On the photo I’ve buried in the closet, and why the buried things are where grace shows up.
June 16, 2026
So the other day I was cleaning out the bedroom closet.
I should say: I was de-cluttering while Sue was out. This is important. This is the only way de-cluttering happens in our home. Sue and I are the odd couple of household objects. She believes in keeping things, every card, every gift, every mug. I believe in throwing things away. So when she is out of the house, I move quickly and quietly, like a man defusing a bomb, getting rid of things before she can come home and rescue them from the bin.
And while I was rummaging through the boxes at the back of the closet, I found our wedding album. Forty years old.
Back then, you understand, we did not keep photos in a cloud. We kept them in albums. Real paper, real pages, the little corners that hold the photo in place. I sat down on the floor and opened it.
And folks, let me tell you. It was an experience.
* * *
Have you ever really looked at your old photos? Some of them are fine. And some of them, oh boy.
There I was. Forty years younger. Over two hundred pounds. I want to be clear – all muscle. All muscle. And on top of this magnificent specimen sat an afro. A genuine afro. The kind of afro that could have had its own postal code. Its own area code. Its own seat on the bus.
I was wearing a white tight t-shirt, because that was the fashion, and oversized jeans, because nothing else would fit over all that muscle. And this was the package that showed up in Korea to meet Sue for the first time.
I look at that photo now and I think: what was I thinking? Walking around like a muscle-bound cartoon character. A Korean action figure that had been left too long in the dryer.
No wonder Sue said yes. She probably thought I came with my own gym.
(I am told she has been rethinking it ever since. But that is between us.)
* * *
Now here is the thing about that album. I keep it buried at the very back of the closet, under everything, where no one will ever find it. My plan, my firm, settled plan, is to keep it sealed until the grave.
But I know my children. The moment I am gone, they will dig it out. They will scan it. And at my funeral, while everyone is trying to be solemn and say nice things about the Reverend Doctor, my kids will put the wedding afro up on the big screen. Two hundred pounds of muscle and a postal-code afro, ten feet tall, behind my casket.
And I will not be there to stop them.
I have made my peace with this. Mostly.
* * *
But here is what struck me, sitting on the closet floor with that ridiculous photo in my hands.
We all have things we keep buried at the back of the closet. Not just photos. Choices we made. Seasons we are not proud of. Versions of ourselves we would rather no one ever saw. Things that, if they came out, would make us cringe and reach for the delete button.
We spend a great deal of energy keeping those things sealed. We curate. We present the good angles. We show the world the highlight reel and bury the rest under everything else in the closet, sealed until the grave.
And I understand the instinct. I do. I have a wedding afro to protect.
But I have come to believe something, slowly, over a long life of watching people, myself included, try to hide their past. The buried things are usually not where the shame should live. They are, more often than not, exactly where the grace shows up.
Paul, the apostle, wrote a letter once where he did the opposite of burying. He came right out and said it: I was the worst. Not the polished version. Not the highlight reel. The raw truth. I was the worst of sinners. And he said it not to wallow, but because that was the whole point, that was where the grace had found him. The mess was not the part to hide. The mess was the testimony.
I think we get this backwards. We think our credibility comes from the clean photos, the good angles, the success, the put-together version. But nobody is moved by your highlight reel. People are moved when you open the album to the page you wish you could burn, and say: here. This is who I was. And look what became of me anyway.
***
I am not going to put the wedding afro on Substack. Let us not get carried away. A man has limits, and that photo is one of them.
But I will tell you it exists. I will tell you about the two hundred pounds and the tight t-shirt and the cartoon confidence of a young man who flew to Korea convinced he was a catch. I will tell you that Sue, somehow, said yes. And I will tell you that forty years later, I am still here, still married, still, occasionally, de-cluttering while she is out.
The afro is buried in the closet.
But maybe the bravest thing any of us can do is open the album, and let someone see the page we meant to keep sealed.
Even if it has to wait until the funeral.
Even if it is ten feet tall behind the casket.
Richard