I can see him now…right now as he stands glaring, stoic, and as usual… mute. When I turn away I can still feel his relentless stare through the glass sliding door. And how he came to be so inappropriately named Oscar I really couldn’t say.
For many there are aromas that invoke a memory of Christmas’ past. The aroma of baked goods or of meals cooking in the oven. And of course the exquisite pungency of a Christmas tree… a given for yuletide reminiscence . But for me it’s not the aroma itself that brings me back. Instead it’s the memory itself of an aroma that brings forth those past happy Christmas Day’s. I can remember when Oscar smelt strongly of campha wood as he stood beneath our Christmas tree year after year. The aroma of spruce and campha mingled is unique and Oscar brought this particular olfactory memory to me from the Philippines. He was adopted into my family in 1966 when my father brought him home from a stop in the Philippines on his first trip back from Vietnam. He has proven to be the only family member, adopted or blood, to share with me so many Christmas days while far from home.
That olfactory indulgence of campha is a memory now as Oscar has long lost that wondrous smell over these many years. Once a block of campha wood himself in a past life Oscar was carved by an artisan in the Philippines into a perfect replica of a water buffalo. And into a family member
I once had an “Every thing must go” moving sale and a lady from the Philippines asked….
“How much for Oscar?”
But Oscar is family…and not for sale. And though I haven’t had a Christmas tree in my house for years I have had that wonderful aroma of campha and spruce….even if it really wasn’t there.
