My sense of smell happens to be very strong and while people admire me for being able to tell every recipe present in basically Nigerian dishes even without seeing, I find it challenging to cope with the memories this ability of mine brings back at a particular time every year.
I don't know how it happens but I observe that I can retain the memories attached to a scent for a long time and somehow, scents stay permanently with me as long as I am familiar with it already. I might not always remember what a person or anything smells like but the moment I perceive a familiar scent around me, it brings back memories.
My dad is one of those humans who love to use perfumes, I have mentioned how clean he loves to be in a recent nonfiction story. His lifestyle doesn't end with cleanliness, he loves to smell fresh always.
Being a child, I didn't bother about what made him smell sweet but I know that something definitely makes him smell differently from other people. I love the scent and even when he is not around, his clothes can make me feel his presence.
Before we started living separately, he traveled for a job in another state which we weren't told because of how we might react. I and my sibling were so fond of him that we don't sleep until he arrives in the night so they kept everything about the traveling away from us just to make us live normally in his absence.
Every night, we always wait for him until we sleep off. There are nights we didn't even eat dinner because we wanted to eat with him.
When we woke up the next morning, my mom always said that my dad came home after we slept and left before we woke up. She would give us cookies and other things my dad usually get for us on his way back from work and always claimed that he didn't want to disturb us that was why he didn't wake us. We believed these cheap lies until sometime when I wasn't perceiving his scent in the house anymore. I always go about sniffing the house in the morning but Mom never understood me and on the day he arrived, I told him that I haven't been perceiving his scent in the house.
He didn't have a choice but to open up to us about the traveling and promised never to travel without informing us again. He fulfilled his promise and even after over a decade that we haven't set eyes on each other, I am still struggling to let go of his scent.
In 2010, Christmas was approaching and we rearranged the house. It is a tradition for us every Christmas and after everything that year, I laid on the chair to relax and suddenly, my dad's scent filled the room.
That time of the year marked exactly a year since I saw him and I went checking around the house probably he had planned with my mom to surprise us.
I didn't find him and when I went back to the room, his scent was gone. I sat down to relax again but the scent I perceived earlier started playing on my emotions. It dug up memories of the beautiful times we had together and it made me miss him a lot.
I couldn't share the moment with my mom because telling her I miss my dad always made me feel like she wasn't doing enough for us. Although she never said it but I always felt that way.
It's been over a decade and somehow, I still perceive his scent for a few seconds and it happens mostly during the harmattan season. I have learned to handle the emotions as an adult and I always take that moment to reminisce about the time we were together.
As an adult, I was able to explain to my mom in a way that she wouldn't feel bad about his scent. She said it was normal since we were very close before we started living apart.