While hiding in a storage closet, I wrote the first poem I’d never forget.
I was stationed at Quonset Point, Rhode Island, my first duty assignment after boot camp. Before joining the Navy, I had been a Professional Psychiatric Nurse. Yet there I was, back in the familiar company of mops and brooms, assigned to make an abandoned dining area in the small base hospital shine like new.
The assignment came about because of my lapse in judgment.
The day before, while cleaning an unoccupied waiting room, I emptied an ashtray onto the floor. The trash cans had already been emptied and cleaned, and I didn’t want to dirty them again. My plan was simple: sweep the cigarette butts into the rest of the debris and dispose of everything at once.
Unfortunately, the moment the butts hit the floor, I heard my name called by Commander Shadrack, our Director of Nursing.
“Matthysse! That is not the proper way of emptying an ashtray!”
“Yes, Ma’am. I am aware of that.”
“Then why did we do it?”
My face turned crimson as I answered. “I guess I was lazy, Ma’am.”
“Well, see that it doesn’t happen again.”
“It won’t, Ma’am.”
That conversation earned me the privilege of restoring the old hospital dining room the next day.
Although I had made a reasonably good start during my first weeks in the Navy, loneliness had begun to settle over me. Far from home and uncertain about my future, I wondered if enlisting would become the biggest mistake of my life.
As I began stripping the wax from the dining room floor, I discovered a storage cabinet. Its doors opened away from the hallway, making it an ideal hiding place from Commander Shadrack’s ever-watchful eyes.
I stepped inside and pulled the doors shut behind me. Instantly, there was darkness and silence. For the first time in days, perhaps weeks, no one expected anything from me. These words came almost at once.
ALONE
In the darkness, I can see,
The things that light has hidden from me.
In the stillness, I can hear,
The things that noises doth obscure.
Alone with God, I can find,
New hope for Life and peace of mind.
The poem was simple, but to me it was a revelation.
As I sat there in the darkness, a great weight seemed to lift from my shoulders. The loneliness eased. My discouragement faded. I felt as though I could face whatever lay ahead. I could endure hardship, overcome obstacles, and meet any challenge the Navy might place before me. I could…
“MATTHYSSE!” I heard as the closet door flew open.
Bright light flooded the tiny compartment as though God Himself had decided to inspect my hiding place.
“How do we explain this behavior?” Commander Shadrack asked.
“With much difficulty, Ma’am,” I replied.
For just a moment, I thought I saw the hint of a smile, but then she motioned with her eyes toward the unfinished dining room.
“Yes, Ma’am,” I responded to her unspoken order.
A couple of years later, after I had been wounded in Vietnam, I literally ran into Captain Shadrack again on a crowded stairway at Bethesda Naval Hospital. It took her only a moment to recognize the young Corpsman she had found hiding in a closet.
We shared a good laugh as we remembered the incident. Then our conversation turned to mutual friends and shipmates who were killed in Vietnam. As we talked, I began to see a side of her few people ever knew. Behind the stern exterior was a woman who genuinely cared for those under her command, and she would prove it several months later.
When I faced a court-martial hearing, she defended me with a beautifully worded statement, urging leniency and describing my character in terms far kinder than I expected from the officer who once caught me hiding in a closet.
The years have passed, but the lessons I carried away from my brief encounters with her remain: the people who challenge us most sternly are not always our adversaries. Sometimes they are the very ones who believe in us enough to demand better.
I also discovered that when life grows dark and silent, a storage closet can become a sanctuary… at least until you are found.
