About 20 years ago I was on the tram with some colleagues. We were coming from a refresher course, We were quite noisy. We were talking and laughing, when a middle-aged woman approached me. “Oana?”. “Yes”, I answer, trying to remember where I know her from. “Surely you don’t remember me”, she answered the mute question in my eyes. “I am your kindergarten teacher”. “And you recognized me after 25 years?! I was 5-6 years old then.” “I recognized your smile”.
As long as we can smile, the cause is not yet lost (W. Shakespeare).
My dentist says I have a gummy smile. This is how a wide smile is described in the specialized literature, which reveals all your teeth and a portion of your gums. Exposure. Opening. Trust. Compassion. In the animal world baring teeth means aggression or submission, but in humans it signifies joy and a good mood. Did you know that smiling can be learned? Yes, you can learn to smile the same way you learn to write. Smiling makes you more attractive, releases neurotransmitters that make you feel good, both physically and mentally, helps you get along with people… It makes you a better person.
Smile, even if your smile is sad, because sadder than a sad smile is not knowing how to smile anymore (M. Gandhi).
After my mother died for a long time I couldn’t look in the mirror. The last time I saw her, on the intensive care bed, she was intubated. I couldn’t talk to her, I couldn’t say goodbye. She just looked at me. With her eyes the same color and shape as mine. After that everytime I looked in the mirror I saw her eyes, not mine. For 6 months I transformed into her. Relatives and acquaintances told me that they shivered when they saw me, I looked too much like her then. I had taken over her gestures, her walk. It was my way of refusing to part with her. And I wasn’t smiling.
After 6 months I had a dream. It was the two of us on top of a hill. At our feet layed a path whose end we could not see. My mother showed me the path and said: “See this path? Follow it and you’ll get where you need to be.” I looked in the direction she was pointing, and when I looked back at her, she was gone. That’s how my mother said goodbye to me and I was able to detach myself from her. And I started smiling again.
Don’t cry that the bright days are gone. Smile that they existed (Confucius).
There were other times when I didn’t smile. Times of physical or emotional pain. Times when I lost close people. Periods when I no longer believed in anything. Then I began to understand that nothing is here to stay forever, that the only constant in life is change, that everyone lives as they lay the bed, that the only regret in life should not be what you chose to do, but what you didn’t do, out of fear or convenience, that the most valuable good is freedom…and a smile.
Heaven gave man, to reward all his hardships, three things: hope, dream and smile (I. Kant). Don’t lose them.
