With each passing year I feel a keen sense of sadness that my mother never knew me as a person with a "proper interest in perfume", as opposed to the giver of thoughtless fragrance gifts depicted in my earlier post about her. How my careless behaviour still makes me squirm! And I wish I had paid more attention to the scented products she used, though Lentheric Tweed fragrance, Bronnley lemon soap and Yardley honeysuckle talc have lodged in my mind. And she had lily of the valley for her wedding bouquet, I do know that.
I am pretty sure Mother would have liked the new Bonkers Towers - I now also regret selling her walnut bureau and one or two other fine pieces of antique furniture! But we lived in a modern house at the time and I never thought that one day I might have a use for period furnishings myself.
But never mind the material trappings of our family life - mostly I just miss her terribly for the lovely, caring person that she was. The dwindling numbers of her (now very ancient!) contemporaries never fail to mention Mother in Christmas cards and emails - here is one touching reference from this year.
"I cannot help recalling how, when I first moved here, I had the joy of the company of several old friends of my childhood, Peggy being the most important one. I still miss her very much. Such a humorous, wise, tolerant and lovable person. We would often meet for a meal together at each other's home. Such happy times."
So this post is dedicated to anyone who has lost a parent and misses them. And especially to anyone who feels they would have done some things differently if they had their time over. In the case of my own mother, I should have bought her a Boots token at the very least.
