Prior to my grandfathers passing, we planted a variety of flowers together to adorn my deck and surrounding garden beds. We planted peonies, forget me nots, marigolds, daisies, poppy’s, lillies and pansies all from seed in little ceramic pots and big wooden planter barrels. I handed him the seed packets and poured them into his hands and asked him to spread them into the potting soil as I helped to bury them and cover them up. It still makes me laugh thinking of how he “planted” our seeds. Instead of sprinkling them around the pot.. he dumped them all into the same location. I’m by no means a garden expert and I definitely don’t have a green thumb like my mother but I was certain the flowers wouldn’t grow well this way.. however I left them. He was so happy and so proud of our planters and so excited to see our flowers bloom that he would check on them every day to see if they were sprouting. Unfortunately, he never got to see any of our flowers bloom. When my grandfather became ill, we realized the two big planters we had with assorted flower seeds weren’t growing anything but weeds. When my mother recognized this (and told my grandfather it was most likely due to our extremely high summer temperatures and not his gardening skills) she went out and bought pretty pink flowers to fill up the empty planters. My grandfather always always loved flowers. In fact, he loved all of the most simple things in life. He would sit and listen to the sounds of a bee buzzing around him, watch the deer eat in the fields near my house, watch the hummingbird hover in mid air drinking nectar from a feeder or flower.. and he always always had flowers in or around the house whether it be a bouquet of flowers in a vase, a plant or our outdoor gardening. After his passing, our failed garden stung just a little bit more. I could brush it off under normal circumstances that my flowers didn’t grow.. but after papas passing I had wished that our last “activity” together; our gardening had been a success. We put so much time into getting all the supplies, the time spent together and all of the early mornings checking on our flowers.. I just had wished that they had bloomed for him and in return me. I kept checking after his passing on our flowers to no avail and eventually stopped looking.. I told myself there was no chance they would sprout up this late in the season especially after planting many new flowers in the planters. But papa must’ve had other ideas in mind for all of us. A couple weeks after his passing, forget me nots began to sprout up everywhere in between the pink flowers my mother had planted. Tiny Bright blue flowers grew in between each stem of a pink flower. In fact, papas forget me nots took over the planter.. isn’t it ironic? Out of all the flowers we planted.. forget me nots are the only ones that ended up growing (or so I thought at that time) and after his passing nonetheless. Forget me nots.. a flower that in the name itself literally means to never forget me. They represent true love and is a testament to the relationships a individual holds and a promise above all else that you will never forget them. Additionally, they are also a representation of a bond that is unable to be broken or shaken by anything or anyone else. That is exactly what papa left us all with- a love and a bond that knows no boundaries. A love and a bond that death can not separate. Death didn’t end our love or our bond- papa is still just as much present in our lives as he ever was.. id like to believe that we are simply temporarily separated until we all join each other again someday in heaven. I’d also like to believe that our forget me not flowers blooming were no coincidence but a sign from him when we all felt like we needed him most in the hardest days after his passing. After the forget me nots bloomed, my family and I cut a lot of the flowers and dried them out to save them in a vase for each of us to hold onto. We thought once we cut them that would be the last of papas flowers. But we were surely wrong about that. Forget me nots continued to sprout up and out of the soil- now bigger than before. On top of that- another flower of papas began to grow against all odds- his marigolds. The marigolds, which were in a separate planter, had showed promise at the beginning of summer growing tall quickly. But they soon enough wilted and appeared to die, turning brown and we were tempted to clean out the pot and replace the wilted stems. I’m glad we didn’t.. somehow the marigolds turned green again and grew larger than ever with little buds forming at the top of the stems. They were stubborn as an ox though as they just recently bloomed at the end of September. My grandmother, once we noticed them growing again, watched them carefully and impatiently but would say they were “as stubborn as John”. After a few short weeks, beautiful cheery blooms of marigolds embellished my sky blue ceramic planter showcasing a spectrum of yellow, orange and red shades. It was the second flower my grandfather planted that not only lived and bloomed but flourished after his passing. First it was forget me nots in the weeks after his passing- a flower symbolizing strong bonds, everlasting love and memories/loved ones that could never and would never be forgotten. Then lastly, marigolds.. often considered to be the flower of grief and despair regarding a lost loved one. Marigolds, on occasion, actually “weep”. Droplets of water will form and gather within the flower during the night and drip off like tears in the early morning hours. In our time of grief, the marigold appeared to be mourning with us and for us. I’ve never been one to believe in coincidences.. I have always held true and strongly to the belief that everything in life happens for a reason and for a purpose and these flowers are no exception in my eyes. Maybe you don’t believe in signs like I do and that’s okay too. But if that’s the case, what are the odds that wilted flowers, seeds that were replaced with new flowers and only two of the flowers of fairly large variety of seeds we planted grew and they happened to be forget me nots and marigolds. Two flowers that directly refer to phases in the grief process. You have to admit whether you believe or not- that is quite extraordinary. I honestly wouldn’t have believed it unless I witnessed it with my own eyes or maybe I would because even now, and now more than ever, I still believe in miracles.