Heavenward.

She caught my eye immediately.

The bus doors opened for passengers to board and alight, and there she was, fiddling with her purse on her way up. I was sitting near the door, my body slumped wearily on the bus seat, head-heavy from the afternoon of intensive studying, watching the file of blank-faced passengers board the bus-when she caught my eye. At once, she not only caught my eye, she captured me- all of me. I sat up immediately.

She was a complete stranger, just another Chinese woman boarding the bus, but there was something about her that caught my eye. By conventional standards, she wasn’t a head-turner. No smoky eyes, luscious raspberry lips, or legginess to show off. No shiny jewellery, matching accessories, or dress-to-impress clothes. She wasn’t even particularly young- she must have been in her thirties.

In our country, every woman in her twenties and over wears make-up, heels and has her hair either straightened, dyed or both. Everyone looks the same after a while.

She had not a hint of make-up. Her clothes weren’t particularly fashionable, even. In fact, it was her skirt I noticed first. It was one of those plain, long, sweeping peasant-girl skirts, with patchwork patterns and tiny girly flower-prints all over. To tell you the truth, if I had seen it on a rack, I would have thought it looked like a cheap, tacky bargain from a bazaar sale. But on her, it was… beautiful.

On its own, it was a little maternal and perhaps a little frumpy, even. But on her, it was… beautiful. Beautiful, because something which had the potential to be cheap and tacky was transformed on her, by her. And my eyes, transfixed upon her, searched her all over for her hidden enchantment.

Perhaps it was her ruddy, clean-faced complexion, her dressed-down clothes which conveyed simplicity and good taste, the way she put up her virgin hair loosely in a hair-clip the way I do so at home, or how she floated onto the bus with such grace on chrome-coloured leather clogs. I remember thinking to myself, how that would be the way I’d like to look when I grow to become her age. Simple dressing, plain clothes, and an enigmatic spirit filled with elegance and grace. She was very plain, so plain she was beautiful-sexy, even.

So when her eyes met mine as she boarded the bus, I gave her my heavenward-smile, the kind of smile whose edges take their time to find the sky. Our eyes met for a moment and I smiled at her for the simple reason that I thought she was so plain, and yet breathtakingly beautiful.

She smiled back. She not only smiled back- she sat down right next to me.

I watched her with a sideways glance as she sat down and fiddled some more with her purse. She was glowing, I thought. This is a special woman. So I continued to smile, albeit very shyly lest she thought I was mad.

“You study Japanese?” she suddenly asked me. She saw some Japanese words written on a stack of notes I was holding.

“Oh no, my mom used to. These are my study notes I made on the back of my mom’s old Japanese notes. I study medicine, heh.”

She nodded her head gently. There was a brief awkward pause, the kind where you’re unsure to leave the conversation where it is, or to continue.

“By the way, I think that’s a beautiful skirt you’re wearing. It’s beautiful,” I said.

“Oh really? Thank you, it was a cheap buy- I bought it at THIS FASHION.”

THIS FASHION is the name of a franchise in our country that has found its market among heartland aunties and youths with a tight budget.

“ Ha, I bought a dress for fifteen dollars there myself-took a risk to wear it to church and was surprised it got compliments, heh. I guess it’s one of those places where you can get really good finds once in a while.”

“Oh, church you say? Which church do you go to? I’m a missionary to Sudan, Africa.”

Suddenly everything around me grew dim and I understood perfectly the nature of the beauty I was drawn to in the first place. It was her heart, her spirit. I laughed out loud when she spoke those words- I finally understood why.

“I knew it!” I said. We both laughed. “You won’t believe it- I’m doing medicine because I’m thinking of becoming a medical missionary.”

“Ah,” she raised her eyebrows, “divine appointment, this is.”

And so, as with all the other Strangers, we exchanged contacts, became friends.

It all began with a smile, a heaven-ward search from the two edges of our lips.

I remember it was someone I respect very much who told me, “You never know who you’re talking to. Smile, entertain strangers with wisdom, treat everyone with utmost respect.”

Perhaps not every person we meet will give us the same exquisitely delightful experience. Sometimes, in a smileless society, we may, by our smiling at Strangers, even be thought of as being crazy. But I say it’s even crazier not to smile if you really mean to.

Try it. Smile at an old person on the train today. Be brave, smile and look at him in the eye. Most importantly, mean it- mean it like you really want to convey your joy, your appreciation for his life, your love from God for him. See if he doesn’t smile back right at you. And tell me, if we don’t live in a Crazy world who thinks smiling at strangers is crazy.

Oh, the randomness of life, and the beauty of its randomness.

On my way home today, an old Indian man walked by me and stopped me with his toothpaste advertisement-worthy smile. Actually, he called out to me. He had a walking stick because he was so old. He looked at me, smiled broadly behind his thick glasses, and asked me out-of-the-blue, “WHERE DO YOU LIVE?”

I was stunned. I frowned a little, but returned his smile because he was so old and frail. “I live nearby,” I said, trying to be polite.

“But WHERE?” He quizzed.

“Oh, nearby, just.”

“You mean you cant even tell me WHERE?” He laughed heartily in jest, lifting his stick off the ground. He had a way of punctuating his words such that he sounded like he was narrating a children’s storybook.

“ I live across the road, right there.” I pointed to where I lived and smiled at him.

“OH! Oh, you look SO BEE-YOU-TEE-FOOL today,” he said to me in an odd sing-song manner, in an unlecherly, grandfatherly sort of way, beaming still. I was in a strange ensemble of home clothes-a grey T-shirt and shorts, and wearing my glasses with my hair in disarray, as usual. “ I- Love- You!” he said, bowing his head courteously.

“Thank you,” I laughed out loud. I nodded and replied, “God loves you too.” I smiled back. I was amused. This is the second time I’ve had a strange man come up to me to tell me he loved me. The last time it happened, I was in Cambodia with my school team on a humanitarian mission trip. A strange man tailed our group for hours on a trail and when our team leader finally approached him, he came right at us and told me- he loved me. His English was very bad- “My name… is… Bob. I I luvp you. I lup you very much.”

I want to tell you in all truth and honesty that I made no attempt at all to smile at him or any other stranger then. If one chooses to smile, it must be in the right place and with wisdom exercised too. I became, needless to say, the butt of everyone’s joke during the rest of the trip. Please understand- I dress very plainly when I’m on mission trips or walking home from dinner nearby. Often, I don’t bother with contact lenses and my clothes are sometimes mismatched. I now wonder why it is this type of men I attract. Ah, well.

The old Indian man crossed the road.

Crazy man, some might say. Crazy girl like me, you might say, too. But who’s to say who’s crazy if a smile like that can brighten up someone’s day. We all grow old. Many of us become senile, crazy- some of us earlier, some of us later, some of us in the headiness of our youths, and some of us in the greyness of our ageing. We all grow old. Life’s too short.

So smile. You never know what you might find, who you might meet- a missionary from Africa, a lonely elderly person desperate for someone to talk to. It made me think of the time I smiled at an African man on a train on my way to a friend’s church. I smiled at him because of the way his golden-black skin shimmered against his white, white shirt, and because he was clasping a big-book bible, heading in the same direction as I was- I suspected he was attending that same church. He came up to talk to me. We became friends, exchanged contacts. I didn’t take it too seriously when he asked me more about Kitesong. He ended up donating a hundred dollars. Last week, I received an email from him asking how the project is doing now.

So smile. Heaven-ward. Because you never know whose day you’ll make, what Encounters you might have.

Smile heaven-ward. Because when smiles go up, angels come down.

I see you smiling already.