My granddaughter is here.
Isla Florence.
I look at her little face, her soft cheeks, her eyes closed beneath her white hat, and I am so happy she is here. She is beautiful. After everything our family has been carrying, there is this new little person to love. Someone we have been waiting to meet.
And her arrival holds a meaning that reaches into the heart of Eternal Marigold.
She was born in October, a month whose birth flowers include the marigold.
When I learned that, I thought about my mother. About why this flower means so much to me. About the love and remembrance I have poured into this space. And now, somehow, the same flower belongs to my granddaughter’s beginning.
Before We Knew She Was a Girl
Before my daughter knew she was having a girl, she dreamt of my mother.
In the dream, my mother was at my sister’s house, sitting on the couch and smiling. My daughter went to the refrigerator. After she closed it, she looked and saw a closet full of pink.
That detail stayed with us.
My mother’s smile. The familiar house. All that pink.
Now Isla is here, and I find myself thinking about that dream again. About my daughter seeing her grandmother before she knew she was carrying a little girl of her own.
In our Buddhist family, we believe in rebirth. And within our family, we hold the belief that my mother has returned to us through Isla.
This is something deeply personal to us, held in faith and love. It brings tenderness to a place in my heart that has hurt so much since losing my mother.
I miss her. I still want her here for these moments. I want to tell her that the baby has arrived. I want to see her face as she looks at her.
And now, as I look at Isla, I hold that longing alongside the possibility our family believes in.
Someone Missing from the Celebration
I also think about Isla’s grandfather, my children’s father, whom we lost so recently.
We would have been FaceTiming him. Showing him her little face. Celebrating together with the boys, my daughter, and the father of her children. Even from far away, he would have been part of that moment.
And we noticed his absence.
There was a new baby to meet, so much happiness to share, and someone we could no longer call. I wanted to see his reaction. I wanted to hear what he thought, who he thought she looked like. I wanted the boys to share that excitement with their grandfather.
Kyrie noticed, too. As I shared in an earlier reflection, while we were looking at the boys’ baby pictures, he asked to see pictures of his grandfather. So, in the middle of welcoming someone new, we spent a little time remembering someone we missed.
I see so many pieces of his grandfather in Kyrie, especially that same mischievous look. His grandfather saw it, too. He used to say Kyrie was his spitting image. He would call our grandson’s his two lil footprints.
Seeing those familiar expressions brings me comfort. Sometimes that little look is enough to make me smile. There is something of him right there, in this boy we both love.
And I wonder what pieces of her grandfather we will recognize in Isla as she grows. Perhaps a smile, an expression, or a mannerism that makes us look at one another because we both see it.
She carries part of him through her mother, even though they never had the chance to meet.
We will tell her about him. We will tell her about my mother. She will hear their names, see their pictures, and grow up with their stories.
The people we miss are still woven into our everyday lives. We recognize them in our children and grandchildren, in the words we repeat, in the little things we do their way. There is comfort in seeing how much of them is still here.
This is how we carry their love forward, into the lives of the little ones who are just beginning.
A Flower for Remembering and Welcoming
The October birth-flower tradition is separate from our Buddhist beliefs, but the connection feels beautiful to me.
Marigolds already belong to my memories, my culture, and the heart of Eternal Marigold. They are flowers I associate with offerings, with remembrance, with love that we continue to tend.
Now they will remind me of Isla, too.
I did not know, when I chose the name Eternal Marigold, that I would one day welcome a granddaughter born in the month of that flower. Discovering it now gives something already precious to me another meaning.
There is room in this flower for my tears for my mother and my happiness for this baby.
There is room in me for both.
Welcome, Isla Florence
My sweet Isla, I am so happy you are here.
There is so much we have yet to learn about you. Your smile. Your laugh. The things that will make you curious. The person you will become.
For now, I keep looking at your little face.
You are already part of our family’s story, and you have a whole story of your own ahead of you. I am so grateful I get to be your grandmother and watch it unfold.
Welcome to our family, Isla Florence.
Our little October marigold.
With all my love,
GiGi
Eternal Marigold
Where memory blooms forever.
