I'd Pour Out Mom's Perfume If At All Possible

The Gift of My Adoptive Mama’s Perfume

If you pick up an empty bottle that once contained expensive perfume, its possible to still distinguish the fine fragrance, even though the bottle is empty.

Adoptive mamas, you are the perfume and you want your life and love to be a timeless fragrance of fine perfume for your adopted and foster child.

That’s what my mom longed for, but like many adopted and foster kids, I couldn’t smell the perfume.

But, if handed the full bottle, I’d either grab it and throw it to the ground, stomp on it while screaming, plug my nose and run in the opposite direction, or bite the glass container.

Why such a powerful reaction?

Was I just a character-flawed kid who had no choice? Were the genes stacked against me? Was there no hope for me to someday be able to cherish the fragrance of the perfume?

In a surprising turn of events, I can now smell the fine perfume fragrance of my my late adoptive mom.

I can smell her best-in-town apple pie, see her taking care of my kitty, and feel her gentle hands rubbing warm oil on my childhood asthmatic chest at bedtime.

It was her legacy to me.

Legacy is a gift from one generation to the next.

Could it be that what I was experiencing was that my late mom’s legacy was surfacing in me?

3 responses to “The Gift of My Adoptive Mama’s Perfume”

  1. funinthekeys Avatar
    funinthekeys

    Hurry Sherrie! I need that book you’re working on now! 😃Love that I just found your published book AND your blog. As adoptive parents of two awesome, grown “kids” who are married with children, I’ve always felt that especially one of the two is needing to resolve a “missing peace.”
    Thanks for all you do!

  2. Sherrie Eldridge, Adoption Author Avatar

    I am currently writing a book about it!

  3. Christine Pannozzo Avatar
    Christine Pannozzo

    This is a very powerful piece, thank you for sharing it. It would be so helpful now that you are in such a different season of life if you could expand more on this. I would love to hear some of your answers to the questions that you raised. I think it would be bless adoptive parents everywhere. What was blocking you from receiving the love you received from your mom and if there is a way to identify what some of those things were- can we as adoptive mom’s access ways of helping our children experience the fullness of our love and legacy sooner rather than later in their and our lives?

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