Fruits Falling Before Their Time

Time really fly don’t you agree?

Without me noticing, it had been twelve years since I got married and ten years since me, my wife and my first child had moved to this apartment. It’s a good thing too, that we were to move out from the rented house and was able to buy a house of our own. Although the rented house was much spacious and ours is a little bit smaller but we can say that this is ours.

I can also say that we bought the house at the right time, as the price of houses went boom after that. It all happened ten years ago, back in the year 1997 when the economy crisis hit Asia. Many major companies have difficulty paying their dues loans, as the loan was in US dollar. Major factory have cut down production because the raw material was all imported and paid in US dollar. The company I worked was in import and export services. You can say our type of service was the most hit by the economy crisis. As a result, many lost their job and I was one of them.

I was quite lucky, as my wife is a government employee. It had no impact on her job and is still able to bring in some money. Now that I’m not working, we don’t have the money to pay the maid that take care of the baby and cleans the house. Reluctantly we had to let her go and I was glad that she understood the situation.

Well it’s now just the baby and me. Actually, I’m not the only in my family that had lost his job. My brother in-law also lost his job. In his case, it’s actually worse as my sister had quit her job to take care of their three children.

My mum who is living out of pension lives alone in a big house. The house itself was inherited by my late father. My sister and I had always asked her to live with one of us but she always decided otherwise. She always says that she will live with one of her children when the day comes. Well that day did come; mum had decided to live with my sister. As you know my previous house was quite spacious so I asked her to stay with me instead but she declined. I had to tell the truth that I was actually worried for her as my sister lived in a two room apartment. One room was occupied by my sister and her husband and the other room was occupied by the three children. Where will she sleep?

She told me not to worry as she had already thought of it. Mum had decided to sell the house and split the money between my sister and me. Mum apparently had talked it over with my sister. They had decided that my sister were to sell her house and with the money receive from selling mum’s house they would buy a bigger house. Days passed and mum’s house was sold. My sister, her husband and mum found their ideal house, bought it and are still living in it now. As for me, with the money mum gave me, added some saving, I move out of the rented house and bought the apartment, which I’m still living in.

A couple of months later I found a job in an insurance company. To show gratitude for the new job and for the house, I held a dinner party just for the family and close relatives. My mum, my sister's family and some close relatives came. We had fun a time that night, eating, laughing, and telling old story. However, there was one of mum’s stories that caught my attention.

Mum said that before my brother in-law and I lost our job she had a dream. In that dream, she was in her backyard garden (previous house) there she saw two fallen fruits of different kind. A mango and a guava. She asks herself why the fruits have fallen as they were not ripe. As she looked up, she discovered that the reason the fruit fall is that the trees were dying.

At that time, I just smiled and laughed likes the rest of my family. It was about 12:30am that everyone decided to leave. Even my mum decided to leave as one of her sister decided to spend the night at her new home. However, before leaving some of my nephew helped in cleaning the place. It was a relief too as both my wife and me were dead tired.

When everything was done, I thanked all of my family and relatives for coming to my little dinner party. In the morning I started to think about the dream that my mum had. The dream was actually about my brother in-law and me. In the dream world, trees are interpreted as homes, jobs, things, or place you really rely on. In our case, they were both. Fruits are considered your children or people that depend on you. I smile as I intrepreted mum's dream to myself. I think mum knew better.