Bonfire of the Vanities

Twenty years ago today my mother celebrated her last birthday. She was 43 and I was twelve. We were both so young.

My mother. Where do I even begin? There are a zillion adjectives that I can use to describe her--mostly all synonyms of loving, warm, beautiful, and generous--but I will tell you about her clothes, or, more accurately, my memory of her clothes.







In her small walk-in closet she had what seemed to me a million pairs of shoes--all heels, sandals, boots, and slip ons--lined up and stacked on the floor and stuffed in a rack behind the door. Hanging in a corner were a few very luxurious, very seductive, and very off-limits fur coats. Belts and scarves hung on a rod near my dad's suits, slacks, and dress shirts. Up above were soft winter blankets from Hong Kong, stored neatly in their original plastic packaging and emanating the stuffy scents of a faraway place.







And then there were the rows of dresses. Oh, the dresses! There were dresses from the days she dated my dad. Form-fitting, tiny-waisted, short dresses with long slits, mandarin collars, and cap sleeves. There were the mod, mid-length knit dresses and two pieces that were her mainstay after moving to the States; the ones with decorative details in the buttons, pockets, and matching fabric belts. There were the empire waist polyester/cotton-blend dresses in all different colors and patterns that would become for me the signature of motherhood at ease. And then there were the animal prints, pencil skirts, silk tanks, pleated trousers, rayon blouses, shoulder pads, and bolero blazers--these from her days as a working mother of seven still in her thirties.







The combination of scents in that closet--a tad of my dad, perfume, fabric and fur, the past and present--was distinctively grown-up, alluring, and comforting. That is, it was Mom. I have the usual childhood memories of sneaking into her closet, trying on her clothes, and fantasizing about transforming into a woman. And the delicious memory of my sister and brother and me sneaking candy in that refuge, huddled together surrounded by my mom's presence but in defiance of her, rushed and frantic and thrilled by our shared secret and loot.







Shortly after my mother's death (it could have been two months or two years--time had a way of shifting gears unexpectedly, one day passing by excruciatingly slow, the next day racing on unforgivably fast) my father shocked us all when he announced that he had donated all of her clothes. The closet was wiped out. Every last remnant of her gone.

I have come to accept that it wasn't an intentional act of malice on his part. He was just being the practical, unsentimental father figure that he was, or that he thought he should be. But the reason for his actions doesn't matter. What matters is that she was gone.



When I walk into that closet now, I still think that I can faintly make out the familiar, mysterious scents. Part of me hopes that her clothes have found their way into the closets of women who share her same sense of passion, beauty, love, and generosity. Perhaps in my scouring of racks, I am hoping to discover some of what was taken away so abruptly.



All I know for sure is that the clothes themselves are immaterial to me now. It's the searching and remembering that remains.