The Aesthetics of Sisters and a Grandma

All we want is to please you. My sisters and I wait and long for you each day. We squish together and whisper to each other because we are so close to one another. Thankfully, we enjoy each other’s company and stories. The closeness we share is a family trait. Something you have provided for us.

My sister, that is to my left and a little behind me, Penelope, tells me a secret about you, something she noticed a week ago. She was full of joy to share this with me. With the breeze she curled over to me breathing out what you did.

You were in the kitchen by the window making tea, you stopped to take us in, look at us. Just look at us. You then sat down with your tea and let it brew continuing to stare in our direction. Being present and in the moment. It was so thrilling. This is all we ever ask for.

Penelope’s voice started to tremble because she knew you became present in that moment, alive with us. This is all we want; your loving attention, thank you Grandma.

Penelope told me because she knew I’d appreciate the news compared to the other sisters. Well, at least the ones that I can see from where I lay. She knows I tend to face you, Grandma, most of the day and she knows I am very interested in your movements.

She said, you were looking at all of us in wonder, eyes all wide open, and she felt it was as if you were drawing her, Penelope that is, with your eyes. She could feel your heart and appreciation circulating in the kitchen while the tea was steaming.

Penelope said she could see that your hands were delicately planted on the table, the tea smelt like family and was lively and strong. I reminded Penelope and now Phoebe - who’d been eve’s dropping and pressing warmly against my right side - how we do admire your hands, aged and wise, a little bit swollen and dark on the outside but pale inside. Simply beautiful.

Grandma’s hands.

Penelope said you were rubbing your hands together and still looking in our direction. Why was that? I thought about it for a while - the hand rubbing: maybe you were worried that we wouldn’t be around forever; that we were leaving you this year? Maybe you did want to paint our portraits’ all together as one and capture the sun’s arrival as it places its warmth on our faces? We do know that you enjoy painting, and it does flatter to see the many impressions of me and my sisters hanging from the walls. You are the only one that can capture our fire.

You are so lovely, so warm, so appreciative. We are creatures of beauty and aesthetics, and you serve that so well by painting and creating a time capsule to preserve the beauty of me and my sisters...my family. My ancestors are proud, I know it, I know they are, they tell me from the dirt up.

Penelope, Phoebe, Penny, Poppy, Pearl, Penny - the ones I can see, from where I am laying, are all crushing, curling, and huddling up against each other and me - Petal. There are much more sisters in this family which are far from where I lay. I cannot see them, but I can sometimes hear them whispering secrets in the wind to each other and down to our foremothers. We are so in tune and have been compressed next to each other for so long.

You come over to us and nourish the family down to our receptacle, down to our pedicel, then down to our ancestors, the roots, with refreshing water.

Then you turn us into the sunshine.

To make an aesthetic Marigold flower, a complete ruthless inflorescence, and a family as grateful and obsequious as this one, it takes a Grandma with your thoughtfulness. I love you so, as you understand the African Marigold, us, the family. And therefore I spend most of my day watching your movements, waiting for your approval, from this kitchen windowpane potted with my sisters.

This whole year, I’d watch you paint floral portraits of Marigolds. I’d watch you dance in the kitchen in a demure-modest way to old classics - by Etta James and the Righteous Brothers. We’d all see you fawn over your grandchildren. I’d giggle as you’d sneak them a few dollars or some jelly snake lollies so your son couldn’t see. You have that special connection with the youngest granddaughter, Ellie.

You come close, hovering, it's a new day and you boil a cup of tea, pinching at one of my sisters for some flavour, a privilege we wait for. Sometimes we make it into your salads or sometimes even ice cubes.

The tea pot smashes all over the kitchen tiles before one of us could make it into the hot pot of water.

Smash!

Pearl nudges me. “She doesn’t have much time!”

“What do you mean?” I breathe back.

The sisters mutter and mutter and in a unifying sound of all our voices the words become indistinct. Just undertones, murmurs and wind passing through and around us. Nothing is clear.

Pearl nudges me again under the mutter. “She doesn’t have much time left, she is passing.”

“This is not right.” Murmured Poppy.

I was silent and unable to verbalise a single word. Penelope and Phoebe called to me through the wind, “Petal, Petal.”

Pearl started to speak again, her voice sounded as if it had a glow around it, “Petal, I know how much she means to you, but I need to tell you...when we were brought here her son and his wife placed us on the kitchen windowpane. They held each other, their eyes were glassy, I could see, they looked sorrowful and trying to keep it together.”

“You were young, too young Petal,” said Pearl.

“Yes, too young, too young,” Chime in the other sisters to protect our ancestors and me and them.

“...and they had placed your side of the pot towards the sun, the complete opposite way from the kitchen, so you must not have heard, and you had not caught wind of it either, so I’m sorry. But today is the day.” said Pearl.

Pearl continued, “They gave her us as a gift to take care of before she passes and for something to keep her occupied during this time. Then, when the time comes, she is to become part of us. Ashes to dirt, dirt to ashes. He promised his wife that he’d place her ashes beneath us. That way whenever they look at us, they would think of her. So, you see she will become part of the Marigold sisters.”

These words landed on me so gently and I knew what Pearl and the sisters had accepted before me, and why they had chosen not to tell me this. It would be too much.

She’s gone from her world and is part of us, below us and amongst our ancestors; this comforts me. Sometimes I indulge in the past by thinking about her worked hands covered in yellow and orange paint. The colour of me and my sisters.

In some cultures, we symbolise efficacious emotions, something exciting felt from the colours; bright yellows, oranges and reds, with a warmth that looks like the sun. We are thought to portray grief and mourning. Pearl and the sisters explained this to me, they tell me that this is why he had chosen the Marigold for you, Grandma, to finally rest and live forever.