Marigold

It was the summer of 1997 that I found a new appreciation for life as I knew it. A seven year old girl moved in with her grandmother 2 and a half hours away from home, and NOTHING made sense about why my mother sent me away. The day I moved in, I remember watching the adults set up my bedroom furniture and thinking to myself….”my life will never be the same”. I watched them arrange things for a little while and then I went outside to the backyard. I picked the area with the most color mixed in with the grass and sat down. I picked through the flowers, one by one, until I stopped….dead in my thoughts, when I saw the marigold.

One marigold among many other flowers of the same kind. This one stood out. This one was different, and out of place…seemingly like myself in this new town. I looked gazingly at that marigold flower, never once feeling out of place in its’ presence.

Years had passed since that day. I was a teenager in high school and had completely forgotten about the lonely flower. I was an alcoholic, and a drug abuser with an eating disorder. I had completely lost my way…

The bad influences that I surrounded myself with had showed me the allure of the night life and I found myself spiraling down into an unrecognizable version of myself. All I could see in the mirror were the hideous scars of a nutritionally deprived body.

The reason I moved in with nana (my grandmother) wasn’t talked about much. The PTSD from the memories just followed me in everyday life, however, I pushed beyond my internal and always managed to keep a warm, welcoming glow on my exterior. Maybe it was nana that kept my head above water, or maybe the drugs and alcohol that I hid under my breath like a forbidden secret never to be told. I just knew that if I wasn’t doing something to capture my mother’s attention, I wasn’t satisfied with the day.

One night in September, I remember forging for pills in my grandmothers pill case. I took several pills but, one in particular made my tongue numb. When I woke up, I couldn’t remember what all I had done prior to going to bed. I checked my phone for references, trying to see if anything would rehash my memory. But nothing….

I put my phone aside and sat down on the bed. I was wearing shorts, “just like he liked”, I thought to myself. I caressed my shins, feeling every scar that was still with me after so many years. In my sober moments, it was hard to not feel what I had been trying so hard to sweep under the rug. I starred at my legs for a few more minutes, as nostalgia took over my thoughts. “What had my life become? Who was i? He will never know the pain he caused me”.

My grandmother’s door was always open. She always loved seeing my face peep in. And talking with her made me feel like nothing bad had ever happened to me. She knew when I had been drinking, and she would always try to defer me from going out late with friends that she knew were troublesome. I never listened, however, I would always return home and say the words “nana, you were right”.

Seven year old me would have never guessed that this is who I would be.

More years passed….my grandmother’s death haunts me now, just the same as it did in 2014. She raised me, and then eventually, our roles reversed…so that when she passed, I was truly alone for the first time in my entire life.

I remember the day her house went up for sale. I removed all of my belongings from the home and right before the movers closed up the truck, I glanced out at my favorite place in the yard. Suddenly, my first memories of the home came flooding back.

I thought I related to a single marigold so much at seven years old, never once foreseeing what life would be like without a new home to go to…without my nana.

The man that hurt me had won. He took me away from my mother and now left me with nothing, no home, no family to turn to. Absolute solitude.

As I write this to you, I am sitting in the midst of a million flowers delighted by the presence of one single marigold. It is my personal belief, after all this time, that I am meant to be the one who stands out in a crowd of normality. In my adult life, I look back on the tragedy that lead me to where I am, and who I’ve become. A recovered addict, a nurse (in honor of my grandmother), and still the same young girl who found comfort in the sight of a single marigold flower. A flower that revealed its’ presence to me as a symbol of my inner strength to overcome, even in loneliness.

I will always have me.

I will always have her.

To the man who left me scarred, you are not my story.

However, because of you, I am strong.

I am an overcomer.

I am a marigold.