Please note that this post may contain indirect references to trauma and abuse that certain readers may find triggering.
I can recall the image so vividly. She stood there, framed by the deep oak of our front door. Her hair, bobbed and big in that ’90s style (not quite a ‘Rachel’, but almost), fizzed with hairspray. The dress was an event – a floor length Lacroix gown, in black with panels of lace (also black, of course). Her ears and her left shoulder sparkled with giant Butler & Wilson spiders – costume jewels that made me think of Morticia Addams. I can see their diamond-cut shapes catching the light, even now. But what I remember the most is the scent – an atomic cloud of Chanel’s Allure that announced her arrival and made sure she was present, in some way, long after her departure.
This is the most prominent memory I hold of my mother. It is bathed in scent – she is framed by a silhouette of Chanel, and if you remove the dress, the jewels and the person, what’s left is still a vivid picture of the person I remember. The shadow of a person painted by the fragrance she wore, almost like an olfactory negative of the space she filled at that time. In this image she is glamorous, she is smiling, she is kind, she is a mother.