The Night Before the Wedding

My mother passed away three months before my wedding. The night before the ceremony I sat alone in my childhood bedroom and talked to her out loud for a long time. At some point I fell asleep. I dreamed of her so clearly — she was in the kitchen, her back to me, humming the song she always hummed when she cooked. She turned around and smiled and said, "I'll be there tomorrow." I woke up certain she meant it. During the ceremony, when my father walked me down the aisle, I smelled her perfume — the exact perfume she had worn my entire life — just for a moment, just long enough. My aunt grabbed my arm and said, "Do you smell that?"