the mind, accessible
if we breathe and turn inside.
When the tide of change rolls
in we can resist or be at peace,
struggle or release. The stuff
of life may not be ours to
understand. It’s enough to
offer love, to receive the best
and worst, to embrace and
say farewell. What matters
most is to celebrate each
moment of the journey.
“Celebrate the Journey” was written by Danna Faulds and was in Coleen’s favorite poetry book, “One Soul.” This book contains over 100 pages of poems from the heart of yoga and Coleen would often read it in bed and at times when she needed peace. I recall her pointing this particular poem out to me on more than one occasion. It also represents what I think of as a personal failure in caring for Coleen during her final days. I never thought of reading aloud to her from this beautiful book until I saw it the day after she died. Instead of just holding her hand and telling her I loved her, I could have been reading these wonderful poems to her, too. She would have liked that and I will never forgive myself for that oversight. Ironically, after I did find this book, I was trying to recall which of the poems Coleen liked so much. After finding the artwork in the closet, it dawned on me that poem was the one I had been looking for all along. Maybe she was pointing that out to me as well.
I could have cleaned Coleen’s things from the closet earlier than I did. Or I could have procrastinated some more. But whenever it was that I decided to do it, I would have discovered the words and art of Celebrate the Journey. I guess it’s all in the timing of things and I don’t think I needed to hear the whispers of the message earlier. I must have picked the perfect time to clean the closet.
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