She decided to go to her father’s grave and ask for his advice.
Willow trudged along the gravel path with a thick book clutched in her hand. As she passed by the various tombstones firmly rooted into the ground, she tried to keep her gaze on the lake next to her instead. She felt as if she was being disrespectful just by looking at the resting place of these strangers. To her, it was like watching someone sleep. She could almost imagine these strangers asking, what are you looking at?
  Her pace slowed down as she spotted the tombstone marking her father’s grave twelve feet away. She admired the white slab from afar. Among the other grand and intricate tombstones, her father’s unembellished one stood out like a white cloud floating in the clear sky. Her father had always told her that he wanted a simple grave. After all, he lived a simple life.
  Willow had been so excited when she ordered this tombstone. She had just received her first paycheck from working part time at a Thai restaurant nearby named Tongue Thai’d.
  “Hi dad,” Willow was now standing next to her father’s grave. She was careful not to step in front of the tombstone; she didn’t want to disturb him from his slumber. She remembered the time when she closed the living door too hard. Her father had bolted up from his nap on the couch. Willow had felt terrible; he had dark bags under his eyes and was just trying to catch up on a few minutes of sleep before visiting his next patient at the hospital.
  She plopped down next to the tombstone and sighed. She’d do anything to hear her father grumble about her being too loud.
  You’ve got such a restless spirit, he’d teased while patting her head affectionately.
“I brought you a gift,” she reached for the book next to her and carefully placed it next to the tombstone. Her father was a big fan of spy books. In between his shifts at the hospital, he’d savor whatever amount of time he had to catch up with a few extra pages in his mystery books. Even during each customary father to daughter meal they had every Friday (the only night where he wasn’t at the hospital), Willow’s father loved to share the plot points of his recent read.
  “Remember how you always wanted to read Lie Down with Lions?” Willow paused, as if she was waiting for a reply. “Well…I brought you a copy. A signed copy, actually. My friend Louise found it at the bottom of a box in her family’s basement.”
 Willow could almost picture the excitement that would’ve been on her father’s face. She could imagine the adorable wrinkles on the edge of his eyes and the way his nose scrunched up whenever he laughed.
  She felt a tremendous amount of relief. She hadn’t forgotten her father’s face yet.
  “Happy birthday daddy,” Willow absentmindedly twisted a strand of grass between her fingers.
  “There’s…something I need to tell you. I…I’ve realized something about myself…and I need help with making a…decision,” Her heart rate accelerated and, for a second, she was glad that she wouldn’t be able to see the disappointment on her father’s face.
  The truth is, Willow had already made her decision two months ago, when she first picked up a paintbrush and felt its silky tip guide her wrist in ways she’d never imagined before. From then on, she had decided to replace her scalpel with a brush. Now, the only thing stopping her was the sharp pang of guilt that struck her heart every time she added color on to the rough surface of her canvas. Ever since her father died, Willow’s life was meant to stay in black and white. There wasn’t supposed to be any color. Her father meant the world to her, and now that he was gone, the world meant nothing. It was supposed to be this way until she fulfilled her dreams of being a surgeon, just like her father. Only then, her life could be full of color and radiance.
  Yet two months ago, Willow realized that the dream was anything but hers.
  “I know me being a surgeon means everything to you…it once meant everything to me too,” Willow chewed on her lip. She hated disappointing her father. He had sacrificed so much for her. He had quit his job in the small but cozy hospital at their hometown in order to give her a better education in the city. He had studied countless cookbooks in order to serve her warm home cooked meals every evening before he left for his night shift. He had given up buying a roomier house in order to pay for her heavy medical school tuition.
  The least she could do was finish the mere 2 years of residency.
But even the thought of completing just another day of residency sounded unbearable to her. Frankly, Willow was miserable. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life checking on people’s bones and resetting joints. As valiant as being a surgeon and serving her community was, Willow didn’t want to have a single part with it.
She wanted to be a painter.
  Willow loved the feeling of moist paint lingering on her fingertips. She basked in the excitement of not being bound by precision and accuracy. She adored the sharp but electrifying scent of oil mixed with paint. For the first time in Willow’s life, she felt free.
She leaned against the edge of her father’s tombstone. She swore that she sensed warmth radiating from the center of the stone. The heat, together with the steady pounding of her heart, felt like her father was there with her, silently embracing her.
  Tears escaped from her green eyes—the same shade of dark emerald as her father’s eyes—and Willow finally let herself cry in the four years since his death.
  Willow knew how insane her choice was. She had already spent so much time, effort, and money on being a surgeon. She was already reaching the end of her twenties. It was absolutely crazy for her to just drop everything and start anew. Most of her other friends had already settled down in the suburbs and were starting to consider retirement plans.
  Besides, who even knew whether she’d succeed as an artist? The only people who knew about her passion were a few of her closest friends. Although they masked their concern with a few superficial compliments and words of encouragement, Willow knew that they didn’t think she’d make it that far. Just in her city, there were probably a couple thousand of artists who were just as skilled and infatuated with painting as her, yet still unsuccessful.
Everyone knew that Willow had enough ambition and dedication, but everyone also knew that art was a tough business to succeed in.

  “I’m sorry,” she inched closer to the side of the tombstone, “I didn’t mean to let you down. But…I…just lost that spark. To be honest, I don’t even know if that spark existed in the first place.”
  “I miss you. After you left, I thought being a surgeon would bring me closer to you. But it didn’t…I dreaded walking into that operation room and doing the same thing that left you so tired and helpless.”
  Her father’s face flashed before her eyes. Ever since they moved to the city, he had permanent bags hanging under his eyes and he’d always wince when he turned his neck. Willow didn’t need him to tell her he was exhausted and physically worn out from being bent over at the operation desk twelve hours a day. Willow had already developed a constant backache from studying textbooks and research papers until midnight.
  Ever since she started painting, friends started commenting on the cheery glow brushed across her cheeks. One friend even asked if she was pregnant.
  “Here’s a painting I did of you and mom and I,” she reached into her bag and pulled out a delicate sheet of paper.
  “I couldn’t bring the actual canvas…it was too big,” Willow sighed.   “I know that you don’t like to talk about mom much, but I know you still miss her as much as I do.”
  “I asked Aunt Gracie about mom last week, you know, and she told me that mom was an artist too. I guess now I know why you had that look on your face when I showed you that drawing I did in eighth grade.”
  Willow’s mother had passed away when she was only four. Her father never said much about his deceased wife, except that she had the same hazel brown hair as her. Willow had long given up trying to get him to reveal anything more about her mother. She had decided that he didn’t want her to know for a reason.
  Of course, Willow missed her mother, even though she was simply a blurry image in her mind. During the lonely nights when her father was at the hospital, she often wished that her mother were there to hold her. Their four-seat dining table always seemed too empty when only two seats were occupied. The two toothbrushes next to their bathroom sink always looked like they lacked another companion.
  It wasn’t until last week, when her father’s sister called to check on her, that Willow was bold enough to ask about her mother. Aunt Gracie explained that her parents had eloped due to her grandfather’s denial of the marriage. Her aunt only knew a few vague details about her mother, yet those extra points helped fill in some space on the completely blank canvas that depicted Willow’s mother.
  Willow sighed heavily while gazing into the distance. She wasn’t even able to bring herself to tell her Aunt about her decision last week. She was sure that her Aunt would be disappointed in her, let alone her father. Everyone had high hopes in her; from the minute she could even say the word “surgeon,” people believed that she’d successfully follow the footsteps of her father.
  “I’ve come to the realization that this is my life. Remember when you joked about writing a book? Perhaps, in another world, you could’ve been a writer. You could’ve been much happier.” Willow grinned at the thought of her father typing vigorously on his typing machine while floating on a fluffy cloud in heaven.
  Her father had always reminded that she was the most important thing in his life. She knew that being a surgeon was far lower on his list of most important things.
  Deep inside, Willow knew that she was the one who was angry with herself, and not her father. He was most likely just displeased. He loved her more than anything in the world. Of course he’d want her to be happy.
  Yet, Willow knew that if she became a painter, she’d have to succeed. She couldn’t disappoint her father twice.
  She whispered, “I won’t let you down. I promise.”
  For a while, Willow leaned against the tombstone with felt her eyelids droop so that her lashes brushed the surface of her cheeks. She reveled in the silent company of her father and the warmth of the sun lightly sinking into her skin.
  Willow’s eyes fluttered open as she felt the wind tickle her hand. She watched as a silent breeze grazed past her fingers and arched around the sheet of paper in her hand. She stared in awe at the sight before her, and loosened her grip on the page. An edge of the sheet curled backward and it lightly somersaulted across the blades of grass. The wind embraced the sheet and gracefully carried it around like a romantic duet. Willow’s gaze followed the twirling pair until the sheet was dramatically dropped at the foot of a large tree.
  Her face split into a brilliant smile when she saw her family painting resting near the trunk of a willow tree.
  Now, Willow could paint with her father’s blessing.