The Day I Learned The
Value Of A Smile - Maya Angelou
My paternal grandmother
who raised me had a remarkable influence on how I saw the world and how I
reckoned my place in it. She was the picture of dignity. She spoke softly and
walked slowly, with her hands behind her back, fingers laced together. I
imitated her so successfully that neighbors called me
her shadow.
"Sister Henderson, I
see you got your shadow with you again."
Grandmother would look
at me and smile. "Well, I guess you’re right. If I stop, she stops. If I go, she
goes."
When I was thirteen, my
grandmother took me back to California to join my mother, and she returned
immediately to Arkansas. The California house was a world away from that little
home in which I grew up in Arkansas. My mother wore her straight hair in a
severe stylish bob. My grandmother didn’t believe in hot curling women’s hair,
so I had grown up with a braided natural. Grandmother turned our radio on to
listen to the news, religious music, Gang Busters, and The Lone Ranger. In
California my mother wore lipstick and rouge and played loud blues music and
jazz on a record player. Her house was full of people who laughed a lot and
talked loudly. I definitely did not belong. I walked around in that worldly
atmosphere, with my hands clasped behind my back, my hair pulled back in a tight
braid, humming a Christian song.
My mother watched me
for about two weeks. Then we had what was to become familiar as, "a sit down
talk to."
She said, "Maya, you
disapprove of me because I am not like your grandmother. That’s true. I am not.
But I am your mother and I am working some part of my anatomy off to buy you
good clothes and give you well-prepared food and keep this roof over your head.
When you go to school, the teacher will smile at you and you will smile back.
Other students you don’t even know will smile and you will smile. But on the
other hand, I am your mother. I tell you what I want you to do. If you can force
one smile on your face for strangers, do it for me. I promise you I will
appreciate it."
She put her hand on my
cheek and smiled. "Come on baby, smile for mother. Come
on."
She made a funny face
and against my wishes, I smiled. She kissed me on the lips and started to
cry.
"That’s the first time
I have seen you smile. It is a beautiful smile, Mother’s beautiful daughter can
smile."
I had never been called
beautiful and no one in my memory had ever called me
daughter.
That day, I learned
that I could be a giver by simply bringing a smile to another person. The
ensuing years have taught me that a kind word, a vote of support is a charitable
gift. I can move over and make another place for someone. I can turn my music up
if it pleases, or down if it is annoying.
I may never be known as
a philanthropist, but I certainly am a lover of mankind, and I will give freely
of my resources.
I am happy to describe
myself as charitable.
About the Author:
Excerpted from Letter to my Daughter by Maya Angelou.
