A beautiful Facebook posting by a dear friend snapped me into great attention about an invisible negative of senior living facilities, whether a simple residence or a full-services "life community."
In the sweet post, she shared coming across her father's medical bag, how the "scent of him" - including an antibiotic ointment, dating back to the 1970s! - hit her straight in the heart.
Imagining the images that filled her mind, whifting the swirls of scents.
There are no personal scents in a senior residence, whatever its size. They are incompatible to the very nature of such practical places, where one resident goes out of an apartment & in a matter of weeks (or less) a new one takes their place. Repeat countless times.
There are no personal scents, nothing to clue in a visiting adult or child "We're at Granddad's or Aunt Joyce's" or to connect the visit to previous ones.
Even if the apartment is scented with Grandma's strudel or a pot of simmering chili on the stove, the rest of the facility is, by design & necessity, virtually scent-free.
No grandchild could "make a memory" to keep forever of a grandfather who smells of peppermint & pipe tobacco - the peppermint, maybe, but pipe tobacco? Not in these smoke-free places.
Scents give all of us an anchor. My guess is that the scent of the ancient ointment zoomed her back to her deeply missed Dad faster & more intensely then any of the tangible items in his doctor's bag.
Scent has the power to transport us, to give an immediate, visceral sense of place & of belonging.
Imagine living in a place where, by design, it's scent-free. That really threw me, had never thought of it before, but now can't shake it's unintended yet unavoidable consequences. Chilled.
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