Marigolds In My Garden

Marigolds In My Garden

Every summer my father would plant marigolds in a brick rectangular planter that he made by himself when we first moved into our home in the 70s. Every summer I would go outside and play with my sister, lay in the sun, take a swim in my neighbor’s pool, walk in the woods, and return to the planter that was filled with golden marigolds where I would rest.

There were always big marigolds, filled with colors of the sun – yellows, oranges, and sometimes bits of red. This was my happy place. It made me feel like I was sitting on something that was made especially for me. It made me feel comfortable, safe, and protected from the outside world. And it was right in my backyard.

When summer finally emerged through the clutches of the cold of winter, our neighbors gathered with us on our back patio overhanging the woods that meandered off to the distance, taking the creek with it. Our family barbecues featured the standard suburban picnic table, complete with lemonade, watermelon, all the up north things to do. Nostalgia will poke at me now many years later remembering the times when I would ride my bike around my house and ring my bell and ask my sister to get on the back and ride with me. And when we were done we’d sit cross-legged together on the planter. One time my sister failed to negotiate the move off her bike, and bumped into the planter leaving a permanent scar on her knee.

With so much time around our marigolds, I came to appreciate their deterrent qualities by their horrendous smell that apparently is disliked even more by mosquitos. But it’s their vivid colors that keeps me coming back to them, along with those distinct memories of summer days with my dad. That planter was one of many projects that kept my dad busy with his tools. He was very handy, with a tool shop in the basement and worked with his hands building things in and out of our home.

In my mid-teens, we moved from New Jersey to Florida. He converted his hobby with tools into creating his own tool company. His knowledge and hands-on approach easily translated into success as a tool man. Until one day, when someone came into his shop and threatened his life. In self defense he took out his gun from his waste band, and told the man to put his hands on his head, and he’d call 911. Instead of listening to my father’s instructions, the man lunged at him, causing the gun to go off, ultimately killing the intruder. At first my father was told by the detective to go home. But then two weeks later, he was called back. The state wasn’t buying the self-defense claim. The trial was a very unfair trial, for which he was convicted and sentenced to thirty-four years.

Even inside, he somehow managed to create a garden. Enrolling in a horticulture program, he used his passion and skills to beautify the facility. They gave him seeds and plants and landscaped the areas around the walkways, along the fence, just to add a measure of beauty were there had been none. This gave him a way to become extremely reflective, keeping mostly to his plants and himself.

Before that though, in the years after New Jersey, when reminiscing about the planter and the marigolds, I determined that when I had my own family, that one day I would have a home and would follow my father’s example, to create a garden filled with marigolds to remind me of those special times up north. When my daughter turned ten we went shopping for flowers together for the first time. Not knowing what her choice would be, I asked her, “out of all the flowers you get to pick ,which one would you like to get?” She picked marigolds. By that time, several decades having passed since my youth on our back deck by the woods, my love of marigolds had faded from my mind. Then her choice of marigolds revised those memories in an instance. And lo and behold together we renewed the cycle, completely organic by my daughter, with serendipity.

We filled the cart with every variety of marigold they had. There were small ones, big ones, yellow ones, orange one, even ones that looked tie-dyed. But for some reason none of them looked exactly like the marigolds I remember. I don’t know if time makes things change or it’s my imagination. However, when we planted the marigolds and they were in the ground the first thing that I did was to grab my camera and take pictures of her planting the marigolds and thinking about when I was her age sitting on that special planter in my backyard.

Of course, by then my father wasn’t around to see the marigolds rising with this new generation. My daughter had been close to him before the incident had happened. To this day, now at thirty years old, it has been many years since she has seen him. I talk to him every week. He calls me, and we talk about his health, my life, our family. I don’t visit him. I can’t. Emotionally it is too hard for me. And now I can’t see him because of COVID even if I wanted to. He has six and a half years until he gets out, and I am hoping with all my heart that we can plant marigolds together in my garden, and once again return to those memories and share in watching the garden light up with the colors of the sun reflecting the beauty of nature.