I know what you mean by that, DM. Certain smells remind me so much of my loved ones who have gone before me. I cannot go into the lumber department at Home Depot or Lowe's without feeling like I'm in my Dad's workshop. He loved to work with wood and build things. He had the largest birdhouse community in his neighborhood!

I avoid the fragrance department in large stores like Macy's and Dillard's because it just reminds me too much of Tim. He had several different ones he liked to wear. Soon after his death I had a major meltdown in Macy's and I think I scared the sales girl half to death . Poor thing...she had no idea what was wrong with me....

I was VERY close with my maternal Grandmother. She passed away in 2002, but not a single day goes by that I haven't thought about her and heard her giggle in the back of my mind. My most treasured possession is my Grandma's cedar hopechest my Pap-Pap made for her upon their engagement in 1932.

The oddest keepsake I have is my father's prayer book. Not that a prayer book is in itself odd, but how I came to have it is.

I moved in to this house in 1989, but having one 5 yr old at the time and a baby a few months later, I didn't unpack the stuff I didn't need right away.

Must have been 2-3 years later I went through a box of things from the old apartment and found that prayer book. I had never seen it before in my life. I have no idea how it got there, how it came to be in my possession.

It was given to my dad on his First Holy Communion, which must have been some time in the mid '30's.

I keep it on the vanity in my bedroom. As my dad died when I was a baby, it's all the more precious to me, it's the only thing I have of his.