In the Closet

In the Closet

Stevie Stephens Burden

July 21, 2023

It’s gloomy and rainy on the coast of Oregon, despite being mid-summer. I’ve decided to make use of the forced indoor day by organizing the huge walk-in closet in my guest room. Most people have a junk drawer but me, me, I have a junk closet, a big closet. Jam packed with everything that I haven’t wanted to find a place for or get rid of, lives in there.

I pour a cup of coffee and head upstairs to the closet. Opening the double doors wide and looking at the amazing amount of accumulation is a bit overwhelming so stepping back I sit down instead. Sipping my coffee and trying to develop a plan for how to get through it all I stay sitting. I reel at the number of memories that have flooded out of the big cedar lined space and into the room. My eyes bounce from thing to thing to thing. There are my mom’s old designer cocktail dresses, vintage and valuable now, hanging on padded hangers, hand done by my aunties. I could never get rid of those. The dresses or the hangers. I will pass them down someday to my grandchildren or a museum. Then right below the clothes are all of our suitcases, just waiting for the next trip, which with the fallout from the pandemic still ringing in our ears, might be a long time off. Still, I can’t get rid of them either. There are art sets in colorful cases bought specifically as gifts for Christmas, the answer there is also an obvious, nope. So that leaves me with an assortment of boxes stacked in every other open spot, and of course, whatever lurks behind them in the farthest recesses of the closet. Scary.

I put on some upbeat classic rock and roll and decide to take everything out and deal with the things in the very back that have been stashed in there for the longest first. I start with the hanging clothes and just finished piling them precariously on the bed when I heard the front door open.

“Hey Mom are you here?”

“Yep. Upstairs in the Wolf room,” the name given to our primary guest room, that’s another story. 

I could hear my boy coming up the stairs, “What are you doing up here?”

Stepping in the room he stopped and surveyed the stack of clothes and open closet doors, “Uh oh I think I may have picked the wrong time to come by.”

“Well now that you mention it, I could use a hand getting all of this stuff out of there so I can go through it,” I replied glancing up at him, “don’t worry I won’t make you stick around to sort it. Although I should since I am sure there is plenty of your stuff in there too.”

“I’m sure you’re right but I really need to get to work. I’ll help you with the boxes before I go in though.”

He pitched in and got the stacks of boxes and crates out, organizing them in piles to make it easier for me to go through, “there’s a bit more way back in the corner but nothing really heavy and there’s no more room out here anyway, so I’m going to leave them in there and take off.”

“Thank-you Son.”

“You’re very welcome, Mother Dear,” it was our ritual exchange and it makes us both smile.

He is right, the room was full of boxes, piles, crates, and books scattered everywhere. I have to laugh. This was why I always put this job off. It’s a daunting task with way too many opportunities to get distracted, reminisce and put off the inevitable. Curious, I step into the closet to see what could possibly still be in there. The back of the closet is draped in shadows and dappled light from the slatted door and I sit down for a moment taking in the pieces of my past that are hidden in there. I talk myself out of marching downstairs and having another cup of coffee, or maybe three, or better yet maybe I should go out to breakfast and forget the whole thing. I stand there as my eyes adjust to the dim light and look at what is left. There were only three items, tucked back into the furthest corner but they bring tears to my eyes. That is why they’re there, way in the back and out of sight. They are too precious to ever give away or even pass down and unbearably hard for me to look at. I have forced myself to barely even think about them since I lovingly and sorrowfully stuck them back there decades ago after my folks died, four months apart. Things left over from childhood like these bring with them such a surge of memories and emotion that I find myself slightly breathless. There in the back nook of my closet sits an old featherweight Singer sewing machine that belonged to my mother. She was a tailor in her younger years and could create anything on that little machine from suits to custom made western shirts to costumes for whatever was needed on Halloween. There was a trunk with many of them still in it behind me in a corner of the room. This little sewing machine stored neatly in its hard black case had been a fixture in my life growing up. Not only did Mom make costumes she made most of my clothes and those of my dolls back then.

The second object sitting right next to the old Singer is a small green suitcase. My mom and dad gave it to me for Christmas when I about seven or eight years old and it had been full of an entire new winter wardrobe for school. I had been thrilled. Many of the clothes Mom had made but there were also dresses and a coat and muff that were store bought and brand new. I had mooned over pictures of the coat and most especially the muff. They were a luxury back then, when everything was picked out of a catalogue and shipped-in. The price tags reflected the trip and made every piece precious to buy and for me to get. I had always loved that suitcase with its sweet Christmas memories. I still do.

I knew what was in the suitcase, and that is what gives me pause now. I know it is full, not of my own lovely clothes but with the entire wardrobe that my mom had made for my Barbies. Barbie and Midge are in there too, probably still dressed in one of the amazing outfits Mom created using scraps left over from her paying projects. I always had the best dressed Barbies in town, not only did they have the coolest trendiest outfits; they also had fur parkas and mukluks because no Alaskan doll, Barbie or otherwise, was complete without her furs. 

The little sewing machine that my mom had logged hundreds of hours on had been the tool of her trade. It had given her independence and income. She had been able to make her own money on the side while her paycheck and tips from being a waitress was required to go to her dad to help support their big family. He had been angry when he found out she wasn’t giving him all of her money; she had gotten even angrier and had left home when he demanded that she give the rest to him. She was 17 and had packed up her clothes, fabrics (mostly old flour sacking), that little Singer sewing machine and had gone out on her own. She never looked back. She eventually reconciled with her dad but would never move back home again. 

She met and married her first husband, a country western singer. That sewing machine got put to work making fancy shirts for her aspiring spouse, until her patience with his drinking and temper forced her once again to pack up, now with three kids, and start over. Her little machine went with her, keeping them fed and independent. It was that fierce independence of hers that comes to my mind every time I see that black case. My mom had a third-grade education, was raised picking cotton in the fields of Texas, and had been poor all her life; but she was smart and determined that her kids would have something better than she had growing up. Through pure grit and stubbornness, she had made that happen. She raised us all to “pull your own self up by your boot straps don’t expect someone else to do it for you,” and “never stop trying; always work hard to get what you want” and “never ever send someone away hungry, it could be you.” We did it all. The four of us went out and built good lives for ourselves. We never strayed far from the path she had laid down for us. One that gave us tremendous work ethics, a belief in ourselves, in the goodness of others, and compassion for those less fortunate, those who didn’t have the kind of success that she had taught us to seek and maintain. She had done it all through her example and not just her words.

My eyes drift to the last item in the closet and the only one from my dad. It leans safely against the very back wall. An old green cloth padded rifle case holding the first gun I ever had. A single shot .22 from Sears and Roebuck. It is a treasure and a heartbreak to me even now. It had been a family gift. My parents found it second hand and my uncle had refinished the stock before they gave it to me for my birthday. Under the dark Lincoln Log brown stain had lay a blond hard wood stock that after it was refinished made the little gun a thing of unique beauty. More than six decades later it is still beautiful. I sigh, my hand unconsciously reaching toward the dear and familiar weapon; my mind filling with memories of learning how to use it and the fun we all had target practicing at the rock pit outside of town. I was so little when I got it that I had to grow into that gun. I couldn’t seat the butt of it in my shoulder where it belonged, my arms were too short. Instead, I had tucked it under my armpit and learned to shoot and how to use the barrel sites despite my size. I finally grew and my arms got long enough to shoot it like it was meant to be used. I became a pretty good shot. I’m still a good shot even though I rarely practice anymore. A big part of who I grew up to be is tied up in this gun, so much so that I just haven’t been able to give it away. Even though it has been hidden for years, it is such a symbol of what connects me to my foundations and to my dad, who I miss dearly I could never let it go. 

I don’t think there are three objects in the world that could tell my story or the story of my family quite like those do. They remind me, my strong self-assured mom had a weak spot. She was always a little embarrassed by how poor she had been growing up and how she looked. Mom would wince every time I pulled out my box of old photos that my grandfather had given me, rolling her grey green eyes.

“Why do you like those horrible old pictures so much?” she would ask me.

“Because they’re of you and my aunties and uncles, and Gramma and Grandpa.”

“But there are better pictures. Ones where we’re not all dirty and wearing nothing but overalls!”

“I don’t care. These are my favorites,” I would say as I looked at the faded photos of her family, my family, mostly taken out in the cotton fields with the kids all pulling long heavy cotton bags. I would put them back in the box and then hide it so she couldn’t throw them out.

When my mom was growing up not only had she been poor but she had been born with one crossed eye that never left the bridge of her nose. She had to wear thick glasses all her life. Back then kids in glasses were bullied and when you coupled that with poverty and crossed-eyes, her life had been tough. Maybe that’s why she became so independent. The incident that broke it with her dad had been when she took the money she had saved up and without telling a soul went and got her eye fixed all alone. In 1933 that had taken some guts and she never regretted it, even when she left home as a result.

This sensitivity to her poor hillbilly roots turned into an obsession with my wardrobe for her. She wanted me to be a girly girl who loved pink frilly dresses and petticoats. She wanted me to be a show piece to the world so everyone would know that I wasn’t poor and was well provided for. She couldn’t understand my love of black or why I insisted on wearing my own pair of beloved overalls all through adolescence. She was stubborn though and made me many lacey pink party dresses on that little sewing machine sitting in front of me now, all in hopes of changing my mind. It never did and now instead of my little suitcase being filled with all of my own beautiful clothes it was full of my Barbies and Midge and all of the clothes that she made for them. 

For the time in my life leading up to my teen years these dolls and their clothes had been our favorite pass time. A place we could meet in the middle and share a softer side of both of our personalities. It brought us together and built on our bond. I outgrew dolls pretty quickly but have tenaciously hung onto those Barbies and their one-of-a-kind wardrobes for the last sixty years. Despite the fact, and much to my mother’s dismay, I never learned to sew and still don’t wear pink, I have hung onto her sewing machine though. Obviously, I will continue to hang on to these artifacts of our pasts but I know I will never learn to sew. I’m okay with that but she is rolling over in her grave right now.

That leaves the gun. It is much more me than anything my mom ever made. We moved to Alaska in 1956 while it was still a territory, because both of my parents believed they could make a better life for us up there. My dad was an adventurer and explorer. He loved new places and he loved the wilderness. He took us to the most incredible place to be a kid. It was wild and untamed, sparsely populated, and vast. I grew up the same way; wild and untamed. He wanted to pass that on to me and I soaked it up. My poor Mom. The dainty frilly girl she had dreamed of gave way to the fiery feisty daughter who thrived in the outdoors and wore Xtra Tuf boots every day. 

She had been disappointed but resigned when Dad presented me with the rifle. Particularly by how excited I was when I got it. I had demanded we go out that minute and shoot it. We did. Loading everybody into the car and heading for the rock pit. We would spend many great days out there just practicing. Learning to maintain our weapons sitting around the fire. Taking on larger caliber guns as we grew and going out on hunts with our dad and uncles. Hunting was a way of life. It was survival not sport. We took it very seriously and despite the fact that I became a hippie and chose not participate in the actual hunts as I got older, I still helped out and played my part. 

I’m a good fisherman, taking after my dad, and we would go out often together. We would load up our gear and head out to a lake or stream. We always took a rifle, because you never knew in Alaska. It would stay close by, ready for either of us to grab if there was trouble, in the form of bears, wolves or whatever, that needed to be run off. We acknowledged that we were in their territory and didn’t want to hurt them but shots ringing out into the quiet made it very clear that we wouldn’t give up our piece of the water either. This is the life I knew, that had made me the woman I have become, and I loved it.  That old rifle would not stop a bear but still, it is beloved, and has been with me these sixty plus years. 

It is the only one of the three that I know I should give away but just can’t. I should give it to one of the great grandnieces or nephews. There are a bunch of them back home in Alaska living much the same way I had growing up. They hunt and fish and live in the bush. I just can’t bring myself to do it. Even though they could teach their kids how to use a gun with it; the ethics that surround being allowed to be a gun owner; our family history. Yes, and our family history. I leave the sewing machine and suitcase in the closet but bring the gun out with me. Predictably I leave the boxes for another day. Gun in hand I walk over and pick up the phone to call home.