Hey gang, please forgive me for being sad tonight. It's the 2-year and now 45 minute anniversary of my daddy's dying in my arms at the moment. Feeling a bit something, not sure what, hope you don't mind if I rave.
My folks are both dead now, and their house 7 blocks over that me and my brother now apparently own, within a mile of each of us, is still sitting in exactly the same state it was in when Mom died on October 1st. My brother is the guardian, with power of attorney and all that, but he and I have long-seated issues from our childhood, and he and I haven't been able to communicate or deal with the situation at hand since her death. So the house just sits there, and for some reason, I keep going over there and just sitting in her chair, or on the kitchen floor, or laying in their bed, and crying. The part that strikes me from the second I walk through the door, is the smell. The smell of the Matthews' home. The smell of the life of a family that lived there for 40 years, and nobody ever seemed to open a window, except for me. (I've spent the rest of my life opening windows first chance I get, by the way.)
It's upsetting to no end, most importantly because I am not a wallflower by nature, sitting around waiting for a phone to ring. And yet I have, for whatever misguided reason, bowed down to my brother's being unable to deal with the house. He always loved mom more, and I always loved dad more, and out of the 4 of us, you wouldn't be able to find a single non-dysfunctional bone in our respective bodies. Anyway, I'd just like to spell out a few memories, to get them off my chest tonight. Please write back with your own memories, or whatever you have to say, or just ignore my entirely lunatic version of my childhood, as I remember it. Of the five senses, I'll just start with favorite smells, cause it's getting kind of late tonight. Maybe I'll throw out some more of the senses if anyone even cares to respond to this one.
- Dad cooking early Sunday breakfast -- scrambled bacon and eggs, hot buttered toast, simple as that -- it always roused the other three of us from our beds, even with all of our closed doors
- Mom's cigarette smoke -- I know that sounds odd, but back in the 70's and 80's, we didn't know much better, and it was always a comfort to walk through the front door after school and know that she was there and capable/well enough to light a cigarette (she was an alcoholic, by the way) and so all must have been right with the world and thus safe to enter
- Popcorn, the real kind, cooked in a pot on the stove, with melted butter thrown into the pot after you'd emptied it, and drizzled, sizzling, over the top of it all. Always saved just for the Carol Burnett show at 9 on Saturday nights.
- Mom's perfume, on the rare, rare, rare nights that her and daddy actually went out, which was less than a handful ever
- Dad grilling burgers in the summertime, even when his little helper (me) dropped one off of the very important platter I was in charge of carrying from the kitchen (we never told anyone, but winked as to who was going to get THAT one)
- Books and magazines and papers, everywhere, all the time -- I grew up in love from day one, with the printed word and the way it smelled on parchment or newsprint
- Dad's English Leather cologne (I won't even TRY to explain that one, suffice it to say my taste has improved since then, VASTLY)
- Copper and counting pennies. Dad would throw them all into a cup and when the cup got full, I'd roll them for him and get 5 cents for each roll. We'd put our return address label on them when we were delivering them to the bank on a Saturday morning. They didn't have counting machines back then in the 70's.
- Lilac bushes, rose bushes, honeysuckle, warm cherry tomatoes plucked from the vine
- The rubber from a giant inner tube me and the neighbor kids would jump around on in our back yard, with the sprinkler spraying across it, to make our falling all the more interesting
- Cool water and chlorine from swimming at pool parties in our backyard neighbor's big pool every summer day
- Freshly-washed flannel pajamas, straight from the dryer on a cool autumn night
- One Sheltie puppy named King whom we had for 14 years, and one mutt named Dawg who we had for 9
- My mom's hair after I washed it in the kitchen sink, when she couldn't manage to do it for herself any more
- Mom's chili, and lasagna, and mac and cheese, and especially, her oyster dressing for Thanksgiving
- Shoe polish for my daddy's fancy work dress shoes -- got a nickel for that one as well
- Sawdust from my daddy's basement shop, when he was making something clever for us
- Rain or snow thru an open window, because everything seemed to be allowed to slow down then
Lastly, but not leastly,
- the way my father smelled when I last kissed him
- the way my mom smelled when I last kissed her
I will always, always, always be able to smell all of these things, in a heartbeat. Happy memories of home and life and growing up in a good place where you really don't need to be told that you're loved, because you can see it all around you.
Thanks, BetterMostians for letting me get that off my chest on this difficult night. Was much easier than going for a couple miles on the treadmill at 1:30 in the morning:) Take care. Maybe some of you would like to add your remembrances of smells that remind you of your lost loved ones?