The Smell of You

 “Sir, there is nothing more you can do here. Your wife is gone. But here is what you can do," the nurse said, "I want you to go home and gather up all of your wife's dirty clothes. I want you to put them in a plastic trash bag and tie it up tightly."

The first time I heard this story from a doctor colleague I paused, anxiously waiting for the rest of the narrative to be shared.

"And then," she continued, "One day when your children are aching for their mother, when they can't stop crying, you are going to untie that bag and take out a piece of their mother's clothing and let them smell her again."

So often on this path of the grief warrior, it's the scents that most startle me.

I delude myself into thinking that I can control the other senses and how I engage with them. But scent? It's wiley and can sneak it's way in before I know what's happening. It's like waking up from a dream when you were visiting with your dead person(s) and for a brief moment you haven't yet remembered how your life is now framed by their absence. Scent is an even more extreme time machine. Today though it's one of the earliest scents that keeps coming up. Perhaps it's because it's a scent I knew for such a short time, but I'm in awe of my body's ability to hold it sacred for so long.

Old man smell. A mixture of some cologne, maybe Brut, and another scent I have never been able to identify beyond "grandpa."  Grandpa, my dad's dad, died when I was five. My only really memories are of sitting in his lap. His smile and warm brown eyes and silver flattop. Oh! And his dentures. He did chase me around a few times with his dentures in a glass of water as I screamed hysterically.

But the night he died I stood in my long pink fuzzy nightgown with the frilled edging. Silently I watched from the dark of the hallway into the kitchen as my dad sobbed into my mom's neck. I kind of knew what death was but to be honest it was seeing my dad like that which made me the most scared and sad.

But Grandpa's smell? I occasionally am walking somewhere - in a store or down a street - and it will startle me. He will be right there. I stop and try to identify the source. I never find him, but I'm grateful for a scent that can collapse time and transport me to another parallel universe where I am still five years old leaning against my grandpa's chest enveloped by his arms and a scent that signals only warmth, safety and love.