Sometimes I get the feeling that she's still here.
I have been sorting things out. Boxes, boxes, boxes. All the boxes that I've carried round for years and not unpacked, overfilled and buckling with old Beanos and Dennis The Menace related items, (everything from underwear to ketchup!) I even threw away a few of the more perishable items; tins of baked beans and hot dog sausages that looked perilously close to exploding, (about to ruin several irreplaceable and much treasured tee-shirts) and ice cream cones, (what kind of obsessive nut case saves boxes of ice cream cones?)
I've got some of the boxes that my Mum packed up of things that I'd left at their house, most of these things had been left there for years.
In one of these boxes were my Great Grandmother's binoculars. I picked them up, wondered aloud about throwing them away, as they've been broken for years; one of the eye pieces is missing so they're totally impossible to use. I opened the binoculars' case and the room was filled with the smell of my Grangran.
She had a very individual smell, indescribable, but instantly recognisable to me. Her house smelled that way, her flat smelled the same. The room she lived in at our house smelled of it and her room in the nursing home in which she died smelled that way too. I was never sure if it was the way she smelled or some perfume that she used. I suppose I should have asked her.
Where did the smell come from? It certainly didn't come out of the binoculars' case; I've had that for years, it's been nowhere near my Grangran or any of her rooms or possessions for years and it's been opened many times since she gave me the binoculars. Did opening the box trigger some memory of the smell of my Gran? Possibly, but the smell was so very real and quite overpowering.
I apologised out loud, promised not to throw the binoculars away just yet and the smell was gone.
I'd like to think she was there, and the smell was just her way of poking me in the ribs, reminding me that she's still about and that I'm not getting rid of her just yet. It's not the first time that she's been around. I do hope it won't be the last.
I've got some of the boxes that my Mum packed up of things that I'd left at their house, most of these things had been left there for years.
In one of these boxes were my Great Grandmother's binoculars. I picked them up, wondered aloud about throwing them away, as they've been broken for years; one of the eye pieces is missing so they're totally impossible to use. I opened the binoculars' case and the room was filled with the smell of my Grangran.
She had a very individual smell, indescribable, but instantly recognisable to me. Her house smelled that way, her flat smelled the same. The room she lived in at our house smelled of it and her room in the nursing home in which she died smelled that way too. I was never sure if it was the way she smelled or some perfume that she used. I suppose I should have asked her.
Where did the smell come from? It certainly didn't come out of the binoculars' case; I've had that for years, it's been nowhere near my Grangran or any of her rooms or possessions for years and it's been opened many times since she gave me the binoculars. Did opening the box trigger some memory of the smell of my Gran? Possibly, but the smell was so very real and quite overpowering.
I apologised out loud, promised not to throw the binoculars away just yet and the smell was gone.
I'd like to think she was there, and the smell was just her way of poking me in the ribs, reminding me that she's still about and that I'm not getting rid of her just yet. It's not the first time that she's been around. I do hope it won't be the last.