merry christmas - part one

In the last week or so, I've been on a bit of a mission.

I've been trying to make people smile.

Not to get anything out of it myself, or not even to be noticed.

It's just because I like to make people (generally strangers or acquaintances) smile. I like to walk away smiling because somebody else is.

It's a fun mission.

Every day when I go to get coffee, I pass by Tony's house.

Tony is the old Italian man. If he's standing on his porch, he'll rest his walking stick and hobble over to the fence to have a chat.

Mondays, Tuesday and Wednesdays he stands on the porch and waits for the community bus to pick him up. He hops on the bus to go and see his wife. She's in one of the nursing homes in town.

Sometimes when he sees her, she's happy. Other times he's not. When she's distressed he says, "I just take-ah her for a walk in the garden. Then-ah she's calms down."

Whenever I see Tony he's happy to see me. But I wanted to push the envelope a bit further. Last week when my colleague and I walked on after chatting to Tony, I said, "I'm going to give Tony a Christmas card."

He was astounded by my generous thoughts. I was astounded by the fact that he possibly thought I had Scrooge-like tendencies.

I wrote out a Christmas card and bought a small box of chocolates for Tony to share with his wife. I popped the card and the chocolates into the mailbag each day until I saw him standing on the porch.

"Ah, hello Jess!"

He starts to hobble over and I ask him how many coffees he's had today.

"Two."

"From the stovetop?"

"Yes!"

I pull the card and gift out of the bag and his eyes light up. He tries to give me back the chocolates and I tell him they're for him to share with his wife.

He smiles some more and says, "You've got a soft-ah heart, just-ah like me."

I went on to do the mail stuff and get my coffee. He's still standing out the front, happy as Larry.

"I can't read or write-ah that well, but I read-ah your card and you've got a soft-ah heart, just like me."

He grabbed my face and kissed me lots of times on the cheek.

"I was in Syd-er-ney on the weekend. I haven't seen my sister in 52 years. She's been living in German and I moved to Australia from Italy."

"That must have made you really happy, Tony."

"Ah-yes," he said with a glint in his eye and a happy shrug of his shoulders. "I have not seen her for so long."

It was at that point that I realised that Tony makes me smile not because I made him smile, but because he's a joyful old chap who exudes sheer joy with his silver teeth and cloudy eyes.

Sometimes it's nice to get that reminder.