the threads in her head

There are some things that are easy to forget. Facts. Things we're supposed to do for the day. When you are teaching Sunday school. Library books return dates.

Then there are some things that are harder. Experiences. Smells.

I can't really remember my mother's smell when I was in her arms, if she had any. I don't have any baby blanket from young which I still hug to sleep.

But your smell just come floating back now and again. The familiar smell of dove soap, lingering after your showers. Then the smell of your sweat, a sharper more acidic smell. The memory just comes, familiar, once-comforting smells.

I think it is the little things that you are most familiar about and used to, taken for granted even that hits you the most when it is gone. Your smell lingers.

I used to think that this was the smell I would wake up to every morning, years later.