Hope Springs Eternal

Hello, beautiful people of the page! Well, Ice Apocalypse of 2021, that was something to talk about for sure. Hoping all of you came through unscathed; it was definitely EPIC by Mississippi standards.

My little town and surrounding areas were shut down for a solid week. It is so rare that we get significant winter weather this far south that we just do not have the equipment and resources that other areas have to keep the infrastructure up and running.

With this being said, HUGE shout out to our city, county, grocery and first responders who showed up every day and tried to make sure things were as good as they could be during this tricky time.

Power stayed on, gas was flowing, our mainstreets and areas of travel were clear and it was really nice to see neighbors coming together and taking care of each other as a community.

Needless to say, once the layers of ice and winter precipitation melted and the last snow covered roof was only a memory, the next logical thought was that of Spring on the horizon. A time of rebirth and life and hope.

Warm days filled with sunshine, color and smile-filled flowers peeking through the wintered ground, chirping birds in budding trees, and the hum and chirp of tree frogs and cicadas singing the people a spring song.

This time last year, as spring was beginning to come alive and we were all starting to think about our hopes and dreams for the upcoming year, the world was suddenly turned upside down by a global pandemic.

None of us were prepared for the tragedy and loss that we would experience in our personal lives, with our loved ones, the loss of more small businesses than I can even begin to count and the uncertainty of what the future would hold. Hope quickly turned into fear and loss.

If you had asked me any other time before 2020 of my feelings of being a business owner in small town America, I would have told you how lucky and fortunate I feel to have been given the gift in my life of The B.T.C. Old-Fashioned Grocery here in Water Valley.

Be The Change. B.T.C.

B.T.C. is a woman-owned business on a bustling Mainstreet in a community where dreams are still possible, and life is, in fact, like a fairy tale - more days than not. If you asked me that same question pretty much any time last year after April, I would have told you it was a nightmare of epic proportions and filled with never ending disaster and that I wanted to quit.

The B.T.C. was the dreamchild and vision of my business partner Alexe van Beuren. I came into the picture about a year after the store was opened. I will not bore you with the story of how we came to be because it has been told a thousand times.

Our business is a labor of love filled with many hard days filled with work but also filled with joy, love, and hope. A place for everyone filled with many treasures in our grocery and delicious food in our cafe. A place for fellowship and community.

When it became clear in March 2020 what we were actually dealing with concerning COVID-19, the decision was made to totally close the cafe for a brief period due to safety concerns for the public. Quite frankly, it was the most gut-wrenching decision I have ever made. The cafe is my dream and a part of what makes me who I am. I had no idea if we would ever re-open this part of the business again.

My business partner and friend Alexe made the decision to keep the grocery open, motivated by a need to service her community during this dark time. For the record, this meant putting herself at great risk to go out into the world and source the products that she needed to deliver groceries to the front porches of people who were scared and sick.

Alexe is a strong person in general but this time filled with dread and stress and fear took a great personal toll on her - like most of us - so if you see her tell her “thank you,” because she did it for the good of her community and put her own needs to the side, 

We made it through last year, opened the grocery up to the public, and reopened the cafe for curbside service and pick up.

Now, once again, spring is upon us, and as a nation, we are in a much different place than the March of 2020.

Vaccines for COVID-19 are rolling out at a remarkable pace. Businesses are starting to re-open, and there are life and hope in the air. The rebirth and rebuilding are beginning, and we are starting to believe that we just might make it as a community.

We lost my father-in-law Laurence Harker to a COVID-related illness. Laurence was one of the sweetest, kindest and gentle humans I have ever known. Laurence was also not a quitter and had the mindset that when things get hard, you meet them head-on and push through.

We are pushing through, and while his loss is great, I think of him often because he loved the B.T.C., he loved me and he loved food.

Laurence would be pleased to know that we are keeping on keeping on and that once again we have hope in our hearts for a spring filled with life.

Please support your local businesses during this time of rebirth. Local and small businesses across the United States need you more than you know as they try to recover from the devastation of COVID.

Be kind to one another, help your neighbor, give more than you take from your community, and remember: Be The Change.

For anyone who experienced loss during this horrible time, my heart goes out to you, and I pray that you find peace as recovery begins and we try to live again.