When I was a little girl, my family spent a good amount of time hanging out with a nun and her friends at the convent. This nun had been a good friend of the family for many years. . .she had in fact been my mother's first grade teacher. And when I was born, I was named after this nun.
So for many, many years, we made the trek up the high way to visit with her. Sometimes she would sign out a car and drive into town to stay with us. She was simply family.
She was always interested in what my sister and I were doing and she was just genuinely tickled to spend time with us.
At the start and end of each visit we would get wrapped up into hugs. The kind of hugs that when you are a little girl you find almost suffocating. And yet you know they are good hugs. But have mercy, a girl needs to breathe, right?
Nuns give up so much in order to spend their lives in prayer. Sister often put away little bits of money here and there so that we could have treats from the vending machine when we visited. And she bought us birthstone rings one year for Christmas.
She also had one little luxury for herself--Youth Dew perfume.
I'm rambling.
I haven't smelled Youth Dew in years. Sister died ten years ago. I hadn't seen her much during the last few years as I was busy working and raising my own family. Yet I still remember her laugh, her soft brown eyes and the scent of Youth Dew.
Completely unrelated, several years ago my sister in law gave me some relaxation bath gel and lotion. The bath gel smelled minty on it's own. But when I put the lotion on, something magical happened.
I smelled Youth Dew.
How odd. I never thought of Youth Dew as smelling minty. Yet the combination of the matching relaxation bath gel and lotion made Youth Dew.
And I felt like Sister sent me a little message. She's still looking out over us. And it was like I found a way to get a hug from her any time I need one now. Because those hugs never really were suffocating. No, they were the tight embrace of someone who loved our family.
No comments:
Post a Comment