I Smelled My Daughter’s Shampoo on the Pillow

Dear Delyara, It stopped me. I was just straightening the bed, nothing emotional about it, and then that clean sweet smell was there — childish, soft, familiar — and suddenly I was flooded by the strangest ache. Because children leave themselves behind in rooms even when they are not in them. A smell, a hair tie, a sock, a school book, one half-finished drawing. And mothers gather these traces like evidence that time is moving faster than we are handling properly. I stood there holding the pillow for longer than necessary. I’m not ashamed of that.