It�s The Little Things: The Sweet Smell Of Basil

My father loved growing vegetables and he was very good at it. He�d wake up early in the morning to tend to his garden, and spend an endless amount of time puttering around his backyard. This is something he enjoyed immensely, especially after he retired. Whenever I visited, he offered me tomatoes and cucumbers and onions and whatever else had ripened. He never was much into flowers � that�s always been my mother�s domain � and didn�t bother much with herbs, but he did favour one: Ocimum basilicum, what everyone knows as basil.

My father and my older daughter in his beloved garden.

For as long as my father had his garden, he had basil growing in it. And every now and then he would lean over and take a deep whiff of the lovely smell that this plant emits. I came to associate this scent with him, and the first spring after his passing, whenever I ran across a basil plant in the supermarket or in the garden centre or in someone�s garden, I felt an ache in my heart, remembering his love for it, and how much I missed him.

Not a year goes by that I don't grow basil in my garden in memory of my father.

My mother plants basil on my father�s grave each spring as soon as the weather permits. Because the location is warm and sunny, the plant thrives and by late summer it is quite large. On breezy days, the air surrounding my father�s grave smells wonderful as the basil leaves dance in the wind. I like to think that my father catches a whiff of that heavenly smell wherever he may be.

Is there a particular scent that you associate with someone?