Making Peace with My Ghosts

I have ghosts.

My Hot Girl Summer project involved 8 gallons of paint and a carload of donations to a thrift store. With the exception of two glorious weeks in the wilds of Wyoming, I spent the summer sweatin’ to the oldies in paint clothes that bear a logo from the 4th of July, 2014. Now as August melts into September, nearly every room in my house is freshly painted and every closet has been purged and organized. Well, almost. I discovered a few ghosts in the back of one closet and invited them to hang out a while longer. They’re harmless.

The first ghost I encountered wore an oatmeal-flecked cardigan sweater with corduroy elbow patches. I gave that cardigan to my dad for Christmas years ago, never really expecting him to wear it. But he did. Notoriously impossible to buy for, my burly dad with his bushy eyebrows and thick fingers rarely wore anything besides coveralls. But on some daft impulse, I shelled out a substantial sum of money for a cashmere cardigan more suited to a college English professor than a retired oilfield boss, and put it under the tree with his name on the tag. To my utter surprise and delight, he loved it!

Turns out it’s a universal truth among men of a certain age, that a body craves a soft warm wrapper at the end of the day. Summer or winter, no matter, that cardigan sweater was his go-to comfort when he eased his tired bones out of his coveralls before supper each evening. For years.

I am quite confident he was wearing it the last time I hugged his neck before pulling out of the drive, waving goodbye. The last goodbye.

I pulled it out of the closet, slipped it off the hanger, and buried my nose in the softness. I had hoped to catch the faintest whiff of his aftershave, but the years had purged his scent. There was a hole in the shoulder of the right sleeve, rendering it unsuitable for the Goodwill pile. But I couldn’t. I still feel his strong shoulders inside that holey cardigan. I slipped it back on the hanger and tenderly put it back in the closet. “Stay a little longer,” I whispered.

The second ghost in that guest room closet wore a gray and ivory and red plaid Pendleton jacket. My mama wore that jacket to her first – and only – semester at the University of Wyoming in 1954. The gray knit collar and cuffs are ragged, and tiny moth holes dot the sleeves. It has a small brown stain on one cuff where she spilled hot chocolate at a pep rally bonfire. I cannot tell you how much I love that jacket and a memory of my fun-loving mama that pre-dates my birth. I wore that jacket many times, moth holes and all, and always received compliments on it. Timeless style, classic chic. The ghost of my mama’s girlhood is welcome to stay.

There were two ghosts of my own earlier self in that closet, as well. A green and black calico print Gunne Sax skirt looks like a costume from Little House on the Prairie, but that style was all the rage when I was in high school. I was an avid seamstress at the time and made many of my clothes. But I saved money from my Pepsi-Cola paychecks and splurged on that skirt. I wore it with a pair of granny boots that laced all the way up to the knee. Do you remember being 16 and feeling pretty? I felt pretty in that skirt. And that memory is so sweet, I’ve kept the ghost of that girl in my closet for the last 50 years.

And then there’s a pair of Levi’s 501 button-fly jeans. I bought those in my late 20s when we were houseparents at Cookson Hills Children’s Home, earning a combined $300 a month. Everything we owned came from the “storeroom,” donated by someone who had done a closet purge.

Style was one of many sacrifices we willingly made to serve a greater good in that season of life. But somehow, I found enough money to buy one killer pair of jeans. I had given birth to three children and was raising nine more. Exhausted and poor, being able to rock a pair of 501s provided a small measure of comfort and normalcy. The ghost of that living-on-a-prayer younger me will have to be tossed when I’m in the grave.

And sure enough, there’s even a ghost of Roger’s younger self in that closet. A navy blue Dickies uniform shirt, with a yellow embroidered “Gronewold’s Auto” above the left pocket and “Roger” above the right pocket. We were in our 30s when we left our ministry at Cookson Hills and started making a new life in Joplin. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. We have never been so poor or so scared. We bought a one-bedroom house for our family of five (with a loan from both parents) because it had a shop. That Gronewold’s Auto shirt brings all the hopes and fears of that era rushing back.

Thirty four years later, we still live in the same house, though it’s a little bigger now. A testament to God’s enduring faithfulness, the ghost of “Gronewold’s Auto” has a home in this house for as long we live here.

I’ve been ruthless in my downsizing, determined to live as minimally as possible to save our kids the headache of dealing with our clutter when we’re gone. Still, some items of zero intrinsic value are priceless relics of our stories. Something about an article of clothing…so intimate because it once clung to a loved one’s body…these are the items I cannot purge. I’ve made peace with holding space for these ghosts.

I love it when you comment and share!