Marigolds to Me
I’ve always loved marigolds.
Have you ever had a friend whose presence immediately brightens up a room? These flowers, to me, felt reminiscent of that feeling. Their bright yellow-orange petals are almost comforting to me—cheerful and warm. When I was a teenager working summers at a local garden center, I always paid extra attention to them. I didn’t know why at the time, but I felt connected to them in a gentle, intuitive way. Marigolds felt like little suns and quickly became my favorite flower.
When my dad died, I planted marigolds at his grave. Yellow was his favorite color, and it just felt right—something bright and beautiful to honor him, and something comforting for myself, searching for crumbs of solace at the beginning of my grief journey. They lit up the dull cemetery, their golden blooms standing in vivid contrast to the dark granite of his headstone. In a place that felt impossibly heavy and dark, they brought a little light.
After my mom’s recent passing, I began pressing flowers from her funeral arrangements. I couldn’t stand the thought of them wilting and disappearing. I needed something to keep, to hold onto when it felt like the world was rushing past me. I needed something that wouldn’t fade so quickly.
Knowing that I was doing this, a friend lent me a floriography book—the Victorian language of flowers—and of course, I flipped immediately to marigolds.
Their meaning? Grief.
That one word stopped me in my tracks. I was completely stunned and I felt my body reacting before I could even fully process the information. How could the flower that had always brought me such comfort, the one I chose again and again to represent love and remembrance, be rooted in grief?
I felt guilty. Was I cursed? Why was my favorite flower representative of something so tragic? There had always been a hidden meaning there, and now it felt almost prophetic.
And yet… it makes sense.
Maybe that connection was never about coincidence. Maybe it was always something deeper. Maybe marigolds were there to hold my sorrow before I even knew I’d need them to. Maybe they were quietly preparing me for through losses I hadn’t experienced yet.
Now I see marigolds differently—not less beautiful, but more layered. They’re not just flowers, not to me. They’re reminders. Of my dad’s laugh, my mom’s strength, the way love can stretch across time and absence.
Am I reading too much into a flower? Yes, probably. But it means a lot to me and I’m not ashamed of being emotional about the things I find meaningful.
Marigolds, to me, have become symbols of the people I’ve lost and that love that hasn’t gone anywhere. Grief has changed me and continues to; and it changes all of us, but it doesn’t erase the light. It simply teaches us how to carry it differently.
check out my instagram post to see the all the marigold photos from my personal camera roll
““What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.””
