In doing so, I stumbled over an envelope full of photos. I pulled it out and began looking through them. They were pictures of me from school and a large picture of my grandmother as a young girl that I would have sworn was of my mother if not for the name written on the back. And there were pictures of my mom.
The envelope was one of the last things she gave me before she died.
It wasn't the pictures that got to me though - they were just images. What did get to me was the smell.
The envelope smelled not of old paper, but of my mother. A smell that I'd not thought of in many years, and one that even now I cannot describe.
Something like a cross between makeup, hairspray, and light perfume.
Nothing that comes from a bottle.
Just my mom.
Oh, how poignant.
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