You're My Marigold

The day was awful. It had been raining for five days already with no end in sight. The day’s weather promised another cold, dreary, wet day. It was the perfect day to stay in bed, holed up under a fuzzy, extra soft, warm blanket with hot chocolate and Netflix on autorun.

Mari didn’t have that option today; in fact, she’d prefer to run a marathon out in this weather than go through this. Today she says goodbye to her grandfather. The bond Mari shared with her grandfather started when she was a baby and grew every day. A vast hole sat empty inside herself, and it rode in the car ahead of her.

Mari set her forehead against the window, felt the weather's cool outside, and looked up to the sky covered in clouds. Not dark and ominous storm clouds. They were grey, puffy clouds filling the sky, promising lots of rain and a steady chill. It took her back to a much happier time…

Mari was lying down in the grass next to her grandfather. It’s a beautiful sunny spring day with a beautiful blue sky and white puffy clouds blowing across.

“Look, Pop-Pop, a bunny!”

“Good catch there, Marigold.”

Mari sat up with an eye roll and all the exasperation a five-year-old could muster. “That’s not my name, Pop-Pop.”

“I know that,” he said with the strain of standing up. He pulled Mari up into his arms, “but you are so precious, you should get a special addition to your name, don’t you think?”

“Marigold is a flower, Pop-Pop.”

“And you’re going to grow up and bloom to be just as beautiful.”

She smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck in as big a hug as a five-year-old can.

The car pulled into the church parking lot. Mari startled out of her memory. She stepped out and watched as men from her family pulled the coffin holding her grandfather.

As they started into the church, Mari stood toward the back of the group of family that would follow him. She was able to catch the large arrangement of marigolds across the top of the coffin. She heard the whispered grumblings, “Who chose marigolds”? Why would they put that one on his coffin?”. Pays to know the funeral homeowner, she thought with a bit of smile.

Mari’s father took her hand, and they followed the procession at the end. Neither of them wanted to be upfront with the dramatics of her sister and the others. Mari stopped at the first pew after the ones reserved for the family as they approached the front, and everyone filed into the front pews. Her best friends sat there, and she joined them rather than sitting upfront with the family.

She sat between her friends, staring straight ahead. She wasn’t listening; she was doing everything she could to keep from crying. She hated crying in front of people. Her mind wandered back to another time…

The game ended, and we lined up to shake hands with the other team. Mari was doing her best not to show her disappointment. The one game her Pop-Pop could come to was Mari’s coach decided to try “different lineups.” And her doctors didn’t want her playing. The only reason she did was so he could see her play. So much for that.

She half-listened to the devil incarnate, then grabbed her stuff and ran over to where he still sat in the bleachers with a smile plastered on her face.

“Pop-Pop, I’m so happy you could make it.”

“I had to come to see my Marigold,” he said, pulling her into a tight embrace and holding her there. He whispered, “Don’t pretend for me, I know you're disappointed, but I couldn’t be prouder to see you out there.”

Still in his embrace, “I hardly played, Pop-Pop. I didn’t exactly earn your Marigold nickname tonight.”

He pulled me back and looked me straight in the eye, “Young lady, I thought you knew, you don’t have to earn it to be my Marigold. You’re the most precious thing in the world, no matter what you may do or not do. Do you hear me?”

“I do.”

“Do you believe me?”

“I’m trying.”

He gave me another bear hug that only he could provide. “Get your stuff,” he said, standing up, “I’m ready for my milkshake.”

“David, don’t you think it’s a little late for milkshakes?” Mari’s step-grandmother said.

“Anytime is a good time for a milkshake unless you have pie. Do you have pie?”

The school secretary called Mari to the office the next day at school. A bouquet of marigolds in a gold vase sat on the desk for her. A volleyball connected a ribbon wrapped around the vase with bold letters “M V P” written on it. On the back, it had her name. There was no card, just delivery to, but she knew who sent them. This time her smile was for real.

As the procession out of the church began, Mari’s father let the three friends out with him. I whispered, “I’m going to ride to the cemetery with them. That’s too long a drive to sit with that.”

My father looked up, then leaned over to whisper back, “Is there room for one more?”

Once in the car, Mari was handed a flask. “We knew you’d need this.” They weren’t wrong, but after only a couple of swigs, Mari fell asleep. She woke as they slowed to a crawl in the cemetery. Once they stopped, she grabbed the small bundle of marigolds and stepped out to catch up with the family.

Mari stood under the tent but didn’t hear a word the priest said. She stared at her grandfather’s casket and knew the moment it lowered into the ground. No one would ever call her Marigold again. What started as a silly nickname when she was a little girl now felt like her only lifeline to her Pop-Pop.

“Whenever you see a marigold, you’ll know I’m close by watching over you.”

She remembered him telling her that when she left for college. She looked down at the bouquet she held and knew it was true. When she needed him, marigolds would be there. The priest finished speaking, and people started to leave, but Mari remained still.

After several minutes her father came to her side. “Mari, we need to leave so that they can do their work. They won’t start if you’re still here.”

Mari showed him the small bouquet. “I wanted to leave this..”

“Ok, this would be safer,” he took the bouquet from her hands and moved the plastic covering the existing headstone. He placed it carefully over her grandfather’s side and replaced the plastic.

He put his arm around her and led her from under the tent, stopping only to put up his umbrella. He saw her friends waiting for her in their car.

“The church has put together some food for the mourners if you want to go there.”

“No, we are going to get milkshakes.”

“You three know how to make a man jealous.”

He put her in the car then headed up to the limousines waiting for him.

As the girls pulled out of the cemetery, the rain stopped, and the clouds began to break up. She heard them talking about their relief the rain had finally ended, but all she could do was look out the window and figure out how to live in a world that didn’t have her Pop-Pop.

“STOP!” Mari yelled from the backseat. “Pullover, pullover.”

“Ok, ok, hang on, let me stop. Wait for me to stop, Mari.”

But her door was open, and she was running full speed into the middle of a field of marigolds. She didn’t know if these were planted by a farmer or wild, and she didn’t care. She stopped and knelt among the flowers feeling like she was in the middle of a giant bear hug. Tears started streaming down her face, and she felt the arms of her friends wrap around her.