I’ve written a lot about the pain that grief has brought into my life since Emery’s death, but that is only one side of the story. Grief, whom I have personified into a skinny woman in a Pink Floyd T-shirt named Wanda (because I tend to name things that stick around in my life), has also brought unexpected gifts. My sons and I have spoken often about grief, a subject we have come to understand on a much deeper and personal level this year. We all agree that grief has changed who we are at our core and deepened our connections in life. We are moving at a slower pace, with far more awareness, and are discerning in where we put our energy. This came to light for me while I was in a shop in Kansas City a few days before Christmas with my sister, Susan. We had just been to a local bookstore, and while walking to my car, we passed the boutique where Emery often shopped when she was in Kansas City. Because I’m now drawn to anything that was in Emery’s history, I wanted to go in. A display of a familiar perfume caught my eye, and while I was looking at the small bottles, a woman who worked there asked if she could help me find something.
I told her yes, and asked if they carried a particular scent I liked in the body lotion. A year ago, I hadn’t heard of Maison 4, but I easily recognized the scent as it was what Emery wore. After she died, two of her friends and I cleaned out her bathroom drawers, a task that was both an honor and one of the most difficult, given its intimacy. I took home several items that day, my favorites being the bottles of Emery’s scent and I’ve rolled it onto my wrist every morning since. The sales woman said she would check the storeroom to see if they had what I was looking for. While she was gone, I wandered around the shop, envisioning Emery pulling things out for me to try on. I’d often respond with a hard no, but she’d insist, adding that trying something totally unexpected would be fun, and I should at least give it a try. She was usually right. Emery was fun to shop with, given her ongoing motivation to push me out of my comfort zone.
When the woman returned, she had two bottles of the body lotion and said,
“I have no idea who told me about this scent, but I just love it!”
I hesitated. It was a moment that felt like a tap on the shoulder, and rather than move through it, I stopped. I decided to tell her my story. That doesn’t always happen, but she was kind, and it felt right.
“I love it too. My daughter wore the scent.”
She smiled while she put my items on the counter.
“So your daughter has good taste!”
“Yes, she did. She had very good taste.” I paused, then continued.
“She died last January, and I learned about the scent when I went through her things. Although I didn’t know the name, I was familiar with it because it was her scent.” I didn’t feel done. I added, “She died from complications from the flu and pneumonia. She was 34, with two young children.”
It’s not easy to say those words, and I know it’s not easy for people to hear them. I felt like I had sucked the oxygen out of the small store, knowing that she wouldn’t know how to respond, because who would? She did a deep inhale, shook her head, and said,
“I don’t know what to say. I’m so terribly sorry.”
I nodded and thanked her.
As I was getting ready to pay, I added another bottle of the lotion to the collection on the counter. She asked me if I was in the computer, and I told her I didn’t think so, but she could check. I gave her my name, but she didn’t find me in their system. Then, she said something I didn’t expect.
“What was your daughter’s name?”
“Emery Golson.” She looked at the screen in front of her and smiled, “Well, she’s made 26 purchases here!”
I had to laugh. 26 purchases, and my daughter lived in another state. Maybe that included online shopping. Then she said, “She had 80 points, and I’d like to give them to you. It’s worth $80.” I was touched by her gesture and told her I’d be honored to have my daughter’s points. Susan, who was standing next to me, said, “I think Emery just gave you a Christmas gift.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way, but she was right, making my purchase even more special. I ended up giving one of the bottles of lotion to a dear friend of Emery’s, and when she thanked me, I told her the story and said it was from Emery. She was as touched as I had been that day in the store.
As I was getting ready to leave, the woman helping me (I’m sorry that I never got her name, as she was someone I won’t forget) told me that sharing my story had made her day, and she was so happy to be able to offer what she did in response to my loss and grief. And that made my day.
Sometimes you just know. It would have been just as easy not mention how I came to love the scent or that it was from my daughter who had recently passed. I thought about what my sons and I had talked about so often, about how grief had us all slowing down, living in the moment, and making unlikely connections in the process. Unexpected kindness had come with a gift I hadn’t expected because of a nudge for me to share Emery’s story.
We celebrated Christmas as a family on the 23rd of December in Kansas City, and since I didn’t have plans, I decided to drive back to Boulder on Christmas. It was the first Christmas Day that I hadn’t been with family, and driving across Kansas was a strange way to spend the day, but it felt right. The good news was that there was little to no traffic, but the bad news was that my food and coffee options were relegated to what the gas stations had to offer.
Midway through Kansas, the fog began to roll in, reducing visibility to less than a car length. My normally boring drive from Boulder to Kansas City, which I had driven countless times, had been bookended with high winds on one end and thick fog on the other. Unable to see the car in front of me, my car automatically braked to maintain the distance. My arm instinctively reached out to protect my invisible shotgun passenger, a reflex every mother or person around children understands. And in those few seconds, I thought back to the many drives Emery and I had made across Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico, with me in the driver’s seat, and Emery seated shotgun. In time, a car seat and two years later, another would be added to our trips. Maybe it was the fog, or maybe it was the scent of Maison 4 that filled my car, or perhaps my instinct to protect my passenger with the sudden braking, but I felt like Emery was with me.
Her presence in the car, in her usual seat, was strong. It had been a very difficult and sad Christmas season for me, ending with a foggy drive west on Christmas Day, and I needed her more than ever. And with the scent of her perfume that she gifted me in the store, she showed up.