She Lost Her Smile

As I sat down on the plane, I wondered who would take the aisle seat next to me. It didn’t take long. She was a stout woman, friendly, with reading glasses perched on her nose. Nothing but quiet between us for the first hour of the flight, I finally broke the awkward silence with the question, “is that a crossword puzzle you are doing?” “No, “ she replied, grateful to break the bond of strangeness to stranger, “ it is a “fill-in puzzle” which was easy, but worked her seventy-two year old mind. As I listened, surprisingly she opened up her heart, her life, her mind replaying the recordings of her past two weeks with grandchildren. How dear she was, this woman I thought, as she reminisced. How loved she was by her children, her grandchildren. Every page or two of her dialogue, I nodded and smiled, thinking how full she was, bursting, to share her details, eventually, her conversation turned from happiness to grief. My ears perked up, my heart listened instead of my head. What was that she said? He was sick, she said, for so long. Twenty long years of a disease that robbed her of the man she knew, the father her children knew and loved, the “Papa” beloved by his sweet grandchildren. Sadder to me than the loss she spoke of, were her last words as we were about to land on the tarmac. As she shook her head, she said these startling words, “I’ve lost my ---- she spoke softly, now. I could not quite decipher her words and I did not want to miss them. I leaned in closer, “I’ve lost my smile, I can laugh all day with my friends, but my smile, I just can’t seem to find it.” In the photos her grandchildren had snapped, they both remarked, “Grandma, you have a permanent frown!” She shook her head looking down. “You’ll find it, again,” I reassured her. “Your joy will well up again.” Looking me straight in the eye to exchange my cheer for hers, she left me with these words, “YOU keep the faith, you KEEP the faith.” Grateful to be home again, she bustled down the aisle of that plane, unaware that behind her exiting the plane, my broken heart reverberated with hers, “I’ve lost my smile, I’ve lost my smile….”