Smile

The coolness from the marble floor seeped through my cotton socks to the soles of my feet was pleasantly refreshing. The relaxing ambience of Joshua's apartment was glowing in a mixture of yellow and orange. The moon was perfectly round and gleamed beautifully that night, with most of the time if not covered, was decorated with small clouds at its side.

On the drive to his apartment, my friend related to me that he is living with his uncle - just that for now, his uncle is in China as an English lecturer there and won't be back for quite some days yet. My curiosity seized control of my mouth and vocal projectability while we were marching to his apartment. 'No', Joshua said firmly that his uncle isn't a bachelor and that his beloved wife passed away a few years ago. I was deeply sorry.

Before I could scan the whole surrounding of the apartment properly, a lady of a black-and-white photograph in wooden frame was smiling radiantly to me in one of the cabinets placed against the wall on my left. I approached it without much hesitation to get a better look at this lady who was warming my heart at first sight. Her smile was so lively despite it was only a picture where she posed her shoulders and tilted her head brilliantly to make her smile outstanding. But intuitionally, she was Joshua's deceased aunt. At the bottom of the picture, there were two lines of words sandwiching a date in between.

I travelled further into the apartment to the living room. With a spacious balcony equipped with a BBQ grill, an exercise machine and a table with two chairs at the opposite end; the room itself has video & audio equipments, two sets of comfortable sofas and an oddly tall coffee table compared to the average ones. Below the surface of the table, lied a thick book with hard covers which I mistook it as the family bible at first. As my fingers ran through the pages of the book, I realised that it is a photo album that Joshua's uncle holds dearest and closest to his heart.

The first few pictures in the album are the most recent ones, where his aunt looks pale and dons a colourful snow cap. In few of them, she is seen on the hospital bed with oxygen tube connected to her nostrils. She is rarely to be seen without her snow cap in her pictures, and constantly being surrounded by people, young and old but mostly young, in unfamiliar places to me that definitely are foreign lands.

The tour down her memory lane took me further into her teenage, or most probably, her early 20's years. She looks gorgeous and flawlessly pretty, and I think I saw her then husband as a young, handsome man standing next to her. Throughout all her pictures, the one most distinctive thing that survives time and even prevails death is the same memorable, radiant smile of hers. At the end of the tour, her smiles in every picture drew away my weariness and replenished my hope and faith towards the things I believe and the ones I cherish the most.

Again, curiosity got the best of me. Joshua replied that her aunt passed away due to breast cancer. Upon hearing it, my heart was deeply saddened as if I have known her for a very long time. And I felt that it was cruel to her husband and pitiful for him. For a man to bear the loneliness after the departure of his wife where their love pronounced in the church is meant to defy sickness, death and time; I couldn't seem to imagine the pain of living up everyday and coming back to home without seeing her for the remaining years, especially when all the children have grown up and left the house to start families of their own.

A drop of tear almost rolled down my right cheek then. Of course, I know I was childish and naive then. Some men handle these things better - I don't know how, but maybe because they got what they have prayed for every night and making the best out of each other every moment of their supporting presence, which at the end of the day when they are gone, nothing is lost and wasted and memories together with wishes of the departed ones thrive on as the inspirational source of living regardless how big the tinge of missing them might be. That's why people always say love works in a mysterious way. Joshua further told me that his uncle took it very acceptively and willingly, particularly when her aunt had been suffering for quite some time from the disease that corroded her life but not her smile and strength from time to time until to her deathbed.

Even though it seems that I might never have the chance to meet this wonderful couple who placed great love in each other, I dedicate this entry to both of them. I may not be His believer, but with the utmost sincerity, I hope that she will continue smiling radiantly as ever and has found peace, while God gives the man who has given his heart and life to her the strength to move on so that he is able to fulfil his life on this Earth as a meaningful man and to pass on her smile to everyone he sees like what she had done unto me.

The first line of the few inscriptions at the bottom of the picture I remember reads:

"Joyce Forever"

See you, Joyce.