People ask me all the time how I first got into fragrances.
Simple. I have the first lady in my life to thank for that … my mother.
I’ve been thinking about my parents a lot lately. That tends to happen as we grow older and become parents ourselves. We think back on how we were treated as children, especially in the twilight of our own parents’ lives.
My mother’s health has been far from ideal for several years. Severe Parkinson’s, back problems and constant pain from falls, and I’m sure more that I’m forgetting … all of it has robbed her of much vitality, but it has stolen none of her grace.
In her mid-70s she is going through a lot, certainly much more than I can imagine going through myself. Living far away in Toronto, I always try to talk to my parents throughout the week, but it’s a poor stand-in for being with them.
My father has been my mother’s constant caregiver through every thick and thin, through all hours of the day and night. I feel so grateful that my sister and her family live nearby my parents and have also been a fantastic support to them. But even though my mother was not alone I felt I had to be by my parents’ side.
In late November, my mother woke up in the middle of the night and found she could not move her arms or legs. She was in a state of paralysis called Freezing Syndrome, a newly emerged severe side effect of the Parkinson’s she fights with every day. The Freezing Syndrome is not curable.
Luckily, the paralysis receded after some days in the hospital and a revised treatment plan, but I knew I should be with her. I planned the 11-hour drive from my home near Toronto to my parents’ home in the Chicago suburbs as soon as I could possibly go, in mid-December. I planned to go for 4-5 days.
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞
I had only been in the car for a little while on Tuesday morning, Dec 16, when I got a call from my father. He said that my mother had been rushed by ambulance to the ER during the night. She had woken up crying around 2 AM, her back in excruciating pain. She was asked, on a scale of zero to 10—with zero being no pain and 10 being maximum pain—how she felt.
She said it was a 10.
After telling my father not to worry and that I would drive straight to the hospital instead of my parents’ home, I absent-mindedly fished around in my glove compartment for my sunglasses, thinking how much pain a woman must be in who has given birth twice for it to feel like a 10.
Out of the pocket fell an almost empty 75 ml bottle of Davidoff Cool Water I kept as an air freshener.
Cool Water was the first fragrance I ever fell in love with. And I have every bit my mom to thank for not only getting me into that one, but so many other fragrances too.
𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐧
It had all started when I was hanging out with some buddies from Chicago at my local small-town mall, at a swanky department store called Carson Pirie Scott, one of about 50, mostly in the US Midwest. I must have been 13 or 14 years old. I did not know anything about fragrances then.
“Awesome, Cool Water!” one of my friends (the alpha leader) exclaimed as we walked past a tester at the cosmetics counter. He grabbed the tester and started spraying himself before resuming his walk with a noticeable new swagger.
I was not interested, but I had to pretend I knew about it if I wanted to maintain my status in our pack. That was only until I got a whiff of what my friend was wearing. It had an immediate and profound impact on me.
It’s hard for people today who didn’t live through that time to understand just how … well … cool that Cool Water was. Today, the scent profile has been copied endlessly. The aquatic fresh DNA has been used ad nauseam in household cleaning products, soaps, and detergents, to the point that it has become a victim of its own success.
But at the time, it was new. Cool Water was revolutionary. Even now, there’s nothing wrong with it. It can still be worn by anyone and 99% of people will think you smell great. Even if the formula is different now and lacks the old one’s punchy aromatic edge, contrasting with what for many of us was our first encounter with a robust marine note.
When I came home and told my mother how much I wanted my own bottle of Cool Water, she did more than indulge a passing interest, she encouraged it. Soon, bottles began appearing in my bedroom when I came home from school, classic department-store designers that shaped my early sensibilities. From what I can recall, among my first true attachments there were Armani Acqua di Gio, Armani Pour Homme, Clinique Happy, Clinique Curve, Bvlgari Black, YSL Opium, Ralph Lauren Polo Sport, and Calvin Klein Escape.
My dad never complained about the expense. He quietly bankrolled all of it, even though it must have cost a fortune at the time and he had and still has no personal interest whatsoever in fragrances.
It’s because of my parents that I can compare recent fragrances with those from an entirely different decade.
I thought of all of this as I looked at the bottle of Cool Water that had fallen into my hand from the glove compartment. I rarely wear it now, but it works perfectly well as an air freshener for my car. I spritzed the AC vent to spread the fragrance and put my foot down on the accelerator.
𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬
As the hours melted away, I stopped only for food, gas, and to pray a few moments before continuing on my way. I kept thinking about how much my parents meant to me. Not only had my mom started my passion for fragrances, but also my love of writing. As a journalist, she had encouraged my reading and writing from an early age, which directly led to my becoming a professional writer and communicator. If it weren’t for her, you probably wouldn’t be reading this now.
Finally, 11 hours after I had left home in Toronto, I pulled into the Sherman Advocate Hospital parking lot in Elgin, Illinois. Entering the revolving doors, I quickly figured out where to go and hurried to my mother’s room on the fourth floor. I knocked and entered.
My mom was lying on the hospital bed, looking very tired. My dad stood nearby with a brave face, but he was obviously very concerned. My mom lifted her tired eyes to me and smiled as I hugged them both.
“I’m so glad you came,” she whispered in my ear.
That single smile made the entire trip worthwhile. I stayed with her as much as I could over the following week, going home only occasionally to grab some shut-eye, scarf down meals and pray hurriedly before returning to her side. Everyday we spoke. We talked about the past, the present and the future after she was no longer with us. I will never forget those conversations.
Finally, my mother was given an epidural that immediately brought her back pain down to a 0–2 out of 10, and she was able to come home a few days later. Only after that did I return to writing.
As I finish typing these words and prepare my return journey to Toronto, two weeks after I reached, I’m thinking about how important fragrances are to who we are. It’s not just a matter of smelling good. More importantly, the fragrances we resonate with reach the core of our ideas, our memories and our feelings. It’s about how we interact with and treat others, not just ourselves.
As the great poet Maya Angelou said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
My parents did everything they could to help me become a lover of fragrances, a writer and a person of faith. They didn’t just give me permission to be who I am, they firmly pushed me in the direction I now confidently walk.
And I will always return to be at their side, no matter what.
𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘺 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴, 𝘋𝘳. 𝘚𝘺𝘦𝘥 𝘚𝘢𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘔𝘳𝘴. 𝘙𝘶𝘣𝘪𝘢 𝘉𝘰𝘬𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘪. 𝘛𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘺 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘵 aliperfumewala.com.
