My Mother's Perfume

Laila Kerbag English 2

9-25-17

My Mother’s Perfume

I have always loved the smell of my mother’s perfume. It filled our home with the smell of a crisp spring morning. However to me, the aroma was a scent of love and happiness. The perfume followed her when we went to boisterous family parties, and I came to associate the smell with our family. Wherever the spring breezes blew I knew my family was nearby. I remember the extensive dining table we would all sit at after months of not seeing each other. Over the smell of the food, over the smell of the home, wherever I was sitting, wherever she was sitting, there was the smell of my mother’s perfume.

It became a marker, an indicator that I was being loved and cared for. It became not only a smell but a place I felt safe. My mother enjoyed having nice dinners at home every month, and she always wore the perfume. I remember helping her set the table: six plates, six forks, six knives, and six spoons. After dinner, It was the perfume I last remembered before going to bed. She would read me bedtime stories and give me gentle forehead kisses that made me feel as though a protection spell was put on me.

It was the perfume she wore when her eyes screamed love and compassion for my father instead of anger and regret. When she fell out of love with my father the perfume also fell out of use. My parents signed the divorce papers on that very same dining table we sat at as a family. She has not worn that perfume since. When my mother stopped smelling like love and happiness, my father started smelling like beer and liquor. He had the stench of late nights and strange women. I never smelled that perfume again.

The rhythm of dinner changed: one plate, one fork, one knife, and one spoon. My mother’s lips continued to feel gentle on my forehead, and her protection never broke despite the change. Even though she was broken. I was young and confused. Divorce was something I would hear about from my friends when they talked about their parents, but never something I was supposed to experience. My mother and I never had a good relationship, and somehow I have always blamed my father for it. I believed that if he had not taken her happiness away, I would not have to feel like she was always trying to take mine. He always understood me more than she did, but she was more involved in my life. The situation felt ironic.

Her past pain made her overprotective. When I first told my mother I wanted to be in a relationship with a boy, she panicked and forbid me from dating. At first, like any teenage girl, I thought she was against me and only did it to make my life miserable. After more time and experience, I realized she intended to protect me, to make sure I was safe.

My parents fought a lot, and my brothers would tell me, “do not worry, this happens when two people love each other,”  to make me feel better. However, I knew that love was long gone between them, they would look at each other with stormy turbulent inflamed eyes. At age eleven, in some way I understood that love does not last, even when two people spend over twenty years together, and raise four kids. Although their marriage ended way before, they divorced when I was twelve. I did not think much of it until I was older, until I was faced with questions such as which one of my parents would be coming in for the parent teacher conference or if they wanted to take pictures with my brother and his bride together, or separately. On the spot I felt very normal about it, but later on when the sun set and everyone was asleep I started  to think.

This was not how life was suppose to be. Or was it? Honestly, you will just never know, and that’s life, all one big mystery. Although I believed love did not last, I have found myself fighting for it. It seems as though one good thing came out of my parent’s divorce, a lesson. My mother wears a different perfume now, it is a smell I had to learn to get used to. I have accepted it and although it will never compare to my favorite perfume, I have grown quite fond of it.