Cleaning Out My Closet

A story about mourning and moving on, how we think about our bodies, some thoughts on disability and fashion, and links lately.

Have you ever had a task that you were dreading and avoiding, but knew you had to do? 

For me, I avoided cleaning out my closet for 8 months. I had accumulated so many clothes over the years that I no longer wore, but I couldn’t bring myself to face it. Many of those dresses and tops represented a life that was behind me now. 

I told Taylor I was ready for a ruthless purge, and he helped me stack all my clothes on the bed just like Marie Kondo recommends. I braced myself and held up the first fitted black work dress. Memories flooded back, reminding me of how powerful I felt in it, standing up in my work-appropriate high heels and speaking to a room of 100 people about tax reform. I’m pretty tall for a woman anyway.

Tears started rolling down my cheeks as I held up some tank tops. My husband looked at me tenderly and asked me to tell him the stories of each one. 

“I trained for my marathon in this one.” 

“I played hours of beach volleyball in this one.” 

“I got this one for trail running in Montana.”

“You didn’t know I ran multiple half marathons? Here are the shirts I got for running those.” 

“Oh don’t toss that dress, I got it in India!”

I fondly held another teal dress I wore on our honeymoon. And then the short little dress that I wore on our first date, and he told me he still loves my legs.

I held onto the baggy tie-dye shirt that I was wearing when we drove to the Emergency Room in 2019. That drive marks a very distinct “before” and “after” in my life. Just a week after I turned 30, I had our first baby. Three weeks later, we returned to the same hospital where I delivered the baby to go to the ER with a mysterious onset of paralysis. After days of tests in the hospital and losing more mobility each day, the doctor presented us with a terrifying diagnosis.

I had a very rare and extremely large tumor growing in my spinal cord. It had probably been growing for years, unbeknownst to me. That meant it was there when I ran my marathon, travelled to India, and married my husband. But now it was paralyzing me and my only choice was to have it surgically removed. That surgery both saved my life and left me as a quadriplegic.

Over my journey through hospital beds to rehabilitation hospitals and back home again, I wrestled with my two new identities: disabled and mother.

Cleaning out my closet was a tangible culling of an old life with old clothes that don’t fit anymore. This physical act allowed me to mourn the life I built as an able-bodied, responsibility-free 20-something.

But it was now time to walk in hope, into a new decade. I celebrated my 31st birthday that month, and the anniversary of the surgery was around the corner. It was time to start building a new life as a resilient survivor and the mother of a precious little life. My body may not quite fit as well into the little dresses or have use for those running tops. And I traded my black power dress for a power wheelchair and yoga pants. But this body produced new life and survived the assault of a malicious tumor.

My body was a daily reminder that there is a God who works miracles. That right leg that was once dead is now able to move. I could stand up and walk with crutches. I could cook dinner for my family. My arms and my core were almost completely restored.

It was time for me to start building my new wardrobe for my new, miracle mom body.

How was I to think about this body? I was spending many hours a week rebuilding, relearning and resurrecting its function. It could be exhausting, but I had a purpose behind my labor. This body needs to carry me through many more earthly decades, Lord willing, and more immediately it has to be strong to care for a toddler. But was all of this bodywork temporal and fleeting? As Christians, we believe that God will ultimately restore our bodies after death into a New Creation. All tears will be dry and we’ll suffer no more in eternity, a promise that rescued me from many painful nights of despair in the hospital and beyond. In almost a foreshadowing, we read this promise from Revelation 21 during our wedding vows:

"Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away." And he who sat upon the throne said, "Behold I make all things new."

My body is riddled with signs of suffering. A large scar on my leg where I sustained a third-degree burn as a child, lots of stretch marks on my belly from carrying now two big baby boys, and a jagged, scarred line from my neck to my shoulders from the surgery. What will happen to these when my body is ultimately restored? We can’t know for sure, but we do know what happened after Jesus was resurrected from the dead. He still had the scars from the wounds inflicted on the cross. On the other side of his miraculous restoration, the disciples still saw where the nails had been gruesomely hammered into his hands and the spear through his sides.

There was something about the story of the pain He endured, written on his body, that continued into the Kingdom of God after death and resurrection. Maybe that is telling of our own pain as well. It won’t be erased and meaningless in eternity.

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I wrote a version of the above essay almost 3 years ago for a spoken-word event, and as I read it back today I realize that I am still struggling with how to dress this new body that is often seated in a wheelchair, but sometimes walks with crutches. This body is often holding babies and covered in their many baby fluids, and it occasionally gets out for date nights and fancy work events. Rebuilding this complex closet will take some time.

A group of friends just read Worthy of Wearing: How Personal Style Expresses Our Feminine Genius together, and it was a great start to re-establishing a wardrobe that feels both beautiful and functional. Now I’m feeling excited about the refining what my personal style is for this new phase— even if it took me a while to get here.

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Lately there has been a whole lot about disability and fashion that has been interesting! Here are some links:

• CNN Style: A necessary and overdue education': British Vogue dedicates five covers to disabled trailblazers

• USA TODAY: Candace Owens is wrong. Women like me who use wheelchairs can – and should – model underwear.

• WSJ: The Chicest Flats for When You’d Rather Wear Heels (this article hit all the feels about having to give up heels!)