Wearing my dead mother's clothes has kept her memory alive
Her scent lingered on her clothes long after she had gone. Even now, I am not sure whether the smell of my mothers lily-of-the-valley perfume really withstood the many times I washed her powder pink crepe de chine blouse, with its tiny glass buttons, or whether that aroma the one she wore for going out was so associated with that garment that I smelt it anyway.
The blouse was one of few items of clothing I kept when, after her death at the age of 50, the contents of my mothers wardrobe were bundled away.
The last time I saw her she was leaning back on a pile of hospital pillows, her face bloated from medication, her conversation disjointed.
Heirloom: Angela Neustatter's mother, Molly, wearing a brooch that her daughter now owns. Angela hopes it will be worn by her granddaughters one day
The cancer in her brain had sucked out her intellect and humour, so that the woman in the hospital bed bore no similarity to the woman who had been by my side for the first 25 years of my life.
My father, a forensic psychiatrist, kept up his public appearances, continuing to appear dark-suited and authoritative, but privately he fell apart. His desperate grief, the fathomless loneliness, filled our family home like winter fog. He ceased to bother with meals, choosing to snack out of brown paper bags, which fluttered to the ground once emptied.
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He sat hunched, like a big, damaged bird, in the seat that was still positioned in front of the fireplace beside my mothers empty chair.
The pain that resulted from her death was so overwhelming and all-consuming that it was hard to hold on to any sense of the woman my mother was before her illness. Instead, my recollections of her seemed to fade daily into an untouchable place of pain, where there was no memory bank from which to conjure comforting memories.
Fond memories: Angela wearing the brooch that belonged to her mother
I ached for some physical connection withher life; something that would keep her in the present. And what betterconnection than the clothes she had once worn?
I have no idea why I chose the lily-of-the-valley-infused blouse from my mothers wardrobe. Nor why I also selected a soft, flower-sprigged poplin shirt with a Peter Pan collar and a long woollen cardigan with big pockets. Nor could I tell you what led me, some time later, to put them on.
Somemight think it strange, macabre even. Theres a tendency towards awkwardness when it comes to wearing the clothes of the deceased. But for me, there was nothing remotely creepy about slipping into my mothers blouse. Far from it it was proof of my love for her.
Thetruth is, there was no way Id have worn her clothes while she was alive. My style in the Sixties was pelmet mini-skirts and deep V-necked sweaters or spray-on jeans. Hers was flared tweed skirts to just below the knee, shirt-waister ! dresses and blouses or crew neck sweaters.
Souvenir: Angela at home wearing the top that reminds her of her mother and holding her mother's portrait
It runs in the family: Molly, right, wearing a similar top to the one Angela likes to wear
Butthe second I pushed my arms into the sleeves of her poplin blouse, I was startled by how the fabric against my skin unleashed a rush of memories: the day she wore it when I sat on her knee as a small girl; the way she adorned it with a pretty brooch at the neck when relatives were visiting; the time she put an apron over the blouse when she decided, on impulse, to paint the kitchen door mulberry in the days whenmagenta was the colour du jour.
Then I was overwhelmed as I put on the crepe de chine, so soft against my skin and smelt that evocative lily-of-the-valley.
I recalled my mother wearing it, sitting in front of the mirror in her bedroom and applying lipstick before smacking her lips as though kissing herself, then turning to smile as she saw me at the door.
'My mothers clothes gave me back a sense of the woman she had been before she became ill and made me feelI was in some way under her protection while I was wearing them'
Asthey awoke these poignant memories, my mothers clothes gave me back a sense of the woman she had been before she became ill and made me feelI was in some way under her protection while I was wearing them.
IfI was going to a party where I feared feeling ill at ease, Id wear thecrepe de chine blouse belted into a mini-skirt and, in so doing, feelsuch a strong connection with my mother that my confidence was instantly boosted.
She had been a shy woman, but her interest in other people meant she always madea supreme effort t! o overco me this so she could make new acquaintances.
Fordouble courage, I would pin to the throat a beautiful Art Nouveau brooch of paste and emeralds, which she had chosen to leave me. The poplin blouse and cardigan were more work-a-day and I would wear them with jeans and pedal-pusher pants.
Therewere times I felt my mother was giving me her approval, enjoying the way I had adapted her things to suit my own personality.
Family history: Molly holding Angela when she was just three months old
Angela says: 'It startles me to realise that my mothers taste has infiltrated my own sense of style'
As my grief began to fade, so too these garments began to look more threadbare, prompting a new emotional dilemma Should I still keep hold of them the clothes that had been thebridge between my mothers life and mine? Throwing them away seemed toocold, so, after much soul-searching, I packed them up with a bunch of other clothes and gave them to a charity shop something of which I know my mother, a philanthropist, would have approved.
Yes, I felt a pang giving them away, but I felt they had fulfilled their purpose they had brought me closerto my mother at a time I was feeling distant from her.
Inthis, I agree with the novelist Jennifer Egan, who admitted recently that she wears a variety of garments that have belonged to loved ones who have died.
She says: The quarantine around death makes it feel unlucky and wrong and the dead, thus quarantined, come to seem more dead than they are.
Myfathers and step-fathers sweaters did more than remind me of their owners: the sheer ordinariness of working in them, spilling things on them, taking them off and tossing them on the floor, helped to diffuse that dour hush.
Whi ch is precisely how I feel when I wear an outrageous, shocking-pink, leopardskin print scarf my friend Pauline gave me.
Weshared a flat when we worked in Manchester, and later a home in London.When she married and moved to the country, we were forever bemoaning how little we saw each other, while promising it would be different as soon as our kids were grown up. As that time approached, Pauline died, suddenly, and the silence descended.
The memories hurt the first time I put the scarf on, but by bit, recollections of larking about with her, enjoying each others sense of fun, flooded in and the scarf became a much-worn accessory.
'Therewere times I felt my mother was giving me her approval, enjoying the way I had adapted her things to suit my own personality'
When we lived together wed hold parties and dress up in the most outrageous outfits we could put together with things bought for a few pence at the market. I had a penchant for leopardskin.
The morning after we would have the best fun, sitting amongst the detritus, too hung-over to clear up immediately, chortling over the indiscretions of the night before. Somehow our fantasy outfits gave us bravado. That spirit remained, even when Pauline was gone, every time I wore her scarf.
But what I got from wearing my mothers clothes was different from Paulines scarf, since her clothes brought a comforting intimacy, a sense that she was incorporated into me.
I loved how, by wearing her things, I was reminded of the way she always let my brother and me know we were both loved and lovable. And it startles me to realise that my mothers taste has infiltrated my own sense of style. Today, I am wearing a soft grey cable-knit pullover...that could have come straight from her wardrobe.
Manys the time Ive wondered, while wearing one of my favourite outfits, whether anyone will wear my clothes after my death.
I have only soaring 6ft 2in sons, so its unlikely theyll have much interest, but, although its! early d ays yet, I would adore to think my new granddaughter might one day like to take on a favourite garment of mine.
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