Smile, Always!

A smile is like a warm hug one can give far away, and it has the power to change someone’s entire mood and can even save a life. I believe a genuine smile can affect someone’s lives entirely. I have seen this truth in my own life.

I was born into a family riddled with drugs and gang activity. One of my earliest memories involves a man coming in with drugs and sitting on the couch beside me. Around year five, one of my sisters and I were sent into the foster system. For months we were both passed around from home to home. At the beginning of 1998 I was given to a family and we just never moved. Six months later they adopted both of us, and another young boy the found.

Time went by and I recall all the hard work they did to break my bad habits. The years of therapy they sent me through, and all the loving lessons my taught me, many that I hold dear to this day. Through it all I call remember quarrels my parents would have with their family members that chastised them for taking on children with “so many issues”. My father was a fifty-five-year-old Caucasian man and my mother was a black woman fourteen years younger than him. There were many disagreements that they fought through from the world outside our home, but they always fought for what they wanted. Years later, as an adult, when I recalled their struggle to my mom, she said something that blew me away.

She told me that they knew the very day that they picked us up from our previous foster home that they were going to adopt us. She said she knew because my smile. She said the thought of children going through what we had and still coming out smiling and joyful reminded her of the true meaning of life. I never asked her what that true meaning of life was, but I was amazed that a smile saved me from a life of foster homes or possibly ending back up into the gang prone world I was from.

Another quick example comes from my time in Israel. I was sent there for nine months for work. The week before I was sent to Israel my grandmother had passed away. I knew my mission in Israel was coming up and I opted out of going back to the states for her funeral. I was working through the emotions of it all even as I started my assignment in Israel. During one of the first weeks I was sent on an errand to get a piece of equipment fixed. While I was waiting on the side of the building in a country I didn’t know I noticed a man look up at me. I habitually threw him a smile. Right then he stopped everything and headed my way. When he got to me, he pulled me into a hug and kissed both my cheeks. I was alarmed for a moment, to say the least. However, he told me that the people in his country get so busy in their daily lives that they forget to be kind and smile. He told me he had been having a very rough couple of days, and that my smile warmed his heart and gave him hope. By the end of our conversation I gave him a hug and thanked him. Little did he know, I had been going through my own emotional battle, and that moment was what encouraged me.

I do not think I have ever stopped smiling. Occasionally my friends poke fun at me because I make it my business to smile at as many people I walk by as possible. I remind myself not to be too busy to show a quick moment of hope and kindness in my smile. It is very true, we never know what someone is going through-physically, mentally, or spiritually, but it does not cost anything to smile. Who knows, it just may be that smile that opens a door, uplifts a person, or possibly even saves a life.