My uncle has lived an extraordinary life. He is 90 years old now and says that when he dies he will die with a smile on his face, which I take to mean he is pleased with the life he has led, and when it reaches its natural end, there will be no raging “against the dying of the light.” He talks about his future death-bed smile so often, however, that like anything someone repeats over and over again, I’ve grown a bit tired of it, though this may be unkind of me to say. But something else genuinely bothers me about this claim of his: I simply can’t relate.
My uncle was a geologist or, more precisely, a mining engineer for most of his life, which required that he travel across the world (for the entire world is full of things to mine, obviously). As a young man, he had wanted to be an archeologist, but he quickly realized archeology wasn’t lucrative and working for corporations that mine the earth for profit would be. And during the heyday of such things, mining corporations made a mint (I know, bad pun) and so did he, for such companies (even greedy ones) during the fifties and sixties had generous pension plans, profit sharing, and the like. Of course, in later years, when profits started to wind down and employee benefits were scaled back in these and other corporations, the company owners he worked for tried to claw back the money they had promised the professional staff upon retirement. Fortunately, the staff sued and the wise judge ruled in the employees’ favor. As a result, my uncle became a millionaire overnight.
For most of my life, I wasn’t in touch with my Uncle Sal. It was only a few years ago that he contacted me, just prior to his wife passing away. They had no children. He is my father’s younger brother, the youngest in their branch of the family. The rest have passed on to wherever we all pass on to. My uncle, being a geologist, doesn’t believe in an afterlife. He says that if you have studied geology or any other science extensively, you will eventually come to that understanding yourself. At best, we will dissolve into the landscape or seascape, or, as the saying goes, push up daisies. Anyway, such are his beliefs. And such is how we came to reconnect.
Getting to know a new old relative is strange. He resembles my dear departed father in some ways, such as in mid-range tone of voice, easy-going temper, and watchful, intelligent eyes, but in most ways he is far different from anyone on my side. We are poor; he is rich. We struggle with paying rent (me), addiction (my brother), and planning ahead (most of us); he golfs and watches over his holdings. We live in the bowels of Los Angeles, in run-down apartments and (in one case) on the street; he lives encircled by the forested beauty of Eugene, Oregon, in a lovely home, bought with cash, located in a lovely neighborhood. So when he says he will die with a smile on his face, his accomplishments and his present circumstances help to explain why, but they don’t explain everything. And exactly what kind of smile is he talking about?
So when an interesting new museum opened up near my home recently, I seized upon the opportunity to visit. This was one of those serendipitous coincidences that usually don’t occur in my life, but here was a museum nearby that might provide some answers.
My uncle happened to be visiting me the weekend of the museum’s opening. I made a suggestion over lunch at a little café a few blocks from my apartment. I said, “Uncle Sal. Let’s go see what this place is all about.” He had just finished telling me about the dinosaur discoveries he had made in a Moroccan mine (a story he had told me before, though it was so fascinating it was worth hearing on repeat). I explained that the museum probably wouldn’t have relics quite like his own discoveries, but it might have unusual relics of its own to make the visit worthwhile.
“Okay, let’s go,” he said, affably.
I had read about the museum a few days before. The space and its collection were described as “eclectic” and “innovative,” unlike anything ever attempted. And as we entered the former bank building of rust-colored red brick, I understood why. We found ourselves in a lobby blazing with wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor projected images of the most psychedelic color combinations you can imagine: egg-yolk yellow was the predominant color, mixed with fire-engine red, sapphire blue, moss green, drenched purple, and all of it swirling around us like a Van Gogh painting of a starry, starry night on another planet. For several moments, we stood stock still, my uncle leaning on his cane to maintain his balance, me clutching his arm to maintain mine. The place definitely took a moment for us to get our bearings. Given the discombobulation we felt, it was hard to see how many people were inside, but it didn’t seem like many. At least, when someone who I took to be a guide approached us and offered to lead us into the next room (this was only the lobby, apparently), we didn’t seem to have any competition. This someone was a young man with shoulder-length blond hair and an altogether surfer vibe who seemed to fit with the theme of crashing waves of color, despite being dressed in a tailored black suit. He had a bored expression on his face, which made me think he had led one too many startled visitors into another room. At any rate, as soon as he had led my uncle and me through two tall double doors out of the lobby, he turned from us with the same lack of interest and headed back through the doors.
Now we were in a room that was the complete opposite of the other. It was white, blindingly so, and resembled a gallery found in a typical museum. Also typical were the glass display cases, waist high, also white, that filled the room, about eight long horizontal rows of them. On the back wall, in fat, bold, off-white letters, was the gallery’s name: A Roomful of Smiles.
There were at least six other visitors in the room, scattered about, gazing into various cases, lingering here, moving on there. From where my uncle and I stood, near the entrance where the guide had left us, the cases showed little variation in what they contained. All displayed plaster-like casts of some sort, all white and all of the same size, more or less, each bathed in a soft warm light provided by small individual lamps. We walked up to the nearest case to look more closely.
This case contained five casts of the lower portion of a face. At first glance, the casts seemed identical. Upon closer inspection, however, we saw that each displayed a distinct smile. A small plaque in soft yellow beneath each cast provided an explanation written in a graceful handwritten light blue script. My uncle smiled at the sight. I wasn’t sure, but I figured he now guessed what my secret plan or intention had been all along.
“No, none of these are what I meant,” he said, as he surveyed the case.
In my mind, this case contained what I considered gentle smiles. The plaques read: Kind Smile, Friendly Smile, Accepting Smile, Understanding Smile, and Mona Lisa Smile. My uncle just shook his head and continued on to the next case.
This case had a truly eclectic mix of examples. Here were Crazed Smile, Lackluster Smile, Beatific Smile, Frozen Smile, and Ironic Smile. My uncle paused at the last one. He said, “This one is close, but not exactly the kind of smile I think I’ll have.”
“Why ironic,” I asked.
“Well, for one thing, my family was very poor, my mother couldn’t even read, and yet I dreamed big, I excelled in school, went to Columbia University, became a globetrotting mining engineer, married a beautiful redhead, and became a millionaire. Everything just seemed to happen without a hitch.”
I didn’t think this was irony, exactly, but I kept that thought to myself. I was just glad that he seemed as interested as I in finding the smile that would match the one he envisioned.
We continued down the row, and down the next one and the next. So many smiles, so many opportunities for my uncle to view the varied examples and perhaps happen upon the one he supposed might form gently on his face as he left this plane of existence.
We were nearing the end of the exhibit, making our way down the very last row, when my uncle stopped short before one of the smiling casts. He stared down at the glowing smile, beaming under its little lamp, for several moments, longer than at any other smile. I read the plaque: Brave Smile. My uncle himself was looking down at this smile with a frown. Why a frown, I thought. I waited for him to explain.
But he never did. He just looked over at me and nodded, grinning briefly, as if touched by the humor of it all, then nodded again, as if to say, this is the one.
Then he moved on to the last of the cases, never saying a word, never launching into an old memory, only moving through the rest of the exhibit until we arrived at the end.
Finally, he said, “Well, that was interesting. Let’s go.”
And so we left, again passing through the phantasmagorical assault of the lobby, and exiting through the museum doors to the harsh brightness of a Los Angeles afternoon.
As I drove us back to my apartment, he was again quiet. He stared out at the street ahead, at all the traffic in front of us, at the lackluster low-rent storefronts, some boarded up, but he made no comment. At last, when I parked my car in front of the apartment, he said, “Well, that was interesting, but I don’t think that exhibit will ever be adequate. Geologists know the uniqueness of creation, the uniqueness of mankind. Some of those smiles came close, but not one will ever come close enough. My smile will be completely my own. And yours will be, too.”
“But Uncle Sal,” I said, “I don’t think I’ll be smiling when I leave this place. Unless it’s a smile of gratitude to be done with it all.”
“Well, I hope that won’t be so,” he replied. “If there’s one thing we both learned today is that we should all smile more. Look how many smiles that museum displayed. Pick your favorite one. Practice it every day. Make it your own. Who knows, maybe that smile will be your saving grace, now and forever (even if I don’t believe in a hereafter). Maybe by choosing a smile, your life will fall into place.”
And so, upon my new old uncle’s advice, I have tried to smile more. To arrive at the smile that fits best and make it my own. So that when I leave this crazy world, my final smile will be a true reflection, a happy reflection, of how I chose to live.
(Rest in Happiness, Uncle Sal!)
ihavesomuchtotellyou 