A Tin of Bon Bons

Some time, somehow in the years after Mémére's death this lovely tin came into my posession.

I do not know its provenance. I believe it once held bonbons, and quite probably came from Paris for one of her grandsons was living there when I was a child and he was generous and frequent with his gifts.

How Mémére loved pretty gifts from Paris!

Once the candy was gone, she used the tin to store hairpins. At night I would watch her seated at her dressing table, combing waste-length white hair. In the morning, she would pin it up again. I marveled at this routine.

The tin has been mine since I was in high school. I have kept it with me always, storing photographs in it and admiring its pattern. It smelled of talc and lavender and that tinny odor these containers acquire over time.

Mémére’s room smelled of lavender. Outside her window, there were lilac bushes and on breezy days in May, they, too, would perfume the tidy little blue-and-white room.

The pattern on Mémére's tin said "French" to me. In the flowered design were the colors she wore: Black, and violet and periwinkle, often with a touch of yellow. Together with hundreds of old photographs of women in dark dresses with lace colors and men with dark eyebrows and moustaches, the pattern in the tin formed my idea of what was French and what was not.

Of course, times have changed. Québec and France have changed. But I still treasure this little tin and the images and memories it continues to evoke.

Today, I stuck my nose into the tin. There was the faintest scent of lavender.

I have learned to accept and appreciate these things.

Update: I have since stumbled across this tin in antique shops. I am still not sure what it really held. I still treasure it.