My object is a powder compact. I´m not sure what brand is, something you could by at any drugstore in 1999.
It´s about the size of your palm, maybe a little smaller and on the outside, before you open it, it´s brown and pretty dingy. when you open the compact, there is a cloudy mirror on one side. The mirror is covered in compacted powder and it´s hard to see much, except towards the very center of the mirror. On the opposite side of the mirror is where the powder lives. Even though the compact is 10 years old, there is still some of that compacted powder around the edges. There is also a thin, well used powder puff.
I guess it seems pretty ordinary because it´s just a powder compact and not much else. It´s old and used and as I mentioned earlier it could be found in any drug store.
The reason why this little compact is so extraordinary to me is because it used to belong to my mother, who died back in 1999. It was the one that sat in her makeup drawer that August. It was the one she used the day she died. She touched it. She opened it. She looked into that mirror. She used it everyday. That dingy little powder puff actually touched her face. HER face. And the smell. The smell is so EXTRA-ordinary. It so reminds me of her. She used that brand of face powder for a really long time so when I find that little compact, waiting for me in a dark drawer, I just have to open it and there she is. A little bit of her. Her face. Her smell. I can touch it. I can open it. I can look into the mirror.