Ripping off the Band Aid

Last Thursday, I was coming home from a lovely dinner with The Vollmers, and chatting on my cell phone with Becki in the garage, when James ran out with his usual dramatic flair shouting these three words,

“The washer overflowed.”

We’ve been joking about my washer for awhile. We have to give it a push to get it to go to the spin cycle. Tim said perhaps it was previously owned by The Fonz. While I have felt tempted to give a Fonzie-like “Eyyyyyyy”…with two thumbs up each time I pound the washer in just the right place to get it to do it’s job, I have found the scene from The Coal Miner’s Daughter where Loretta Lynn is trying to write a song and she has to keep kicking her old-school jalopy of a washer to get it to go to the next cycle much more fitting. So, if I’m on the phone with my girl Tracy when the washer gets stuck, I just start crooning in my best hillbilly drawl (nowhere near as good as Loretta, I’m sure)…”I’m just a coal miner’s daughter…” as I pound on my washer.

Yep…I know…sounds glamorous, right?

It's only even been stuck on the spin cycle, but Thursday something much different happened. This time, it stuck on the fill cycle....and no one knew it until it reached every room in the house. The funny thing is, for the past couple weeks, out of the blue, the washer has worked, switching to spin on its own. A miracle! Perhaps it thought we needed a break. After all, every vehicle in the Gerken household has been in the shop the past couple weeks for major repairs. My jalopy jeep is still making some strange noise…in fact, I’m pretty sure it’s a noise it wasn’t making when it went into the shop. Our bathroom drain is giving us fits. The internet works sometimes. Only some of the channels we are supposed to get are coming in on the TV. I could go on, but you get the idea. I shared the revelation with Tim about the washer, and he said, “I noticed that. Maybe it gave up, realizing we weren’t going to replace it, so it just decided to work. We waited it out…and we won.”

Perhaps the washer heard our boast. Perhaps it was merely lying in wait, trying to lull us into a false sense of security. Whatever the case, the washer most certainly had the last laugh. It’s ultimate demise began with those three words.

“The washer overflowed.”

And when I opened the door to the house on Thursday evening I stood in utter awe at the destruction before me. Water oozed like fountains throughout the hallway, into the bedrooms and bathroom, overflowing to the kitchen, seeping through the floor. I ran to the basement where I surveyed what appeared to be waterfalls pouring through the ceiling on to the furnace, scanning the length of the basement through the floor boards above…leaking onto the boxes of stuff I have allowed to accumulate. Ministry items, personal items, paperwork, pictures, clothes, my mother’s things. All stuff left for another time. Piles I had allowed to wait for me to organize…when life was less busy, when the immediate needs of the day were less pressing…when I was ready to look through the pictures, ready to face mom’s things and make a decision about what to do.

 And, now I rushed frantically, grabbing ministry items first: Comfort Bears, Dreams of You Books, our new banner, boxes of paperwork. I ran through the waterfalls, still shocked, my mouth agape in wonder that this was actually happening. I bit back tears as I gripped slippery, soaked boxes and shouted to James to get me towels to dry what I could once I rescued the items from the waterfall. My feet splashed through inches of water puddling around and over my sandals.

Upstairs, Tim brought out his tiny shop vac to extract what water he could from our fifteen year old carpet, after shutting off the water to the washer. Gallons and gallons of water, he sucked into the machine and emptied only to fill it again and again. I heard James slip and fall in one of the puddles, and Tim’s daddy voice telling him to find somewhere dry and stay put. Timothy came home and helped me move some boxes. Tim’s shop vac ran on. We worked into the night, finally plugging in the fans to dry what was left and collapsing into bed at about 1:00am.

The next day as we began to call the insurance company and further assess the damage, we started to look for the silver lining. At least I was home for the summer…not working at school. At least the golf outing was already finished and not looming ahead while I tried to make all the necessary arrangements to clean up the mini-disaster. When we tear out all the carpet, I can finally paint the rooms that have been waiting for me to paint. I will have no excuse to clean and sort the basement…going through mom’s things…doing all that I have put off for the past several years. And, most obvious, we are all o.k. and there are much worse disasters that people endure than this. We think of the victims of floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis…and realize that we have so much to be grateful for.  As my very helpful insurance agent said, “At least there are still things to search through.” Yes, indeed. And, we are grateful.

As I began the sorting/cleaning process Friday and Saturday, I realized that these tasks that I’ve avoided like the plague were about to be priority number one for the next couple weeks. I will eat, sleep, and breathe sorting, cleaning, and organizing. Three things that were weaknesses in me before my mother passed. But, since then, I’ve sunk to a new level, and stayed as far as possible from the boxes. I’ve avoided and allowed things to pile to the point where it is overwhelming to think about. Mostly in the basement. The basement has been my secret….my embarrassing secret. Timothy teased that maybe I had a condition like on the show “Hoarders” (And, yes…I know that people suffer from heart-breaking conditions that cause certain behaviors, and it’s no laughing matter…so please do not think I mean any disrespect. Nor did he. Teasing is simply the love language of the Gerken family.)

I thought what he said was silly. After all, I don’t hang on to things that have no value. I can throw away things that are obviously garbage. I don’t consider myself to be a pack rat, keeping things that shouldn’t be kept. What I have done is avoid dealing with things that require a thought, emotional attachment, or decision. Like boxes of my mother’s things. Things that open up feelings that I don’t have the energy to feel. I’ve done my best to stay frozen in time, allowing it all to pile up. Not going forward, not moving on. Just stuck.

Like ripping off a bandaid, there would be no time to contemplate, to rationalize, to formulate a plan to avoid the tasks. The bandaid was ripped off, and my wound is gaping. Last night, I reached her boxes….the scrapbooking items she maniacally ordered from QVC, her sewing materials, pictures the boys drew for their Ma-Ma, some of it stained with water spots, some still dripping and some salvageable. The tears puddled at the corners of my eyes as I pulled items from Timothy’s elementary school years, streaked with water. But, they overflowed like a dam breaking when I pulled from the rubble pictures of my mother, young and vibrant…full of life and promise. The pain slammed full force, releasing in heaving sobs, tightening my chest. There is a reason beyond my dislike for taking the time to clean and organize, beyond the excuses of busyness I’ve claimed, a reason that I have avoided these boxes. Tears poured as I mopped up sopping items and saved what I could. I kept moving through the sobs, thinking that really it is time. It is past time. I felt the shame of allowing the piles to go so long, mixed with the grace of knowing that I only longed to protect myself from this pain. Kind of silly for a grown woman, isn’t it? Thinking that I could hide by avoiding boxes of stuff, thinking that her life…my life lived in those boxes. We human beings really are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Three words ripped off a big band aid, and my wounds are gaping. But, sometimes the band aid has to come off, so that the wound can heal. I asked God what was happening at first. After all, He knows that Tim is trying to work two jobs and we are already drowning in busy and broken stuff, and not enough. But, I get it…or I’m starting to. God always wants more for us than we realize we need. His ways are not our ways for a reason. He doesn’t want me stuck, hiding under piles of boxes. He doesn’t want band aids covering deep wounds. He wants healing, letting go, moving forward, trusting Him, obeying, keeping an orderly home (for my sake and the sake of my family), being real.

In the next few days, we will be cleaning up and tearing the carpet out of our entire first floor so they can bring new, and painting the walls, too. That means not only our entire basement, but every closet and room in our house is going to be gutted and all furniture removed from the house. (Talk about ripping off a band aid!! Ha!) So, we may slip a little further behind on SGM stuff. Please bear with us and pray for us. We are all fine, and still laughing for the most part. We are thankful for a God who provides, for good insurance, and good friends and family. The load of laundry I was washing at Tim’s mother’s house is finished, so I need to get back to the site of The Great Gerken Flood 2011 ( or maybe...The Washer's Revenge...a good title is everything, you know). Thanks for letting me pour out my heart…for loving me anyway, and for your prayers.

Love to all…