Photo © 2010 rawryder CC BY-ND 2.0)
He smiled over his Sunday morning oatmeal, plain and steaming, his grapefruit cut into halves. Smiled with his eyes. Gotta remember, always with the eyes.
“That’s your problem,” pointing at his wife’s sausage and pancakes, drenched with syrup.
“And that’s yours!” She pointed back, at his grapefruit, her well-rounded face slinging condemnation.
“It wouldn’t hurt you to get up off your ass once in a while, either, and exercise.” He suddenly realized he was no longer smiling. Remember, always with the eyes.
He had read that people who smile with their eyes live longer. Seriously. Researchers at Wayne State University in Michigan studied photographs of baseball players from the 1950’s. Those who were smiling with their eyes in the photos lived an average of 7 years longer than those who were not smiling at all.
A week later, he eyed her toast, golden brown and delicious. Of its own accord, his hand reached out and snarfed a slice.
“Be careful,” she said. “That has butter on it!”
He knew she was mocking him, but he couldn’t help but chuckle. He stopped, staring at it, debating whether to put it down or to put it in his mouth.
“You’re too much!” She interrupted his thoughts.
He focused on her headlight-blue eyes, which were beaming astonishment at him. He grinned at her and shoved the dripping shingle into his mouth, chewed and swallowed.
Gack! He choked. “I think I’m going to be sick!”
The following month, she slept poorly. He made her breakfast, between shudders of disgust, just the way she liked it. He brought her a tray in bed. Then he leaned over and kissed her tenderly on the lips.
“What’s that for?” Surprise.
“What’s what for?” he asked.
She motioned at the tray. “Breakfast,” she said. “And you haven’t kissed me like that in… forever.”
“What? I can’t kiss my own wife?!”
A pause.
He stared at the tray of what might be loosely termed food, grinned sardonicism. “I still don’t know how you can eat that.”
“See!?” As if to prove her point. “That’s what I’m talking about. You can kiss my fat ass!”
His face fell. “I just want you stick around. Because I’ll miss you when you die.”
After a year, they were carving smiles on each others’ whole-wheat bagels and feeding each other bites of egg-white omelet with onion and green pepper.
Sundays passed. The weekend of his big promotion at work. The months after the big layoff. The war. The great blizzard and other winters. Lazy weekends reclining under the summer sunrise. The colors of the autumns, the freshnesses of springtime.
She sat shiva with their daughter and sons, friends and family, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Onto a bagel slice, she carved two eyes and a grin.
“I already miss his smile,” her daughter’s voice said sadly.
Crows’ feet around her eyes, the old woman hugged and kissed her little girl. “I know. But it’s still here,”—resting her palm on the younger woman’s heart—”and will never die.”
Hey! I know this is kinda off topic nevertheless I’d figured I’d ask. Would you be interested in trading links or maybe guest authoring a blog post or vice-versa? My website discusses a lot of the same subjects as yours and I feel we could greatly benefit from each other. If you are interested feel free to shoot me an email. I look forward to hearing from you! Great blog by the way!
What’s up to every one, the contents present at this web page are in fact awesome for people knowledge, well, keep up the nice work fellows.
Hall of fame, greatest players and their career achievements celebrated
Hi there this is kinda of off topic but I was wondering if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding know-how so I wanted to get advice from someone with experience. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Hello, i believe that i saw you visited my web site so i came to go back the prefer?.I’m attempting to to find issues to enhance my web site!I guess its good enough to make use of a few of your ideas!!
Link exchange is nothing else however it is simply placing the other person’s webpage link on your page at suitable place and other person will also do same for you.
Highly descriptive post, I liked that bit. Will there be a part 2?
Howdy terrific website! Does running a blog like this take a great deal of work? I’ve absolutely no understanding of computer programming however I was hoping to start my own blog soon. Anyhow, should you have any recommendations or tips for new blog owners please share. I understand this is off subject but I simply had to ask. Cheers!
We absolutely love your blog and find almost all of your post’s to be exactly what I’m looking for. Does one offer guest writers to write content available for you? I wouldn’t mind publishing a post or elaborating on most of the subjects you write about here. Again, awesome blog!
Hi are using WordPress for your blog platform? I’m new to the blog world but I’m trying to get started and set up my own. Do you need any coding knowledge to make your own blog? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
I loved as much as you’ll receive carried out right here. The sketch is attractive, your authored material stylish. nonetheless, you command get got an edginess over that you wish be delivering the following. unwell unquestionably come more formerly again as exactly the same nearly a lot often inside case you shield this hike.
Simply desire to say your article is as astounding. The clearness in your post is just spectacular and i can assume you are an expert on this subject. Fine with your permission let me to grab your RSS feed to keep up to date with forthcoming post. Thanks a million and please carry on the gratifying work.
If some one needs to be updated with hottest technologies then he must be visit this website and be up to date daily.
Thank you for your sharing. I am worried that I lack creative ideas. It is your article that makes me full of hope. Thank you. But, I have a question, can you help me? https://www.binance.com/tr/register?ref=MST5ZREF
excellent issues altogether, you just won a emblem new reader. What would you recommend in regards to your publish that you made a few days ago? Any sure?
I was wondering if you ever thought of changing the structure of your site? Its very well written; I love what youve got to say. But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better. Youve got an awful lot of text for only having one or two images. Maybe you could space it out better?
What’s up, I check your blog regularly. Your humoristic style is witty, keep it up!
Hello, i think that i saw you visited my weblog so i got here to return the desire?.I’m trying to to find things to improve my site!I guess its adequate to use a few of your concepts!!
Hey there! This is my first visit to your blog! We are a collection of volunteers and starting a new initiative in a community in the same niche. Your blog provided us useful information to work on. You have done a marvellous job!