The smell of her perfume is the first thing I notice, almost
before opening the door. Mostly J’Adore but also Ed Hardey, Top Model, Dolce
and Gabbana Light Blue and Daisy. She loved perfume. I inhale deeply, savoring
the sweet smell that will someday also be gone. The scent overwhelms me and
makes it almost impossible for me to go into her room without wanting to give
up… to crawl into her bed, curl up under her covers with blankie and never come
out.
“Blankie” is the blanket Kirsten laid upon as an infant. It
came to our house with our friend, Tracy, who was frantically summoned to our
house one night by Kenny to help with the baby Kirsten while I was at work and
it ended up staying with Kirsten her whole life. Kirsten referred to blankie as
a “she.” She was faded and had a hole in her when it was time to go to college,
so I repaired her as well as I could and sent her off. Blankie now lies
forlornly on the bed, folded so the blue heart-shaped patch is on top.
Then there are the clothes. So many clothes. The sliding
doors to her closet stand open revealing clothes packed tightly on hangers,
each item instantly bringing to mind a photo memorized from the hundreds of
photos on facebook; the brown and pink flowered dress from the senior pictures,
the long sleeve cheetah print shirt from pictures at Cami’s house, the black
and white striped sweater she was wearing in the last pictures ever taken of
her.
I try to chase away the memory of that March morning when I
struggled in vain to find just the right outfit for my baby to wear in her
casket. She would know what to wear, I needed her help with this. I had picked through the piles of clothing that had been dumped out of
her suitcases when she came home for spring break, her room a sea of clothes
against the pink and green backdrop of her bedroom walls, until I decided on
jeans, a sheer blue and black plaid tunic style top with a black cami underneath
and brown boots. The clothes are all picked up and sorted now...
Abercrombie
hoodies and Solar Planet t-shirts, jeans and cute shirts, the bright pink Shippensburg hoodie she was wearing the last time I saw her, all neatly folded and
stacked on the light purple carpeting according to whether they smell like her
or not. And then my heart skips a beat, in near panic, when my eyes
land on the brown and pink Nike tennis shoes that she wore so often. And the Uggs…brown, tan, blue and
cheetah ones…the black ones conspicuously missing.
Wedged into the
frame of her dresser mirror are pictures of the kids she watched, Emma and Sam.
She adored them, and they her. She always made time to visit them even after
her job as afterschool nanny was finished. There was a photobooth picture of
Brandon and Kirsten here, too, which is now with Brandon. Stuffed animals, given to her by family
and friends or won for her at the carnival by Brandon, crowd around her
bed. Her special ones…Snowy, baby
Snowy and Patrick sit in their positions of honor on the bed.
Her Shippensburg lanyard with the key to “pretty girl,” (a
car that no longer exists), the key to dorm 507 Mowery Hall, the "10" from graduation and the preppy pink
and green key fob, monogrammed with a funky “k”, I gave her long ago, hangs
inexplicably from the outside of her bathroom door, apparently not with her
that night.
Passing through her pink bathroom, with its myriad of
lotions and perfumes and her robe still hanging on the back of the door, I come
to her other room, her computer room. Her desk and shelves still hold,
sentimentally, all of the greeting cards and notes written to her by family and
friends over the past years. There is a shelf full of designer, blingy
sunglasses and several more pictures of her with groups of friends. The rest of
the room is filled with the contents of her dorm room, the same items that not
too long ago were stacked excitedly in the dining room in preparation for
college: the three drawer units, one neatly packed with more clothing, the
other with snacks; her like-new backpack, notebooks and homework intact; the
beautiful blue floral bedding; her college artwork, her bathroom accessories
and the corkboard and white board message tiles with pictures of friends and
notes still on them, all now reminders of that horrible final trip back from Shippensburg
with all of her belongings but not her.
On my way out, I decide that a person’s room says a lot
about them. Hers seems to say, here lived a girl who loved everything. She loved her friends and family, she loved beauty in
all of its forms… color, scent, style and organization. She loved life.
And her room also says, here not only lived a girl who
loved, but was loved. Dearly.
“Goodbye, Kiki” I say softly and shut the door.
"There
is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief."
Annika, the sweet memories , oh such sweet memories. I am so sorry for your pain. Something I often think of , if only I could have saved all of my grandmothers dresses and apron and made a quilt of them. I would been able to wrap myself in her arms, her scent and her memories. My hugs and kisses, Virginia
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this post. I haven't been in Kirsten's room since that week and the only thing I really remember doing in there was helping you choose an outfit. That is a pretty terrifying memory so I like seeing pictures of things in the daylight and all the little things I used to notice when I was in there. I liked all the PINK dogs and the way the bathroom always smelled like a thousand perfumes. After the night Kirsten and I had the only one of "OUR" sleepovers where Michelle wasn't there, she told me I needed to start using the Redken Blonde Glam shampoos so I did. I don't use it everyday anymore because when I smell it, it still reminds me of that day. I don't want to lose that.
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