I’ve been thinking about my mother lately. She died in 2012 and recently my sister, brother and I have decided that it’s time to sell her townhouse outside of Raleigh, NC which we had been renting since her passing. I didn’t grow up there but the home holds wonderful memories of visits with the kids and it feels like the last piece of her is about to evaporate.
At my Mom’s funeral in North Carolina my good friend who lives in Durham, came to the graveside service. Margaret and I had been e-mailing before I left Philadelphia, she offering her condolences and sharing her experience when her mother died. She told me she keeps her Mom’s bottle of Shalimar on her dresser and keeps her ashes in an old time-y biscuit tin in the kitchen cupboard. I didn’t question the biscuit tin part but I understood the Shalimar. Like many women of that era, my mother included, Guerlain’s Shalimar was considered the classy perfume of choice. At the luncheon after the funeral, Margaret gave me a bottle of Shalimar. Tears flowed.
Today I am rummaging through the bathroom cabinets looking for a stopgap scent from the array of half -used drug store perfumes given to me by the kids years ago. I spotted the unopened bottle of Shalimar behind an ancient bottle of iodine. It only took one spritz of Shalimar to bring me back to when I was a youngster, watching my mother get dressed for a party. It was my job to spray her with the Shalimar because her nail polish hadn’t yet dried.
My mother having a lung condition, could no longer live by herself so she came to Haverford to an assisted living facility close to my house. I was more than happy to take care of my mother, to have her close by. Things were OK until they weren’t. My mother’s body was failing and because her mind wasn’t, it scared her. Her lifeline was me and to get to me she kept her little flip phone on a lanyard around her neck at all times. It got to the point that if I left her alone for any length of time other than at her apartment, she would call me. Her comfort zone went from thirty minutes to fifteen to five. On the way back from one of her doctor’s appointments, I stopped at my house to let the dog out, leaving her in the car for mere minutes She called me from the car and not just once. Where are you? she asked. That was the day I lost it.
“Mom, I’m right here. Please stop. You can’t possibly think that I would ever forget about you, or leave you anywhere. I would never, EVER do that”.
My sister and brother live two hours from me, in opposite directions and they both were grateful that I was on the front lines taking care of our mother on a daily basis. “You’re only human,” my sister said. I couldn’t tell my brother, not that he would judge me but of the three of us, he has the biggest heart and would just cry, his beloved parent now the child. But none of that helped. It would be arrogant to say I don’t have any regrets in my life. But I have one searingly painful regret–I made my mother cry. There is not enough Shalimar in the world to spritz away that guilt, that regret.
Be well and be kind,
Susan
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I thought I was already signed up for your newsletter, but it kept asking me to join, so I did. However, I never received a confirmation email. Is that because I’m already registered?
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View lessDon’t feel guilty! Easier said than done, but you did the best you could with what you had at the time. Think about your own kids. If they did the same for you, you would be happy ( in a rationale mind) What we have later is not our fault and you can’t think that we have. You did the best and that’s all you can do.
Don’t feel guilty! Easier said than done, but you did the best you could with what you had at the time. Think about your own kids. If they did the same for you, you would be happy ( in a rationale mind) What we have later is not our fault and you can’t think that we have. You did the best and that’s all you can do.
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