 "Love is what she believed in..." -Anderson Cooper, American journalist and son of Gloria Vanderbilt Gloria Vanderbilt died earlier this week at age 95. Back in the early '80s, my very own mother donned her famous designer jeans and, on occasion, perfume by the same name. When I think of my mother and the collage of random things I remember about her, the bits and the pieces, that iconic swan brandmark with its long and graceful neck leaps off the canvas. My heart becomes instantly illuminated and takes on a warm glow. A few months before my mother died, she took me to the mall and asked a sales clerk for a bottle of Gloria Vanderbilt just for me. I had not known she was going to do this. She had given me no warning or preparation or even any time to be excited about the prospect of receiving such a gift. She merely took out her Dillard's charge, paid for it, and handed me the brown paper bag with the big D in one of the lower corners. Me, with a too-careful and overtly-appreciative nature uncharacteristic of most who are seven, feared wrinkling the perfect package. Afraid of any unintentional harm that may come to my mother's back, I was a child who became sad and cried when she stepped on cracks, and could be seen with my head down to pay careful attention to avoiding them in the unpredictable and jaggedy sidewalks. "A lady should never need to take a bath in her perfume, Elizabeth," she had said to me. "Use it sparingly and not as though you are trying to warn your friends you're coming. Instead, leave them with something to remember you by." Even at age 7, it made perfect sense. A lady herself, she demonstrated. She sprayed it into the air and then took a step into the delicate, fine mist as it fell. Clumsy and unsure, I imitated her. Later that evening, I refused my bath. After all, I surely did not want to wash money out of my hair as though it had never happened, my own mother buying me my own bottle of one of the most coveted scents of its time. I found a special place atop my white dresser, the white one with the Goldilocks-gold trim. Why, I thought to myself, It belongs right in the center! I would, of course, end up sleeping in my mother's bed with her that night. Back in my room, my most prized possession at the time kept watch like royalty as it reigned over everything else in my life at that moment. Something big is about to happen, I remember thinking. I mean, it wasn't every day a little girl was given expensive aromatic water. I knew my mother loved me all the time when she was alive, but it was that afternoon that I honestly felt as though she wanted me to appreciate and love nice things in life. She wanted to give me a culmination of many experiences, I guess, so that I could know what else was going on outside of my tiny and shrouded life, no matter my age. Thinking back on it just today and how this moment I remember sharing with my mom has given me the gift of hope all my life, I realize, too, it has given me a feeling of complete and utter love when I think of my glass bottle with the swan that I saved well into early adulthood. After all, it was one of the last physical objects my mother had touched that I could touch, also. It was one of the few earthly mementos of her love for me that I was able to cling to for awhile after her death. Though I no longer have the empty bottle, I will never forget how special it was to me, and I will surely never forget the significance of Gloria Vanderbilt in my childhood and how her legacy connects me to my mother, even 35 years after losing her. https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/17/entertainment/gloria-vanderbilt-dies/index.html      
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