Immortal Love

Marigold Williams.

That was my name.

My mother had named me after the bunch of flowers that my dad had gotten her on their first date. She would repeatedly tell me that it symbolized positive and energy and how it was the perfect name for me because she and my dad loved me immensely. I never argued about the name. Some of my friends at my old school would say that I was ancient for having such a name. In their eyes, a more modern name like Kylie or Chloe was more acceptable. But to me it didn’t matter what they thought. Even though I was constantly reminded that my name wasn’t good, it was the perfect name for me because my mother had chosen it for me. And my name was a mental picture of how much my mother loved my father and how much the both of them loved me.

I eventually found out when I was a bit older, that the marigold flower came in other colours other than yellow-gold. There was an orange, a yellow and a red. And sometimes you would get flowers that had all three of these colours blended into it. The ones that were in my backyard were only yellow-gold in colour. But my dad was able to find some red and orange ones, so we planted them and added them to the collection as well. My mum loved the idea. And as they eventually bloomed, it only heightened the sweet pungent smell in the backyard and added more colour to the background.

I never lost my love for flowers, or plants in general. But as the teenage mindset kicked in with my adolescence, I became involved with other things that teenagers my age would get involved in. I took up art as a subject in highschool, and also became heavily invested in music. I made new friends. Good ones. And I began spending most of my time with them. My mother would advise me to always keep my distance. Not that she saw anything bad in my friends, she was just worried about her daughter. All mothers are worried about their children, no matter how many times you reassure them that you are doing fine.

When it was time for me to choose a university, I chose one on the other side of the country. Growing up all my life in Sydney, you could say that I was sick of it. I had been to Western Australia quite some time and had liked the atmosphere over there so I decided to move there and study. Plus, it wasn’t too far from home and my parents could visit me whenever they wanted to. I took up art as one of my majors and strived to be a world class painter. As I entered the university on my first day, I imagined myself looking back at this day as I was having my own art collection set up in a museum. On the first day I drew a marigold flower. The teacher praised me for the terrific detail that was in the picture and when I explained the meaning behind the picture, he was touched. He said that it was a beautiful story.

But beauty is in the eye of the beholder and the beauty of my life was met with tragedy when I got the phone call saying that my mother had passed away. I was walking to class that day and I remember freezing in space and time being slowed to the smallest second. I wasted no time getting back home. I remember it being a silent journey. I didn’t say much to the friend that was accompanying me.

And today as I say my last goodbyes, I placed a single marigold flower in her casket along with the picture of my mother that I had drawn recently. I only wished that I had more time but I reminded myself of a very powerful saying by Emily Dickinson. ‘Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality’. And that was when the marigold symbolize something different for me. It symbolized the immortal love that my mother had for me and the love that I had for her.

“I love you mum.”