Mary Golden

I opened my family Bible to a page holding a small, dried, golden marigold pressed between its pages. Next to it was a note scribbled in blue crayon in a child’s handwriting. The note read:

Dear Mary, You don’t know me yet but I sit in the last desk by the window. You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen and I plan to marry you someday. Meet me at recess under the big oak tree in the schoolyard. Love, Luca

That day is still crystal clear in my mind. It was the first day of school and we were in Mrs. Kindle’s second-grade class. I ran out and found Luca leaning against the tree with a silly grin on his face. He handed me a golden marigold and started calling me his “Mary Golden”. We talked and played together almost every recess and lunch hour after that.

That first summer was golden and Luca and I became best friends. He spent a lot of time at my house because he had a bike and, even though he lived out of town a ways, he would come over often. He was like an older brother (he was 23 hours older than me), but he never let me forget that he had full intentions of marrying me after graduation. Our parents thought we’d grow out of our infatuation, but we only grew closer as time passed. Luca’s mom was a housewife. His dad owned the only mechanic shop in town.

To take classes together in middle school, I became the only girl in his shop class and he the only boy in my home economics class. That was a great year and where I learned my love of woodworking and Luca his love of cooking. We talked every day and came to know each other’s deepest feelings and most intimate dreams. He went to church with me, even though it wasn’t his favorite thing and I went with him to school sporting events even though I never liked sports. He taught me how to repair lawnmowers and cars and I taught him how to garden and paint pictures.

During the summer months and weekends, we would swim together down at the creek near his house and play horseshoes with his dad in their backyard. His dad enjoyed hunting, so he taught us how to care for and shoot his weapons, as well as how to throw knives and hatchets. He also allowed me to help them work on cars in his shop.

Luca was not only smart and funny, he was handsome and the other girls were always envious of me—sometimes I couldn’t believe it myself. Thankfully, he had eyes for me alone. Sure, we both had other friends, but none of them were as close.

Growing up, we never really appreciated some of those golden days of our lives because they were intermingled with so much tragedy, especially for Luca. In sixth grade his mother died of a brain aneurysm—it was so sudden. Then in ninth grade his older brother, who had been deployed to Iraq the previous year, was killed in a mortar attack—on Christmas Eve. The military funeral was sad—he had died so young, as did many of our young men from towns all across America. It was hard on Luca, but even harder on his dad who started drinking heavily. He had lost both his wife and oldest son. He had so much sadness in his eyes and seldom smiled or laughed like he once had. Fortunately, he didn’t become mean, but he was never the same—his joy was gone.

During the weekends and into summer I spent time at their house and Luca and I would cook meals together and hang out. I felt that having a woman around would keep them from dwelling on their loss, but I sometimes wonder if it really helped his dad or made it worse. Thankfully, the war ended the following year—I couldn’t imagine Luca going to war and never returning.

On my sixteenth birthday, Luca gifted me with a huge bouquet of beautiful red, orange and golden marigolds (my first bouquet) in a red glass vase that had belonged to his mama. They were stunning. The card read, “I’ll never stop loving you, my Mary Golden.” I was touched by such a sweet gesture and still have the vase sitting on my bookshelf.

The summer before our senior year was another golden summer. Luca started working full time at his dad’s shop so he could help pay the bills, even though his dad’s only requirement was that he graduate, something he himself had not been able to do. Halfway through summer, Luca’s dad sold him his old ’59 Ford pickup for $200, allowing him to work extra hours to pay it off. Luca and I created many great memories together working on that old truck.

When our senior year started in the fall, Luca could only work part-time after school and on weekends, cutting into our together time, but we knew it was all a part of growing up. I started working part-time at the flower shop. During that first semester, we began finalizing plans for our future. We agreed to get married in June, while the marigolds were still in full bloom and move in together somewhere in town until we got our undergrad degrees. Then we’d decide where to move and attend graduate school. Luca didn’t want to leave his dad and I understood that. My family had plans to do some traveling after we graduated, so I was okay with whatever made Luca happy.

Not wanting to burden our families, we decided to have the wedding at our small community church. The reception would be held in my family’s backyard, which was big and had lots of grass and trees. We thought it best to live with his dad while we attended college and use our grants and financial aid to help out with the bills. We would also take over the cooking and cleaning. But one of the best things was that we still had the rest of our lives to make plans together.

It was two weeks until graduation and a month until our wedding. We had never been happier. We were planning a dinner with his dad and my parents at our little town’s steakhouse right after the graduation ceremony. After lunch, Luca had driven to Oakwood, our closest big city, to pick up some tires for his pickup, while I stayed at my parents and worked on flower arrangements for the wedding and reception. He planned to meet me there that evening so we could decide how to decorate the backyard.

Right before sunset, I watched as a friend of my dad’s pulled up in the driveway behind my mom’s SUV. They had gone to school together and he was still one of my dad’s best friends. He was also the local sheriff. He stopped by every week or so to visit and sometimes brought his wife so they could all team up for a night of canasta. I waved at him through our huge picture window. He looked angry and didn’t wave back, which seemed odd. He had always been one of my favorite people, almost like an uncle. I hollered at my dad who was watching some detective movie on television. He headed for the front door and I went back to arranging flowers on the dining room table. My mom joined him at the door.

The decorations were coming along great. I was making orange, red, and golden silk marigolds into bright and colorful arrangements for the tables. I wanted them to look as much like my first bouquet as possible, without spending a fortune. I would be wearing my mom’s wedding dress. Luca said we should write a book entitled, “How to Have a Beautiful Wedding for Under $1000” and we laughed about how it might be a best seller and make us into millionaires.

Our big “splurge”, besides the flowers and food, was handmade beeswax candles. My mom and I embedded marigold flower petals in each one when we poured the wax. The candles would be placed in the middle of the largest arrangement on the bride and groom table. We also used recycled fiber to make seed paper hearts for our twenty-five guests, with cards reading, “Faith plants the seed—love makes it grow.” Each placemat would have a special flute with an engraved marigold for toasting champagne. The table would be simple, but beautiful.

Halfway through my last arrangement, I heard my dad ask loudly, “Are you positively sure?” I listened for a few seconds—then heard my mom gasp.

“Mom!” I called out. “What’s wrong?” She didn’t answer, so I rushed into the living room. The three of them all turned toward me at the same time with shocked looks on their faces. No one spoke, but my mom had tears in her eyes and was covering her mouth.

“What’s wrong?” I repeated. “What’s going on?” My mom walked toward me and my dad, always supportive, hurried up beside her.

“Mary, there was a car accident,” my dad said to me softly. “It was Luca. He…” he said, hesitating.

I looked back and forth from my dad to my mom and then to the sheriff. “No, no, no!” I yelled at him. “You’re wrong. There must be a mistake.”

He shook his head.

“I’m so sorry, Mary,” my mom said, crying, barely able to talk. “I’m so, so sorry.”

My parents both reached for me, but I turned and ran out the door. And I didn’t stop running until I got to the old schoolyard with the large oak tree. And there I collapsed onto the grass, sobbing my heart out.

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In our journey here on earth, we have all suffered our own tragedies and pain and all deal with it in our own ways. We can only guarantee our future if we are believers and have faith in more than this earthly life alone. Some of us are able to continue moving forward because we have the love, support, and understanding of others or because we have to stay strong for the ones still remaining. Some of us cannot.

When Luca’s dad heard about his son’s death, he walked into his study, loaded his .45 and ended his life. He had lost too much, too fast, and in his mind he had nothing else to live for. He was a good man who had once had a loving family with a beautiful wife and two precious sons, and within six years his whole world fell apart. Life happens that way sometimes. As humans, we will never completely understand it, nor will we ever completely get over it. But if we are believers, we can move forward and find solace in knowing that because we’ve been there and experienced it ourselves, we can help others deal with their pain and their grief while on this earth until we or they are taken to a better place.

And regardless of what we say or do, the clock of time keeps on ticking.

Today, twenty years later, my fingers caress the tiny, golden marigold, flattened and dried between the pages of my Bible, and I remember back to my first love, Luca. I even sometimes think I hear him whisper, I still love you, my Mary Golden, and I try not to think of what would have or could have been different if he had lived. I have been blessed with a wonderful husband and four beloved children that I would not trade away for all the riches in the universe. But just every now and then when I look down at that small golden marigold, I find myself whispering, I still love you too, Luca.