“Peace begins with a smile.” – Mother Teresa (1910-1997), a Catholic nun and missionary who became widely known for her humanitarian work with the poor, sick and dying – especially in Calcutta, India.
YANA used to smile a great deal. It was not the sort of smile people put on out of politeness. It was warm, steady, and somehow made others feel lighter. I noticed it because she was one of my mother’s friends, and she came by often – sometimes with food wrapped neatly in leaves, sometimes with news from the village, and sometimes to sit and talk.
People used to say her smile could lift even the dullest day. When she was younger, it came as easily as the morning light over the hills that held our village in their quiet embrace.
Time, however, has its own way of rearranging things.
Yana married, and before long she had two children – a boy and a girl. Her life became full in the way village lives often do: not dramatic, but demanding.
Days were shaped by work that did not wait. Paddy farming was the centre of everything. It fed us, defined us, and set the rhythm of our days. The labour was hard, but it was not questioned. It was simply what life was.
Yana’s husband worked long hours in the fields, carrying the heavier tasks, while Yana managed the home, cooked, cleaned, and cared for the children. Morning began with the rooster’s call, and night settled with the steady hum of cicadas. One day moved into the next without much distinction.
She did not compare her life with those who had gone to towns or cities. In many ways, she was content – with her family, with the smallness of their world, with the quiet certainty of it.
Then one afternoon, as she sat in her living room folding clothes, the sky darkening with the promise of rain, something shifted. She realised she could not remember the last time she had truly smiled.
Her hands stopped. A shirt slipped from her fingers onto the floor, unnoticed. For a moment, she sat there, as though the thought had taken the air out of her.
When had it happened? When had that easy, natural smile faded without her noticing?
A smile, after all, is not only given to others. It changes the one who wears it. When a person smiles, even quietly, something inside them loosens. The body softens, the breath steadies, and the mind becomes less crowded. It is a small act, but it carries a kind of balance – a reminder that, for that brief moment, things are not entirely heavy. Without it, the days may still pass, the work may still be done, but something subtle goes missing. Not joy exactly, but the feeling that joy is still possible.
Yana sat there a long while, listening to the first drops of rain on the roof, wondering not how to smile again, but how she had stopped.
She tried to think back, rummaging through her memories like one searching for a lost trinket in a cluttered drawer. But she found nothing concrete. It hadn’t been a sudden loss. No, it was a slow, quiet fading, like the way twilight gives way to night. She hadn’t even noticed it leaving until now.
The rain began to fall, soft at first, then heavier, drumming against the metal roof of her home. Yana carried the clothes into her bedroom, her movements automatic, her thoughts elsewhere.
The weight of the unseen
That evening, while the children played near the hearth and her husband sat sharpening his tools, Yana sat by the living room window. The rain had stopped, leaving the earth damp and fragrant. She stared out into the fading light of day, the faint outlines of the fields barely visible.
Why had her smile vanished? Life had not been unkind to her. There had been no great tragedies, no shattering losses. Her family was healthy. Her home was intact. She was not rich, but neither was she destitute. By all accounts, her life was … fine. Normal.
And yet, her smile was gone.
She pressed her hand to her chest, as if trying to feel for something deep within. Was it still there, buried under the layers of daily chores, of responsibilities, of the endless rhythm of work and rest? Or had it withered completely, like a flower left too long in the sun?
Her husband noticed her quietness that evening. “Are you tired?” he asked, his voice gruff but concerned.
She shook her head, managing a small, polite smile – a smile that felt foreign on her face. “No. Just thinking.”
He nodded, not pressing further. They were not a family of many words. There was love, of course, but it was expressed in actions rather than conversations. He would never ask her why she seemed distant, and she would never tell him. It was just how things were.
Searching for the smile
Over the next few days, Yana became acutely aware of her own lack of expression. She watched herself in the reflection of the water as she scrubbed the laundry. She studied her children’s faces as they laughed and played, their joy unrestrained and contagious. She noticed the little things that used to make her smile — the sight of a butterfly landing on a flower, the sound of her daughter’s giggle, the warmth of the sun on her skin.
But her face remained still, her lips unmoving.
It wasn’t that she didn’t feel happiness. She did.
When her son brought her a wildflower he had picked from the field, her heart swelled with love.
When her daughter hugged her tightly, whispering, “I love you, Mama,” she felt a deep, quiet joy.
But the feelings never made it to her face. It was as if there was a wall between her heart and her smile.
She began to wonder if something was wrong with her. Was she broken in some way? Had she changed without realising it?
Or was this simply what happened to people as they grew older, as life became a series of duties and routines?
She thought back to her younger self – the girl who laughed freely, who smiled at everyone and everything. That girl felt like a stranger now, someone she could barely remember.
The quiet realisation
One evening, as she sat on her verandah after the children had gone to bed, Yana looked up at the sky. The stars were bright, scattered across the inky blackness like tiny lanterns. The air was cool, carrying the faint scent of the damp earth. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply.
For the first time in days, she felt a sense of calm. In that stillness, a thought came to her, gentle but profound.
Perhaps her smile hadn’t left her. Perhaps it was simply resting, waiting for her to find it again.
Life was not easy. It never had been, and it never would be. There would always be work to do, bills to pay, worries to carry. But amidst all that, there was also beauty. There was love. There was hope.
Maybe she had stopped smiling because she had stopped noticing those things. Maybe she had been so caught up in the demands of her life that she had forgotten how to see the small joys, the fleeting moments of happiness that made life worth living.
Yana opened her eyes and looked at the stars again. They were still there, bright and unchanging, just as they had always been. And in that moment, she realised something else.
Her smile wasn’t gone. It was simply waiting for her to remember it.
Musings in the moonlight
As the days passed, Yana began to pay more attention to the world around her. She took time to sit with her children, to listen to their stories and laugh at their jokes. She watched the sunrise with a cup of tea in her hands, feeling the warmth seep into her fingers. She noticed the way her husband’s face softened when he looked at her, even if he didn’t say anything.
And slowly, very slowly, her smile began to return. It wasn’t the same as it had been when she was younger. It wasn’t as carefree or as frequent. But it was there, quiet and steady, like a small flame against the dark.
Yana came to understand something about herself, something she hadn’t realised before. Life doesn’t take away our smiles; we forget to carry them with us. We let the weight of the world bend our backs and cloud our minds, and in doing so, we lose sight of the things that make us happy.
But those things are always there, waiting to be noticed. The laughter of a child. The beauty of a sunrise. The comfort of a loving touch. These are the things that keep us going, that remind us why we endure.
As the seasons changed and the paddy fields turned golden under the sun, Yana found herself smiling more often. Her smile was different now – softer, perhaps, but also deeper. It carried with it the quiet strength of someone who had faced her own doubts and found her way back to herself.
And so, when her daughter ran up to her one day, laughing and breathless, and said, “Mama, you’re smiling!” Yana simply nodded and pulled her close.
“Yes,” she said softly. “I am.”
The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the Sarawak Tribune. The writer can be reached at www.hayhenlin@gmail.com
