The Smell of a Mom

The sense of scent is powerful, isn't it? It can make your mouth salivate or turn your stomach upside down. It can change your mood. It can bring back memories.

We've been going through boxes in our garage for an upcoming garage sale we're having. Since my mom and grandma passed away, I've had boxes of their things in our garage for a couple of years now. It's finally time to sort through it and decide what to keep and what to get rid of. I didn't realize that I needed to prepare myself emotionally just to get ready for a garage sale. But I almost lost it when I opened up a Sterlite container of my mom's sweaters. There it was. Her smell. I didn't know that I still had anything that smelled like her. I have her jewelry box and every once in a while when I open it, I think I can smell her perfume. When she first passed away, I wore her white sweatshiret jacket every morning and would just sit and smell it until it no longer smelled like her.

My mom always smelled good. When I would walk into her house, it smelled like her. When I would give her a big hug because we hadn't seen each other for a while, I would catch a whiff. When I was little, I wanted to smell like her and she would put a dab of her perfume on me. When Emily sees me getting out my body spray, she runs over and asks me if she can smell pretty too. Sometimes I thought my mom wore too much perfume - in fact, I can remember, as a teenager, during the summer when I would get to sleep in, I wouldn't wake up until my mom left for work. She would spray her perfume as the last thing she did before leaving and the strong smell of it would drift into my room and wake me up. And sometimes, she'd pull out a little bottle of perfume or scented lotion when we were driving in the car and dab it on herself and I'd get so irritated because the smell was over powering in the confines of a car! I miss her so much. And the smell of her things stings a little bit, but I'm thankful for them! I want to vacuum seal it so that every now and then, when I really miss her, I can open it up and breathe her in. It's not the same to just have the perfume that she used, because the scent of my mom was more than that. I can't describe it. She just had an essence.