'Behind her pretty smile' by Fatimah

Bolanle had a wonderful smile. When people say her smile could brighten up a rainy day, they aren’t exaggerating. She had a very beautiful smile, almost everybody, male and female were easily charmed by Bolanle’s smile.

Looking at Bolanle, one would easily assume that she had a happy life. She was always smiling, vibrant, cheerful and always had a kind word for everyone. She was an optimist to a fault, totally convinced that every cloud had a shining silver lining.

But Bolanle was a sad girl. Her life was a sad one. A series of unfortunate events. A seemingly unending panorama of pain and hurt and loss and betrayal.

The first tough blow life dealt her was when she was eight years old, she’d been in a car with her mother. The brake failed, the car ran into a tanker head on. Her mother had been killed on the spot but Bolanle survived without a scratch.

Her father was devastated by the loss, but the man didn’t know what to do with his only child, an eight year old. Besides, he was too overwhelmed by his own grief that he was unable to comfort his daughter.

Bolanle dealt with the loss of her mother in different ways. At first she thought that like the biblical Job, God was testing her faith. If she was a good girl, He’ll return her mummy.

So she was obidient for a while, didn’t argue with anyone. She cleaned up her room, took care of her toys, she even shared her chocolate at lunch time. When this didn’t work and mummy didn’t come back, Bolanle started thinking she was being punished by God.

Maybe she’d done something really bad and God was punishing her by taking away her mummy. So Bolanle became prayerful, every morning and night, she would go on her knees and ask God to forgive her and bring her mummy back.

While Bolanle was clutching at straws, wallowing in grief, hoping that by some miracle her mother would walk in through the front door someday, her father married his secretary. Not that Baba Bolanle even liked the woman that much, or that he was looking to satisfy his sexual urges.

He was merely thinking of his daughter, there wasn’t much he could do to help her. He thought she needed a woman, another mother. In all honesty, he only had Bolanle’s best interests at heart when he married Gertrude.

As if the gods delighted in counting the tears from Bolanle’s eyes, two months to her tenth birthday, tragedy struck again. This time death took her father for his own. An only child from an exclusively nuclear family, Bolanle was left all alone save for Gertrude.

Gertrude, serpent, shrew, prickly porcupine. Gertrude was the epitome of the evil step mother.

Bolanle was well and truly all alone in this wicked world. From a wretched background herself, Gertrude was determined to gorge on the wealth she fell upon the day she signed that marriage certificate with her boss.

Although he left his company, business and house to Bolanle in his will, she couldn’t be in control of them until she was 21 years old. But even before Bolanle was 15, Gertrude had run the business to the ground and mortgaged the house to the hilt. If she was lucky enough to still have an inheritance by the time she got to 21, it would be a mountain of debt.

However, there was an education trust fund that Gertrude couldn’t touch and so her education didn’t suffer.

It was her brain and psyche that took the brunt. The psychological trauma would have overwhelmed a weaker person, not Bolanle. She’d learnt to be strong, to face life one day at a time. The house where she grew up was no longer a home to her, she thought of it as ‘Gertrude’s lair’.

Through all these, Bolanle kept smiling. People complimented her on her beautiful her smile was, how lovely it looked. But if only they knew the pain and sorrow and sadness that hid behind that smile.

If only they knew the effort it took her to put that smile on. If only they knew that she only smiled to reassure herself that she was alive, and while she was still alive, she was going to live.

Then Bolanle fell in love. And life became wonderful! Michael made her happy, he made her laugh, she believed him, believed in him. She loved Michael to bits, he was her knight in shining amour.

After months of blissful romance, just when Bolanle started to believe that he was God’s way of compensating her for her loss and bereavement and the absence of love in her life for many years, she was jolted out of her fairy tale world. Rudely.

Michael’s ring was on another lady’s finger. A date had been set for their wedding ceremony. She was just a dalliance, a distraction and a plaything to him.

Why was he as wicked to think she looked like a perfect candidate for heartbreak? What made him think he should add another parcel to her burden? Why? Why? Why? In all her 20 years why did things that made her almost lose faith in both God and man keep reoccuring? The gods of sadness seemed to have chosen her as their favourite mortal.

The news had been broken to her just last night. Not one teardrop had fallen from her eyes, but her mind was burdened, her heart was heavy and it felt as though she couldn’t breathe. But here she was in class today, gracing her coursemates and lecturers with her unique smile.

No one could guess the inner turmoil she was going through. No one knew of her heartbreak. Her anguish. Her despair. Her disillusionment. Her disappointment. Her hurt. Her pain. Her sorrow. All they could see was her smile.

Years and years later, her smile would attract the man who wiped her tears. Her prince and knight in shining amour who said the first hello the day they met simply because of her smile. And since that day, she never had to smile through tears and to hide her pain. From that day on, she simply smiled because she was happy.

But today, right now, she smiled because she was sad. Bolanle smiled because she was heartbroken, burnt, hurt and despaired. Like the mythical phoenix, she always managed to rise through the ashes of her pain and break forth with a smile. Even though her faith in God faltered once in a while, her smile was a constant fixture.

So, my dear friend who says she doesn’t like smiling because she doesn’t like her dentition, I think you should read the story of Bolanle and learn from her. As long as you have teeth, even if they’re just two, you’re alive and hale and hearty, you have NO excuse not to smile!

Fatimah is a writer and an aspiring baby girl. Check out her awesome writings on the wanderinglass.com and follow her on Twitter @FlawlessMilo

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