Doors Left Open

Two and a half decades ago I was hunting on Kodiak Island with my dad and some friends from church. It was a cold, windy November day and, like it often does on Kodiak, the rain was coming down hard. Thankfully, our friends had a wonderful cabin just off the beach.

After a long day of unsuccessful hunting, we walked into that cabin, cold and wet and ready to be out of the elements. Someone got a fire started in the stove immediately and we began shedding our soaked clothes and basking in the warmth of that little stove.

I don’t remember exactly how it happened but someone must have gone outside and didn’t quite latch the door. Even though the cabin had an enclosed mudroom going out from the door, there was soon a noticeable draft in that small room and then a gust of wind pushed the door open even more just as I was walking by. My dad casually asked me to shut the door and then the five words which would become infamous fell out of my mouth, “I didn’t leave it open.”

My dad stared blankly at me as I mulled over the senseless words which had so effortlessly slid off my tongue without a thought. “STUPID, STUPID, STUPID,” I thought to myself as I waited for my dad’s response. “Well,” he started, with more than a hint of annoyance in his voice, “I didn’t ask if you opened it, how ‘bout you just shut it.” The whole room burst into laughter and I stood there, feeling like an imbecile, then slowly walked over to the door and quietly shut it, tail still between my legs. It’s been twenty five years and I have still not lived down that day and that phrase is still thrown in my face in jest.

In my head, I was not nearly as concerned with having to shut the door as I was with being blamed for it being left open. I didn’t want people thinking it was my fault so I neglected to address the issue. What has become a family joke was actually a great lesson in my life.

I learned that responsibility sometimes has nothing to do with fault. No, it wasn’t my fault the door was left open but, as an able bodied member of that group trying to warm up, it was my responsibility to ensure it was shut. The truth my dad allowed me to trip over that evening was this: even though I was not at fault for the door being originally left open, it was in my power to fix the issue and therefore was accountable for keeping the door closed. Not being the one who caused the problem didn’t give me a free pass to be a bystander.

My wife’s father left her and her three sisters when she was four years old. She was raised by a single, alcoholic mom and was exposed to dangerous and destructive environments her entire childhood. While none of that was her fault, she accepted the accountability to ensure her life as an adult didn’t follow the same patterns and took the responsibility to protect her own path from the cycle of dysfunction.

It’s easy for us to see a problem around us and neglect to address it because we didn’t cause it. I think this is a very short sighted way of thinking but yet I struggle with the fairness of it all myself. “It isn’t fair” has to be one of the most destructive phrases in our conversations. We must learn to look beyond the fairness, and focus on the necessary.

“What can I fix in my life or in the circumstances around me, regardless of whom or what caused it?” That is a difficult but essential question to ask. We – because this is a tough one for me too – must seek out the doors left ajar around us, those letting in the bitter elements from outside to cause destruction inside the walls of our lives. And because we are responsible for what happens inside though walls, ensure those doors stay shut.