A Smell Can Take You Back

The other day I had a bit of a cold. So I had a honey cough drop and made myself some chicken and brown rice soup. As my soup started to boil I went to stir it and suddenly the smell of honey cough drop and chicken stock took me back to my Auntie’s house. It was like coming home after a long journey. I miss my Aunt very much, she died of breast cancer in 2002. She took care of me whenever my parents were at work. And whenever I was sick, she would give me a cough drop and cook chicken soup. I remember she had a little bowl of cough drops on her coffee table. In her kitchen the stove was next to the big white oven, not over it like most kitchens. On the other side of her stove she kept all her spices. To this day anything smelling of rosemary reminds me of her kitchen. I would sit at the table, patiently waiting with my cough drop, while she added noodles and bits of chicken and carrots and then spice after spice to her stock pot. She had three things that always stayed on the kitchen table, a saucer with a stick of butter and a lid that went over it, a forest green sugar bowl with a white lid that always had a spoon in it for her coffee, and a clear syrup jar with a metal lid and handle, which I still have. When the soup was done, we’d all have some. And it was guaranteed to make me feel better, because my Auntie made it.