Independent research shows that people can choose to be happy. Remember that someone can chase you around the dinner table (we loved doing that when I was eight). It’s the last fun time I remember with all my sisters and brother.
It would be a long time before that would change. However, one person helped me “Smile and laugh out loud again.”
At age 9 ½, I started working full time. We had been homeless for months. With my steady income, we had food and money coming in. It wasn’t much longer until we had a run-down apartment to live in for six months before they leveled the property. It was a home, and life seemed to be better for us.
As a kid, I had a lot on my mind. I had a lot of responsibilities, including four other mouths to feed at home. One day, my boss pulled me aside and took me outside to sit on the steps with him. He smoked those little Italian cigars and always seemed to have one going. He would leave it smouldering on the step when we went back into the restaurant. We all knew to look out for it.
He said, “You look like you lost your best friend. Did you?” I said, “No. I’m just working. I don’t want to get fired for not being good enough.” He paused for a bit and said, “Something that no one can ever take from you is your smile. It’s yours. Hey, it’s on your face.” He was a first-generation Italian that came to San Diego via Ellis Island and then New York. “Have you met my brother Tony and his wife, Sofia?” He spoke with a very heavy accent. When I first started working there, his son Sam was my interpreter. “No, I haven’t.”
Mr Nicolossi said, “You know how come they call him Tony?” I said, “No.” I’m a-gonna tell you what happened. When we left my mother and father in Italy for America, we all wore these tags around our necks. They hung from a string. They were there, so when we transferred ships, they would know,” he said. I said, “Know what?”
He had the biggest smile on his face. “Know where we were going.” My brother Anthony and I, had the same tag. It read, “TO NY. Tony, that’s what we called my brother, Tony. The sign really said, “This passenger is bound for New York. They put the initials down, TO NY. Tony, get it?” Of course, “I got it.” It took me a while to fully understand because of his accent, but I did get it.
I smiled. It helped that we were sitting down, and my legs weren’t hurting. It made it so much easier to smile.
When I arrived home, it was past midnight. Mom asked, “Are you O.K.?” I said better, much better. I’ll tell everyone about it in the morning.”
In the morning I told them, “I found out about Something that no one can take away from us. It costs us nothing, and there’s so much of it that we can share it with all our friends.” Everyone got excited and was jumping around. They said I want one. With that single comment, I said, “You already have one just like this.” I smiled as big as I could.
We all laughed and giggled, and just like that, life became easier.