Just a Smile

I awoke remembering tomorrow would be my last day at this project and that it would also be the anniversary of my father's birth -- the 17th of October.  He's been gone a long time now, but not so long that the surprising pain of sudden grief has left me.

I readied for the day and rushed out into the world heading for the bus stop three stops away so I would walk a bit.  When the bus arrived I greeted the always silent driver.  Surly faces were in each row as I searched for a good place to sit, which for me meant somewhere near a door.

Trying to avoid eye contact with all as I wended my way further into the vehicle until a pair of eyes seemed to call to mine.  A little smile. 

I chose to set next to "just a little smile."  

As I settled into my seat, "just a little smile" greeted me with a hello in a tongue that seemed not as confident in English.  I tried to imagine his native land and language, but gave up almost immediately and mimicked his hello before going silent.

The fear of strangers now so ingrained took my imagination away briefly to consider, that as wrong as it was to racial profile, his olive skin, dark hair and features seemed Middle Eastern.  I wondered for a split second how it would be if I saw that he had a bomb strapped to his body or a gun in his pocket.  A little shake to my head dispelled the momentary silliness, as the music from my iPod pulled me back to reality.

I smiled that "you're a stranger to me" smile and searched for my Kindle, as he rifled through his worn, olive-drab gym bag.  He fished out a newspaper and began to read.  I smiled as I sneaked a peek at him, noticing the childlike halting way he read the headlines, using his index finger to slowly point to each word as he read.

The bus rocked rhythmically and the passengers now seemed to have entered that warm drone-like state, hunched over their cell phones as we moved onto the highway that would lead us to the Harbour Bridge. 

I politely continued reading.  Still I wanted somehow to reach out to this "smiling stranger" who had risked so much with that smile and his hello.  But there was so little time left of the journey and tomorrow he would just be a fading memory.

As I watched him out of the corner of my eye, it happened.

It was clear, as we had the first sight of the famous Coat-hanger Bridge, that he had never been across it before!  He gasped and nearly pressed his face to the window, like a child at Christmas wanting to see the sled fly!

It was just the opening I needed.

"It is such an amazing Bridge, isn't it?  Have you been in Australia long?"  Both questions completely safe.

And that was all he needed. 

His smile intensified and there was the fresh breeze of relief flowing over his face.

"I've just arrived from Italy.  Well actually on the fifth of October."

Then he spoke as if he longed to hear his voice practicing new and unfamiliar words.  He spoke of the day, the Bridge, the weather, even the bus.  His English was basic, but delightful for the joy on his face as he "connected" each word in an actual conversation.

I asked what brought him to Sydney.

Again eagerness and delight flooded his face.  He announced he was a bartender (as if he was sharing that he was a prince in disguise).  He had come to Sydney for a job.  I wondered if he was some master of mixology,  I had never considered it a visa-granting type of profession.  But I wouldn't know how to mix a drink, so perhaps it is a special skill.

It was while he spoke I took time to look at him for the first time.  Thin, he was far too thin, yet it was his face that captivated me.  I had politely averted my eyes from his face in some perfectly natural way of self-defense that I had chosen not to see it. 

This face told me a sad, almost pitiful story that was beyond explanation or reason.  Pock-marked and with horrible scars, as if someone had reached across some far away bar, late one night; and with a broken glass, dripping of some antiseptic liquor, they had ground it deeply into the middle of his face, then twisted it to disfigure him as much as possible.

My heart hurt as I tried not to imagine the blood and the pain, the fear and resulting rehabilitation...the deep loneliness from the isolation that brutality brings with it.  And then the sheer realisation of his abject ugliness.

Yet, here he was, smiling his crooked smile, that he knew was crooked and still smiled.  I reached out my hand and touched his forearm, not in pity but in respect or awe as he continued to regale me on the beauty of the day, his grand adventure, the magnificence of the Bridge and his forthcoming resettling into Sydney.

It dawned on me through the fog of my admiration for this heroic man that the bus was nearing the city.  I looked to him with a love not mine and wished him all the best.  I handed him my business card and urged him to send me an email or to call.

The bus lurched to a halt and as I gathered my things and moved through to the door, I looked back returning his kindness with my best smile.

I sincerely hoped he would contact me.  I stepped off the bus and couldn't resist looking back one more time to see which direction his journey would take him, but he had blended into the pushy crowd and already disappeared.

I crossed the street as always and just stopped.  I was deeply affected by the optimism of this man.  And there he stood, on the opposite corner of the street.  He looked profoundly lost.  I wondered if I should offer more help, when he crossed over when the light changed and asked to buy me breakfast.  A Starbucks loomed right behind me.  It was so tempting, had an early meeting.

I thanked him, wished him well, encouraged him again to contact me.  He said good bye and that today he was to start his English as a second language course and hoped to see me again. 

I never saw him again, but will never be able to forget him and his smile.

story of Dad's chair

Pop was buried over six years ago. I found myself in his woods one more time. The house where we had all grown up was now just rubble and the overgrown remnants of the basement. I searched for the chair and smiled as I saw it in the clearing.

I remember the day my brother and I took possession of the green Naugahyde recliner. It had been his throne for three quarters of his last years.

We were so miserable on that day. We cried a lot - I suppose it was a kind of catharsis -- as we struggled to drag it out of the living room where it had stood for all our shared memories.

We pulled the heavy, awkward thing out the back door trying to keep our fingers from being pinched by all the folding parts of the recliner.

We pulled it down the four rickety steps of the back porch.

We pulled it slowly, as if to the dirge playing within our hearts through the back yard until we located his favourite spot in the woods behind our house.

When he could breathe enough to walk this was where he would come. We installed the chair beside the huge, old hickory nut tree where he had taught us the names of the brightly coloured birds who sang so mysteriously, hidden in the trees above.

Then my brother and I took turns ceremoniously sitting in and christening this quiet, bittersweet spot in his memory. We stood together, holding hands and called out to the birds and trees to cover it with their everlasting love....