Rarely was a life as worthy of a person as he. Someone who proudly bore the imprints of the earth on his knees, for every time he fell down. Whose sweat had showered the ground more times than the rain and a sand clock-face that did not betray any emotion. They said they never saw him smile.
For a decade and a half he had held back those smiles, hiding them in a safe place, anticipating one final burst. An imaginary veil kept his eyes pure and his freckles alive. Whenever we did manage to lose ourselves in his eyes, the magnitude of the grief searing through our souls hit us all like a bullet. The struggle with the decades had made his lips weak, his heart a sponge, yet his body remained solid as a rock and his movements were never languid. When he spoke, which he seldom did, we’d listen mesmerized and awed. It wasn’t what he said but the way he said it that perked our ears. Years of wisdom were poured into a few moments. He never smiled.
He didn’t need to say it, we understood that no matter the span of his lips, it was no measure of his happiness, nor was the ocean in his eyes deep enough to express his sorrow in a justified magnitude. Every time he held back a word or an emotion, it seemed to add another freckle on his limestone face. He wasn’t intimidating and nor was his glare a threat. His movement peaceful, serene. Like pulled out of a perfect painting and placed amongst us. A mountain of tranquility rested on those eyebrows and we were just glad to have grown up under them.
16 years, day in day out, we watched. Awaiting that smile which never came or that laugh that was long overdue. Did he not have a reason? We pondered.
A hat on his head, he would walk tall and face the invisible storm ‘head on’ every single morning. Those shoulders had borne the ‘burden’ many would crack under. His son. He never lost that gait.
That morning, I still remember, as distinctly as the lines on my palm. The sun had made its way up but the old man had beaten him to it, again. The sidewalk now carried him like a leaf and he breathed, chasms separating one breath from the other. On any other day he would’ve just walked, without caring to notice or acknowledge the surroundings. Today it was different. He suddenly glanced around, half expecting us to break into a rapturous applause.
Then he fell, like a bag of sticks let loose, he fell.
Bystanders gathered around as I gently lay his head in my lap and saw something I’d never seen. I had read about it in books, heard it in sermons but had never witnessed it before, until that moment. They say that the most beautiful thing in the world is a smile that struggles through tears. There it was. The silver lining of his tears cascaded its way into the deep gorge of his smile. Even in that moment of grief that held us stone-cold, there was an astounding beauty. No one cried, nobody could! One man’s dying face captured every ounce of beauty that was in the world, real and surreal. All our life we had been captivated by beauty in all shapes, forms and sizes but this beauty could not possibly be put into words. This beauty could just be felt like the way it was supposed to be. In its purest form.
We managed a weak smile; he smiled back with a look of satisfaction. His bucket of life had been an agony and still he was content. We knew it as we fell into those eyes again, until he spoke.
“Finally, I’ll get to embrace him, my son, up there”. Those were his last words.
I have written this post for Yahoo! India and Dove "I Believe in Real Beauty" in under the topic "What does real Beauty Mean to Me?"
