Not long after James died, the flowers started to come up. It’s always the day before I come to see you on Sunday. Always fresh, well-arranged, and perfect for the season, as if someone knew exactly what flowers James would have picked for me. First, I thought it was just a coincidence. It could be a student from the past paying their respects. James had been a teacher for a long time, and a lot of people appreciated his quiet wisdom. Maybe it’s an old friend from college. But whoever it was, they never left a message, notified me they were there, or ran into me. Like clockwork, the roses came every week.
I didn’t know who left them, but I felt strangely better when they got there. The setup changed with the seasons. There were daffodils and tulips in the spring, peonies and roses in the summer and chrysanthemums and marigolds in the autumn. Someone knew what they were doing, both when it came to taking care of flowers and when it came to meaning. It felt like it was about me. It seemed like James was still talking to me via them.
In the end, I couldn’t help myself and gave in to my curiosity. I asked the older man who works at the cemetery if he had any ideas about who might have done it. He was quite kind. He ran his hand over the back of his neck and said, “There’s a young man.” It comes every Friday afternoon. Doesn’t say a lot. He merely parks in the back, brings the flowers, and stays for a while. Be silent. By yourself.”
I couldn’t think of anyone who fit that description. I didn’t know any close family friends or students. And there are probably no young men in our group who would do that as a ritual. The mystery bothered me, but I didn’t want to push it. Maybe it was meant to be a quiet tribute. But I couldn’t let it go.
I finally got my granddaughter to help me set up a secret nature camera nearby, mainly to satisfy my own curiosity. It was a week. Then two. The third week presented the truth in black and white visuals that were calm. I looked through them slowly, not sure what I was searching for. Then I couldn’t get any air.
There he was.
Mark. Our son-in-law.
It was hard for me to believe what I saw on TV. Mark knelt down next to James’ grave and gently opened a bunch of deep gold and russet chrysanthemums. He seemed quite serious. Focused. Be careful. He wasn’t just laying flowers down; he was meticulously arranging them, brushing away leaves, straightening the stems, and cleaning up the area around the stone as if it were something holy. The same Mark who had ceased going to family events after the disaster. The same Mark who seemed cold, preoccupied, and far away. I couldn’t figure it out. He hadn’t said anything. He never once said he was going to the cemetery.
We enjoyed dinner together as a family that night, just like we did a lot of other times. I kept an eye on Mark until dinner was almost over. He was quiet, as usual, shifting his food around and nodding politely, but he wasn’t really getting involved. I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“I saw who brought the flowers,” I said in a low voice. He looked up in shock. Our daughter looked back and forth between us, unsure of what to do. Mark’s skin went white. He didn’t say no. He didn’t have to.
For a long time, no one said anything. He proceeded to explain, but he did it slowly and with some uncertainty. That night, the night James died on his way to see Mark. Earlier that week, Mark had lost his job, but he hadn’t told anyone. Not even our girl. He drove across town to a pub and stayed there for far too long, drinking and not talking to anyone to get rid of his shame and fear. He finally contacted James because he was scared and didn’t know what else to do.
Mark’s voice trembled when he said, “He didn’t judge me.” “All he wanted to know was where I was.” He told me he would come fetch me. I told him not to do it. I begged him not to do it. But he still showed up. He stopped for a moment to dry his eyes. “He never got there.”
We found out that James had died in a car accident late that night, but we didn’t know where he was heading or why until then. Mark had kept that to himself.
He explained that the flowers were his way of saying what he couldn’t say in words. He started going to the cemetery a week after the funeral. At first, it was for him, maybe as a punishment. But then he found out about the roses that James used to give me. He remembered how I used to tell him about the flowers James picked for me every summer and how he always gave me marigolds in October since he knew I loved how they smelt. Mark did them over and over to show his respect for them. To say thanks. He didn’t think he had the right to say it out loud, so he whispered it softly.
“I didn’t want to make you angry,” he continued. “I didn’t think I should have to go through your pain.”
We sat in silence, tears flowing down our faces, each of us struggling with a different type of sorrow. The room, which had been dark and closed off for months, suddenly felt brighter.
And in that moment, everything changed.
I knew the flowers weren’t there because they felt bad. They were put in love. They weren’t something he had to cope with; they were something he hung on to. Mark lost more than just his father-in-law that night. He had lost a teacher, a protector, and a strong voice in a storm of doubt. He chose to memorialise James not with great gestures or dramatic admissions, but with a modest act of remembering him every week that no one else witnessed. Up until now.
Now I understand why those flowers made me feel so tranquil when I saw them. Even though I didn’t know who left them, I could tell they were honest. I could feel James in them. Because, in a way, he was there—he was in the hands of a man he had attempted to save and in the heart of a man who loved him like a father without saying anything.
When you’re upset, words don’t always come to you. It lays flowers on a grave sometimes. It stays quiet until the right time to tell the truth. And sometimes the deepest love is the kind we don’t talk about, but just live, week after week, flower after flower.
