Love smells, tastes, sounds, feels, looks like . . .

Dearest Readers:

Recently, I found the “poem” below as I was going through one of the never-ending (at last it seems that way) boxes left over from our big move last year.  As I reflected on this list, now fifteen years later, it didn’t take long to remember the day and occasion upon which these words spilled out onto the page in the fall of  2009.

I had just buried my mother ten days before. The retreat, four hours away, was planned weeks ago. How I could still attend, but Galen encouraged me to go. He would be there for my grieving Dad.

I was exhausted by the heaviness and the stress of the past six weeks as my mom’s heart slowly gave out. She had been in hospice since March. By the end of September, she was gone.  Join me below as I reflect on the five senses of Love.
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“Describe love, using your senses,” says Beth the Spiritual Director leading our one-day retreat in early October 2009.

Love . . .

Smells like . . .
Downy Fabric Softener
lilacs in spring
lavender
a newborn baby’s head

Tastes like:
sweet red wine paired with
dark chocolate

Sounds like:
rippling brooks
distant thunderstorms

Feels like:
soft, textured yarn
Ella’s hug
The warmth of
my mother’s quilts *

Looks like:
a single red rose
a room full of candles
My dad’s wink*

( And there those words sat until I found them now, fifteen years later.  The asterisks * are for the two items I  added as of this writing.)

The retreat took place in the church lounge. Beth knew I was coming on “empty.” Everyone gathered in close; normally, that would be me, but not that day. I chose the sofa in the back. She told me later she saw me fall asleep during one of the sessions and smiled.  The fatigue of caregiving and my mother’s terminal agitation had taken their toll.

(Terminal agitation is often seen during the hours or days before death. It is distressing to experience and watch. It is treatable, but for a few, (92% the doctor tells me) nothing seems to work. This was the case for my mother in the two and a half weeks leading up to her death. First, it was the inability to sleep, leading to extreme agitation. She vacillated between times of being present with and refusing to cooperate, or ask for /accept help. We could not reason with her. This was so out of character for her – and completely beyond her control, the hospice nurses assured us. ‘ She spent much of the last two weeks at the in-patient hospice unit.

The night before she lapsed into a final coma, she rallied, spent time with three of her grandsons, and gave Galen instructions on what he needed to do for dad, like buy him a warm coat. Now, that was more like my mother. Keeping track of details and making sure things were taken care of. She said she wasn’t worried about Dad anymore and was at peace. Four days later she quietly left us.

Back to the five senses of LOVE . . .

Smells like
Downy April Fresh fabric softener, lilacs, and lavender

Coming off of the caregiving for my mom, is it any wonder that the Downy April Fresh Fabric Softener my mother used for our laundry found its way into the “smells-like” category? Who could tire of the “April Fresh” scent or forget the blue plastic container with the pink flowers and big pink cap?

I have no particular reason for my love of lilac bushes and their fragrance. I remain convinced – no candle or air freshener can duplicate the scent our Creator came up with in the first place.

Lavender? I don’t know and I don’t have to know. I just do.

And how can anyone resist the sweet fragrance of a newborn baby’s head? It’s intoxicating enough to make one want “just one more.”

Looks like:
A single red rose, a room full of candles, and my Dad’s wink

My dad was known as “The Rose Man” at the local florist in their small town. He stopped in weekly to buy a single red rose for my mother during the later years of their marriage. At the funeral, the florist included a single stemmed red rose for the “Rose Man.”

This wasn’t the first time roses were part of my Dad’s love language. Earlier after hearing yet again of another acquaintance who was unfaithful to his wife, my mother asked my dad in despair, “Who can we trust anymore?”

Dad went out and returned later that day with a single red rose.

“What’s that for?” she asked him.
“It’s to remind you that you can always trust me,” he replied with his signature grin.

I’ve always loved candles. I remember the year we followed the advent calendar when the boys were little. They ran around and turned out all the lights in the room. One would strike the match and light the advent candle, open that day’s “window” and we’d read again a part of the ages-old story, reminding us once again of Jesus, the light of the world.

My oldest son used a “roomful of candles” when he proposed to his girlfriend (and rose petals leading to the candle-lit room where he proposed). The middle one proposed to his girlfriend on a beach at dusk with a lit candle and a single red rose. The youngest proposed on a carriage ride downtown Chicago, which did not lend itself to roses or candles, however, during their early marriage they had a bouquet of red roses hanging on their wall, so there’s that. Do you see a theme here? Three women became cherished daughters-in-law and the mothers of our dearly loved ten grandchildren.

My Dad’s wink – He didn’t say the words, “I love you,” as often as we say them to our children and grandchildren now. But that wink . . . that wink said it over and over “I love you.”

Tastes like:
Sweet red wine and good dark chocolate?

Beth had sweet red wine and good dark chocolate that day, where it felt safe to be and feel whatever was true for me. We didn’t drink wine growing up and I didn’t appreciate the joy of a good dark 70% chocolate. But I’ve grown up since then.

 Sounds like:
Rippling brooks and distant thunderstorms

For four years in the mid-seventies, we lived outside Wrightsville, PA, a small river town along across the wide Susquehanna River from Columbia. Cornfields, a horse farm, an orchard, and the woods surrounded our old house.  It was an ordinary house with old shingles for siding and a corrugated tin roof that sang when it rained.  A quiet rippling brook made its way through our front yard down through the woods to the road at the end of our long lane. Somedays it was barely visible, but after a hard rain, it rippled.

I can’t quite say how it sounds like love. I suspect it is because the soothing, gentle sound felt like the general atmosphere of my home most days, growing up, a home where I first learned love. My parents weren’t perfect. Life was difficult at times. What is also true is this; I knew they loved each other and they loved me and although I worried about a lot of things, I never worried one of them would leave.

A distant thunderstorm? I am not a fan of the terrible storms some of us have experienced recently in the Midwest, but the rumble of thunder in the distance says “Come on in, come home, be safe.”

Feels like:
Soft fuzzy textured yarn, Ella’s hug, the warmth of one of my mother’s quilts

Ella’s hug – My granddaughter doesn’t remember my mother, but her hug felt like medicine that day, only ten days after we buried my mother.  It is still like medicine. She’s almost grown up now at sixteen. Sometimes she leans her head into my hug and I melt just a little.

My mother taught me to crochet as a little girl. I love the sensation of yarn against my skin. I crocheted that day, in that lounge, sitting by myself on that sofa.

I wanted to quilt like my mom, and I could do it, but I realized it was too detailed and precise for my random brain. I enjoyed them instead. I have snuggled up at night for years under one of my mother’s Flower Garden quilts.

Making those quilts was her love language to her five grandchildren and for my brother and me… each one hand quilted, carrying on in the tradition of her mother and the women before her. She was an artist in her own right as she artfully and carefully combined patterns and colors for her masterpieces. My dad called her an artist of color  Her hand quilting is a dying art. She wasn’t one to be easily impressed with machine quilting. She would be reluctant to call it “real quilting.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Here we are again, Dear Readers, at the end of my words.  

“What does all of this have to do with love?” you might be asking.  It’s certainly not an exhausting list by any means. It does capture a moment in time.  As I have reflected further on these words,  it seems they have a lot to do with family and home and faithfulness, one of my deepest and most closely held values. I am grateful.

Thank you for reading along with me in these reflections.  if you’d like to think about the five senses of love with a few words and want to share them here in the comments or send them to me at chiestand3@gmail.com, I’d love that. 

I have been part of a Memoir Writer’s online group. Here I find friendship, encouragement, and feedback from an eclectic group of Memoir writers scattered around the world.  I am still writing new pieces and figuring out how what I have already written fits into some sort of sensible narrative. I’ll continue to share some of that here.