The Man Who Always Smiled

This is a story meant to bring out the emotions in the reader about the last time you see someone. The moment when you know they are lost to the physical world; yet, not lost to you emotionally.

 I walked through the doorway, as I had done a thousand times before, and my eyes found him; and just like those thousand times before, his eyes met mine. His smile reached out to me as if it would stretch off of his face and touch my shoulder. It was my favorite smile, and I realized that I had adopted as my own. That same smile would find its way to my face during some the toughest situations a human would ever face and I would remember, my grandfather taught me this smile; the one that would drive my courage, resiliency, and success. I studied his face, the lines, the contours, trying to decide what he was thinking. Although he was cancer-stricken and frail, he seemed unafraid; and I understood, before me sat a strong person, grasping onto the coattails of life.

He was still the same man I remember seeing when walking through the doorway of my home as a child. Twice a week, while my parents worked, I remember my excitement to get home to him and tell him about my day. I would sit with him on the couch, noticing his abnormally large ears; I was convinced they enhanced his ability to listen. I remembered the way his eyes lit up and his chest swelled with pride as he explained to my mother how I had bravely volunteered to play goalie at my first hockey practice. His confidence in me was infectious, and I didn’t know it at the time, but it would become a driving force in many of my brave acts to follow. While my first season of hockey didn’t go so well; he was always there after the game, smiling. He made it ok to fail, to smile about it; I grew to be optimistic and learn from my mistakes rather than let them deter me. My Grandfather’s uncanny ability to find humor in any situation, to keep pushing forward, would get me through some of the hardest times of my life.  Through the deserts of Iraq to the mountains of Afghanistan I would smile thinking of him; in the heat of a battle I would hear him, calling out to me from the sidelines, “Michael G you got this!”  I would whisper under my breath, “Grandpa, what are you doing here?” I was transported back to the present; I smiled as I looked upon my grandfather, fully knowing that this moment would be one of the hardest of my life.

As I strode towards him for the final time, the room was filled with so much conversation, but no words had been spoken.  I smelled the homemade beans, chlorine from the pool, and constant cooking of tamales.  I saw the family pictures as if the people captured within were all present. They were staring down at me, smiling for me and giving me strength.  This is the moment that they had been waiting for, sitting on the wall for years to help guide me towards my grandfather.  This man in front of me, with his WWII Army uniform by his side, so pressed and astonishing, had been the reason for my success.  Cancer had slowly been killing him, reaching his mouth and neck, and my father had warned that he may not know who I was.  The look in his eyes, as if he was studying me like a book he had enjoyed reading a million times, let me know he remembered everything.  Then he spoke. His frail hand gripped mine, still confident and strong.  His words were slurred, and to anyone else, would have been hard to understand; but not to me. We were speaking our own language, a mixture of fragmented sentences in a jargon that was only understood by the two of us. He talked of a great future, many blessings, and love; then we laughed and smiled, not a single tear left my eyes.  This was the end and I knew it, but he had lived his life with that smile on his face, hope in his pocket, and not a single regret; and that, made all the difference.

            I take on every challenge, no matter how daunting, with the courage to succeed.  When I fail, I find humor.  With humor, I put myself in the mindset to find the fault and overcome adversity.  My grandfather’s actions taught me that a smile can produce the outcomes you wanted to achieve, surround you with the people that enable your success, and push you to overcome some tough failures.  So I smile, and every day I live that great future that he knew I would always have.