A Child's Smile

A Child's Smile

Have you ever watched a child smiling? Have you ever noticed that when they smile, their entire face lights up with the power of the joy in their hearts? Its very rare to see that kind of smile outside of a child's face. Adults just don't smile that way. The smile of an adult rarely makes it past their lips. What happens, I wonder, to take that joyful brightness from a person's eyes after they reach adolescence? Is the harshness of growing up and realizing that the world isn't the beautiful eternity you thought it was enough to dampen a persons soul and extinguish their light? Enough to chase the joy from their eyes, from their hearts? I watched my friend's son play today..and the smile never left his face..the brightness of it nearly brought tears to my eyes. His laughter in play had a melody that struck me deep inside. It saddens me to think that in a few short years that will leave him. He will have so short a time to be free, to feel that happiness and hopefulness before it's dragged from his soul. I want to smile with the naivety of a child again. I want to feel like a person finding first love, heart bursting with the strength of it instead of held back and slowly rationed for fear of being hurt or hurting someone else. A child knows nothing of pain. I know too much of it. That smile, that beautiful all encompassing joy...it's something that is lost to me..lost to all adults I think. Maybe instead of fighting wars and preaching politics the world should study the faces of their children. I think that in the faces of our children lies all the answers that as adults we so desperately seek. It's just a matter of looking in the right place.