My brothers and I lived with our mom and Grammy on 25 acres in very Rural Maine from 1960 to whenever we left to pursue our own lives. Mom continued to be the paycheck of the family while my grandmother did all the gardening, canning, volunteering in Church and Grange, cooking; and I do mean cooking. We had fresh vegetables from the garden, in season or course, partridge, rabbits, squirrels and deer showed up on the dinner table often. We had roosters and chickens that ran wild in the yard and occasionally invited to be our dinner. She baked bread almost daily and we always had some kind of a dessert after dinner. One day a week, she'd make doughnuts from scratch and we could smell them cooking when we got off the bus.
At the time, there was an attached shed, which was where the outhouse was. Thankfully it was inside the shed--Maine winters are brutal in an outhouse. Up a few stairs was an open room that stored things like empty canning jars, berry boxes, and lots of junk, because they had been through the Depression and kept everything sure they would find a use for it someday. Even though the windows were open all year, the room smelled like hot dust. I liked it up there and tried to make it my "house." Dinner was almost always mud pies which would explain the smell.
The home we lived in wasn't large by any stretch of imagination. My uncle build a small bathroom in a little closet beside the stairs that went to the attic; a nice addition for everyone. Grammy's bedroom was just off the dining room. I used to love sitting at her antique vanity and look at her old jewelry and try to put her rollers in my long hair, which would usually tangle and she'd have to rescue me. She sat on her bed and read in her huge Bible for a long time, spend some time in prayer and then play Solitaire. She and I just hit it off and spent a lot of time together with me watching what she was doing so I could learn it. She was so special to me. She always smelled of a combination of her cooking and clothes that had hung out on the clothesline. Her room smelled of a lotion she wore only at night (she didn't want to waste it). She made most of my clothes in that room with her Singer Trundle Sewing machine. One year she made tons of outfits for my fake barbie doll, including a red corduroy coat with a fur collar, just for Christmas.
Grammy eventually was a victim of and it broke our hearts over and over. She so wanted to cook but could longer follow a recipe. As soon as we thought we were all in bed she would try to escape but mom had been on to her and had put locks way at the top of the door, plus another contraptions that Gram would work away at for hours to no avail. Gram was diagnosed as being Diabetic and that was the point my mother said she couldn't do it anymore and found a bed at a nursing home 10 miles from home. I think it was maybe two nights later that Houdini figured how to escape. I have no doubt I would have tried to escape; the whole place reeked of urine, shit, vomit and the horrible food they were given to eat. I hated that place and I have drilled it into my husband's brain not to send me to anyplace that smells like that,
A few years later she died. We grandchildren had been out on our own for years and thankfully I had been able to see her a few weeks before she died. She was smiling and doing the jig for the nurses one morning and sat down in her chair to await lunch. She died sitting there.
Ten years later my mom was diagnosed with Dementia but it seemed that it took a very long time before it became dangerous to live in her home. I began looking a Alzheimer homes and found one that was perfect but they had no beds. I put up quite a fuss when I discovered that she no longer knew what the special necklace (alert button) was for or how she got the big bruise on her arm. I lived only a few miles away and I did her grocery shopping for her so I could keep a good eye on expired foods. I walked in that morning and she was eating a very fuzzy, moldy muffin. It was time for her to be moved.
I won't go through the entire process, but we convinced her something was wrong in the house. If we had just asked her to go, her answer would be no. The youngest brother had told me when the time came, he would be the one to take her and settle her in. When he came home, he was crying as he mixed himself a drink, drank it down and made another. It wasn't a good night for him or for any of us.
Mom is in a wonderful, caring home with a wonderful roommate that she thinks is her sister. She doesn't know she has kids or was married twice: she just knows this is the best and happiest place to be. Phew.
Okay, I said all that to say this.We were the actual owners of her house and land and began going over to start the process. Every room I went to smelled exactly like it had 40 years ago. The dirt cellar smelled of wet wood chips that had died and rotted, It instantly made me think of the time our old Tom cat had brought home a pregnant wife, Within days she gave birth to 3 kittens that didn't look much like Old Tom. He was a dark gray tiger stripped big cat with ears that the frost had gotten to once or twice. A few weeks later, we had a bad rainstorm and our basement so we went down to check it out. One of the kittens we called Blondie because she was so stupid and so clumsy. She was very pretty, mostly white with a few yellow spots and very long fur, She thought she could surely make that 6 inch jump to another rock, but she missed by about 2 inches. We rescued her and she looked a third of her size with all her fluff wet.
Gram canned anything and everything and the nicely labeled jar were perfectly lined up on the shelves. It was also the coolest place in the house so we stored our potatoes and onions there. Every once in awhile we'd miss an onions that was rotting and it would smell awful until we found the culprets.
The attic also had a certain scent. It wasn't at all unpleasant and I give about anything to be taking a nap up there. My brothers room was one half of the whole attic and I shared a room with my mom off the kitchen. Even though Mom and I were definitely girly-girls, it was definetley a girl room, I was just starting to wear makeup and she had started going out on Saturday night.
Times moved forward and we were spending a lot of time emptying out mom's house after she had gone to her new home. Growing up when she did, she threw away nothing! The little plastic dishes they use for frozen dinners: 4 piles of 100, placed in trash bag, labeled tv trays; blankets piled high throughout the house, collection of bells, collection of cardinals, tho or three old trunks filled with old photos, some not dated and labels.hundreds of rolls of paper towels, two cases of pickled beets many of which were so old they had no expiration day,
I was working to clean out a closet opposite the refrigerator and it was a dusty mess! Here were all of her plastic bags stuffed into one bag so tightly there was no chance of adding more. I pulled a bunch of folded paper bags which had been I holding onto dust for at least a decade. I found a mouse skeleton and lots of poops, and a huge pile of egg crates came tumbling down and put the dust up. I have asthma and hadn't brought my inhaler over because I thought this would be an easy job. I started coughing and couldn't stop, I called to my dog and we got out of there. I'd come back another day and work on it some more.
When I got home, and barely out of the shower, my phone rang. It was Cindy, the post mistress telling me that she had just heard on the scanner that my house on Campbell road was on fire. It was a total loss. So I will never again smell the scents of that house that made it home for me. Yes, we had it insured and just so you know...Nationwide is truly on your side. I cried as it burned,thinking about our lives in that house. I was so thankful that the house was completely empty of anything living, but I knew there were a few antiques that were gone for good.
Just this last week my brothers and I got an acceptable offer for the land. God is so good. The offer was more than I expected, but fortunately acceptable to my brothers. I'll write more about that 25 acres in another post.
I have a granddaughter Olivia and a number of years ago she was visiting us in Maine and fell in love with a stuffed bear I have, called Griz.I couldn't resist giving it to her, not knowing if I'd ever find another. They had a flea infestation just before I came for a 2 week visit and Erika had washed Griz with very good results. That night as I was reading to her in bed, she sniffed her Griz and commented that it didn't smell like me anymore. She was maybe 3 or 4.
I stuffed griz into my suitcase with my clothes and gave him a fingerprint of my perfume into his neck. I slept with him that night. When Olivia woke up and grabbed Griz, she took a long inhaling hug and grinned. "He smells like you again Nana! Life was good again. You would think a smart person like me would have a picture of old Griz, but I don't.
She is now 11 and even thought I gave her a new Griz a year ago, she still sleeps with the old Griz. They were here the other day for a visit and Olivia gave me a huge hug. She looked up at me, her green/gray eyes slightly misty and said, "Oh Nana. You still smell like Nana. Don't change a thing!'
What's funny thing is I have three other granddaughters who often say my house smell like me. I hope they all have memories of these scents when they are my age.
Think about it, when you go into a place where you spent a lot of time, do you immediately know the smell? A couple years ago I went into my first elementary and immediately picked up the smell of chalk and dust.
I think our sense of smell gives us longer lasting memories of all the scent. What do you think? Do scents bring back memories for you?
Cooper, our furbaby, makes me laugh a lot. He tries to act dumb, but he is really smart. He plans ahead. Our home is a raised ranch and when you enter you go up seven stairs to the main level of the house. I have a tether just outside the front door to keep him from running next door to visit their dog, and he barks to let me know he needs to go outside. He takes one of his stuffed toys down the stairs and leaves it on the floor. When he comes in, he runs upstairs and turns, waiting for me to throw his toy up to him so he can catch it. Then he becomes fast dog and races through the house, skidding on every rug so they end up in a corner. Just watching his antics makes me laugh, even though he does it every single night.
