Marigolds in Her Hair

That strange sharp smell brings me back from wandering. Back to this place, surrounded by green, granite, and freshly turned earth.

​I remember looking up at large gold hoops and grabbing for them, only to be distracted by brilliant, blazing, orange crowning her hair the color of garden dirt. I don’t think I could have been more than about three at the time. It’s one of my earliest memories of her. She loved flowers of all kinds. She loved bees, nature and dancing for no reason other than the joy of them.

​I remember the feeling of her fingers in my hair as she pulled apart strands and plaited them back together, stroking my head in the process, adding flowers to crown my head. She slipped a flowing gown over my head and settled it onto my shoulders and touched all the way to me toes. We went to see Mid-Summer Night’s Dream in the park, disguised as fairies or fine maidens.

​I learned about the earth, gardening, worms, bugs, and cycles of plants from her. She taught me the difference between a wasp, a bee, and a bee-fly.

​“They’re all variations on black and yellow, for the most part. A wasp has a waist, and their bodies are harder, sharper. Bees are softer, fuzzy and have bigger rounder wings. The bee-fly looks an awful lot like a bee, but if you look closely, their colors are more muted and they have they oil-slick rainbow eyes of a fly. They all have their purpose, yes, even the wasp. Be gentle with them, grow blooms for the bees, let the wasps eat wood and clean up garbage. If their nests get too close to the house knock them down before they’ve done too much work. Even wasps can get disheartened you know. We plant flowers to attract the bees who will help make more flowers and fruits and other foods. I think the bee-fly is just beautiful, and I like to let it mind it’s own business.”

​I think she thought of people in a similar way, and tried to give them what they needed, even if it was only space and time to figure out who they were and what their purpose might be.

​I was never really sure if I was a bee-fly or a bee. Maybe I’m a bit of both. I don’t think I’m a wasp. I don’t bite and only ever sting in self defense.

​We planted flowers everywhere we could, marigolds especially. We planted them all throughout the garden for color, to protect the plants around them, and to sprinkle in our salads. So many shades of orange, yellow, and even red. I have dried marigolds and seed heads harvested from last spring. There are just enough hangers on from this year: the last ones we’ll plant together, in person at least, for the task at hand.

​Her hair, in its last growth, more ash than earth. I’ve braided it in a crown around her head interspersed with flowers, mainly marigolds because they remind me of her, and I want my last memory and my first to ring around, touching in time and meaning. She’s dressed in golds, oranges and reds, big gold hoop earrings in her ears, and nothing on her feet, so they can be free, the way she preferred most of all.

​I’m really not ready to say goodbye, but it’s time. Time to let her take her new place in the circle dance. Time to let her become food for worms, beetles and bugs, for grass and trees, wasps, bee-flies and bees. And for flowers. Marigolds most of all.