When I was 31, I received a package in the mail from my mother. It wasn't my birthday or any holiday, and I wasn't expecting a package from her. Sitting cross-legged, on the living room floor of my French Quarter apartment, I tore off the brown paper wrapping, removed the box lid, and pushed aside several layers of tissue paper. The faint scent of my mother's perfume wafted up to my nose as I pulled my mother's treasured fur stole from the box (Chanel No. 5...only for very special occasions). Giggling with surprise and delight, I wrapped the stole around my shoulders and was instantly propelled back in time to when I was a little girl, sitting cross-legged on my mother's bed, wrapped in her stole, running my hands over the soft fur, watching her get ready for a nice, night out with Daddy. I can see her luxurious, black hair pinned high on her head, red lipstick, and her favorite red chiffon cocktail dress with the spaghetti straps and the full skirt, perfect for dancing. A dab of the Chanel behind each ear and, with that final touch, I had to relinquish the stole.
The stole had been cut down from a coat of my grandmother's. The fur is jet black, which complimented my mother's hair, her name was embroidered on the silk lining, and it wraps fully around your body with an Edwardian collar designed to look dramatic when pulled up around the face or drooped off the back (very Audrey Hepburn). The fur is the softest you can imagine, short with a kind of luster. I didn't know at the time what kind of fur it was and had never seen any other like it. Not long after receiving it, I wore it to a Mardi Gras ball. As I was standing to one side of the dance floor I saw an elderly lady making a beeline for me from across the room. When she arrived at my side, she ran her hands over the stole and informed me it was beaver.
My mother's life wasn't an easy one, but her stole reminds me of what was surely some of her happiest times. Little did I know when I received it, I would lose her just a few, short years later. Every so often, like today, I will take out the stole, wrap it around my shoulders, hold the soft fur against my cheek, and run my fingers over her name. I still inhale deeply, longing for a whiff of Chanel, but it's my perfume that I smell in its soft folds now, reminding me of some of my happiest times. It brings me comfort all the same.
