Smile
Adam and I wait, car idling in the driveway, until Riley hurries out, shoes in hand, a pair of socks tucked in like a stowaway. The necklace she plans to wear dangles in the crook of one elbow, and she shivers, because I already brought her jacket out to the car.
I admit it, I let life become a hurry and I’ve been brooding. The stress spot at the top of my spine aches, and the morning only just begins to bloom, and I only just managed not to let my frustration over the time come out in words. But still, she knows. It’s not true what they say; people with autism can perceive our feelings; they can read body language, especially if they love you. I’ve been tapping the steering wheel, impatience moves my thumbs.
Riley pauses just beyond the garage door, stops still her rushing, and looks up at me. She breaks into a grin, wide, full of so much joy she begins to laugh, standing barefoot and shivering in the driveway. She bends over into a full-on guffaw, those shoes and that necklace bobbing against her knees. And it’s too much for me. Joy, Riley’s joy, cracks the icy glaze that has frozen my face and numbed my heart, and I begin to laugh with her, shaking my head. She stands up, ambles over to the car, and opens the door.
“What?” She says, as though I’m the one who has been hiding the joke.
“You–your smile, it makes me smile too,” I say.
“Well yes it does,” she says, breathless from the laughing, bending over to put on her socks as we drive away.
She does this every time I’ve lost my way; every time I’m so lost in thought on the way to school that I forget to sing. She pretends not to understand, but I know better.
“What’s so funny?” I ask, as though it’s the first time, even though I always ask and she always says significantly, “I have no idea.” But something–something–is worth a smile, worth bending over laughing with joy, and I suppose since I’m the brooding one, she expects me to discover it.
Another online writer recently wrote that alphas shouldn’t smile, that it robs them of their power, because smiles convey submission. They say what’s true in the animal kingdom is true for humans as well. Smiles are sacrifices, sometimes more than others, bowing our stretched lips like an offering. Certainly Riley’s open and unhindered joy has a yielded, though arguably powerful, quality. This love of hers, it refuses captivity. My bad attitude will not rule over her good one.
“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ,” Paul wrote (Ephesians 5:21), and as we slug our way through traffic, I wonder if it isn’t the alphas who hold the power but the submissive, the ones who sacrifice praise in ugly times because they possess a greater power than the world. Riley doesn’t always feel happy, but I think maybe she stores up joy just to pour it out on me. And if it’s submission she offers me with her smile; that submission changes the world.
Slowly, we crawl along, leaving enough space for someone else to pull ahead, and Riley leans forward and eases up the volume on the stereo, throwing me that wide smile as she begins to sing even louder,
If you’re free, prove it!
If you’re free prove it!
If you’re not, loose the chains on your soul!
Come, freedom!
Prove It, KB and David Crowder Band
And that just makes me laugh all over again.
