Willow Falls

Willow Falls in itself has never failed to astonish me. Pure white suburban houses, cul de sacs, and freshly cut lawns. The kind of area where you can let your kids go out to play unaccompanied. The entire east side of town was a river in an almost perfect oval shape, spanning over 30 miles. The entire area is encircled by the most beautiful willow trees you can imagine. It is said that willow trees signify resilience in the way they thrive in many environments. When a willow tree’s branches are in danger of breaking, they bend rather than snap to minimize the damages. In the same way, it implies that humans must be resilient to their environment to be able to thrive. 

    I wasn’t blessed with the wealth that showered my hometown of Willow Falls. I remember shopping for school supplies when I was young. The greedy kids would bicker and whine about which designs were their favorite and which accessories they could convince their parents to buy. I stood quietly watching while my mom fumbled through the plain store brand notebooks. I think one time I asked her about it and she told me we didn’t need to buy any of that extra stuff because it would only distract my classmates who couldn’t afford them. Little did I know at the time that I was the one who couldn’t. For a long time,  I envied the ones who had the opportunities that I never had. But I didn’t envy it enough to let it get in between me and my mom. She is a gentle, fragile person. Ever since my dad died, I have been her crutch. I would never let anything material come before that. After all, sometimes I have to bend rather than break. 

    My Great grandmother ran a bakery in the middle of town. It was successful for two generations before being left in our care. Just being my mom and me, the responsibility became too great for us to handle. In fact, even if we were able to hire people to help us maintain, we would barely have enough customers to pay the salaries of those people. As generations passed, the need to go to the bakery declined. We didn’t want to sell the bakery or anything, but we needed the money. My mom was getting older and the job fell on me. I wanted to start  a Cafe in place of the bakery. After all, cafes in the right conditions were very popular, at least around here. I applied a fresh coat of white paint on the bakery walls and new wood panels on the floor. I made many minor details to the building and the menu and it seemed like it was working at first. Usually only 4-5 customers came in a day, but after the innovation, every seat was filled. It was going well, until something strange happened and we began to do worse.

I recall watching the seconds hand on the large wall clock in the cafe. The clock was an original installation in the building. It would sometimes falter when it got around the twelve o’clock mark. The second hand would click, but not move immediately until a second click in which the seconds hand moves three spaces ahead. It should only move forward two spaces because the two clicks indicate two seconds, not three. This creates a one-second inaccuracy every hour as every hour gets one second shorter. I’ve never been good at math, but I found it interesting to think about this strange phenomenon and how it was happening. Once more customers appeared, the clock seemed to become even worse. Rather than skipping a second every hour, the same thing happened every minute. People left rather quickly realizing how late it had gotten. It seemed like we weren’t getting any business after all. It was almost like the clock didn’t want us to succeed.This continued for several days and I was bewildered to watch people walk in and out almost instantly like they weren’t even consciously deciding it.. I have seen some pretty weird things in my life, but this seemed too unreal to be natural. 

I got the stomach flu. The kind where you puke in a bowl because you're already sitting on the toilet. My body shook violently as I wiped my mouth on my sleeve. I walk slowly over the wooden floor to my bedroom. I lay face down on my bed with the trash bin on the floor next to me. I stare at it as I drift off into a deep sleep. 

        I stared into the radiant eyes of my great grandmother, her warm smile beamed back at me. 

        “Mami, is that you?” I ask, puzzled. I reach a hand out to touch her. She felt exactly the way I remembered her. “I thought you were gone,”

    “Honey, I never left. I’ve been watching you this whole time,”

    “But I don’t understand,” I started.

    “When we die, we can’t simply talk to the living. I’ve tried hard to make my presence known, but there’s only so much I can use to influence things in your world.”

    “What do you mean?” I inquire, more curious than ever.

    “No time for that dear. I came here to talk to you about the Bakery. I don’t like what you've done with it. We aren’t a cafe family, we’re a bakery family. Don’t follow what's popular, follow who you are.”

    “Mami! I don’t know what you’re asking of me!” I start to cry softly. Nothing was making any sense to me. 

    “Mami,” to which I receive no response. I wiped my eyes only to discover that she had disappeared.

    I wake up in my bed with tears streaming down my face. I knew it was just a dream but it all felt so real. What are the chances that what I saw was really my great grandmother and not some fevered dream? I’m just wasn’t sure. 

I thought back to the clock in the Cafe and I thought maybe Mami had some influence over the clock. If she didn’t like the Cafe, she wouldn’t want it to be successful. That would explain the strange behavior of the customers as well. She had some say over it. But what? Then, it occurred to me,  Mami didn’t want our customers to stay because their authenticity was inaccurate. The customers we had bore little similarities to the regulars we have bonded with and trusted. Success is not measured by how many risks you take or how many trends you follow. Success isn’t an impossible quest to a dream life. Success is having your needs met and being happy about the way you do it. We aren’t naturally put into preferable environments. There will be rain and wind, but as long as we bend rather than break, just like the willow trees, we will thrive in any environment. Fortune doesn't favor the brave, but it also doesn’t pity the cowardly. Hard work and resilience are the best guarantees of fortunes, whether in currency or in happiness.