There was once an old woman who lived next to me.  She had thin, grey, wispy hair.  It turned to a clear-grey in the reflection of the sunlight.  Her hair was very long.  She normally braided it, but there were always these strands that tugged loose and would fly around in the gentle breeze.  These hairs created a gentle aura about her, giving her a halo.  She was an angel at these moments.  She had eyes that were a silvery blue; as if genetics knew that one day the color would match her hair and give her the true appearance of wisdom and long levity.  Her dresses were always recognizable.  She made them all herself.  They would be in patterns of flowers and birds and cats and houses.  Each stitch was by hand, something she had been doing from a young age.

And she always had this big-rimmed hat.  One of those straw sun hats.  Each day, a different ribbon or bow was around the base to match her dress for the day.  But more constant than the dresses, as consistent as night turning into day, and as normal as knowing the sun would rise again, was her smile.  It was this crooked smile.  When she found her dog dead so long ago, even then, she gave her crooked smile.  She knew he was in a better place.  

As a kid, this is when I hated that smile.

She was mute.  I don't know how she managed to smile at all when the one thing so natural to most was taken away from her.  But I suppose the smile was nature's gift to her.  She always had me over, and gave me that crooked smile.  No matter what I told her, it was always present.  When my girlfriends broke up with me, when my pet hamster died, or even when my own grandfather died-she gave that same old crooked smile.

I really hated it.

I always saw her outside planting something.  Sunflowers, roses, rhododendron, lilac bushes, and more exotic plants no one else could grow in these parts.  Or at least, plants that weren't supposed to be around here.  Even when a plant failed, which was few and far between, she would give that crooked smile and continue about her work.

That smile really bothered me.

I mowed yards on our block to earn money when I was in my teenage years.  She would never let me mow hers though.  Somehow she insisted on doing it herself.  But I saved up and up and up, and bought two tickets to the fair for myself and my girlfriend at the time.  I won a panda bear for my girlfriend, but she broke up with me before I could properly give it to her.  I gave it to the woman next door, telling her I won it just for her.

She just gave me that crooked smile.

Years passed and I turned older.  Still I talked with her.  Each year I watched her grow weaker.   It was hard for her to walk up or down stairs so I built her ramps and railings.  I made her as comfortable as possible.  Her knees would shake and bend in odd ways, her frailness shining through even when she tried to remain strong.

Even on her worst days, she gave me that crooked smile.

Even when she could no longer get out of the house to plant her flowers I would see that smile.  I went over to plant them for her.  It was as though Mother Nature passed the elder woman's gift onto me.  Like nature knew who I was helping and approved.  None of her precious flowers wilted or died under my touch.  It made me smile to see how much I could do to liven the place and help her out.

When I came in to tell her it was done, she gave me that crooked smile.

She would slowly stand up and hunch over herself to make it through the living room into the kitchen.  A few minutes later she would emerge with a tray that had a glass pitcher of lemonade, sugar cubes, two cups, and two spoons on it.  The old lady set it down on the table in the living room and we each made a glass.  It was from fresh-squeezed lemons from the market.

Each time I thanked her, she would give me that crooked smile.

Years wore on until she could no longer get out of her own bed.  I would go over to do the few dishes she would have, tend to her garden, and do her laundry.  But the most important thing to the both of us was that I talked to her.

I spoke of how I was soon to be married to the woman I had been engaged to for three years.  The kids we wanted to have.  I wanted her to meet them, I would tell her.

She would smile the crooked smile that now I loved to see.

One early morning I was over there, she wrote to me on the ever familiar white board of hers in a pretty purple marker, her favorite color, that she wanted to go outside.  I carefully lifted her out of her bed and took her out into the warm sun.  I drove her to the beach near by for a few hours.  She dipped her toes into the ocean with my help, sat on the sand and ran her toes and hands through it and its soft, almost silky, warmth.  She took in deep breaths of the salty air and the heat of the day.

I took her home and in the setting Sun's light we sat under the sky.  We watched silently as the light of the world disappeared, sure to come up in a few scarce hours.  Quaint lights illuminated in front of each house, bright enough to see but dull enough to not obscure the sky and the stars.  We watched the moon drift into the sky, glowing, reflecting its brother the sun onto our planet in an attempt to warm us as her counterpart did.  We sat in silence listening to the sounds of night.

I took her in a few hours before dawn.  As I told her how much fun I had had with her, she signaled for me to grab one of her favorite stationary kits and motioned for me to wait.  I sat in something that was not quite silence.  I heard the scratching of the pen across the paper, my breathing, and hers.  I'm positive she could hear what I was hearing and more.  When she was finished she handed me the paper.

"Goodbye for the night.  I will never ever forget today, it was the best of my life.  I want to thank you for taking time out of your own life to care for someone so old.  Have a great night; I will miss your company."

She smiled her smile at me, and I smiled back.

Never once on the way home did I think about the letter I had carefully folded and placed in my pocket.  Or how it was so ironic that she wanted to go outside on this very day.  Never once did I find it odd, when she never did something such as this.  If I had thought about it, maybe I would have stopped and gone back to be with her for just a little longer.

The next morning I woke up as normal and went over to her house.  I used my key to open the door and walked in.  Almost immediately I knew something was up.  There was an unusual stillness to the air that never happened.  Even when she couldn't quite move there was an electric current of life to the air fueled by her spirit.  Walking towards her bedroom gave me the sinking feeling.  I knew what was there, waiting for me.  I didn't want to open that door and see; I wanted it to be a lie.

But I opened that door as she would've had me do.  It felt like her hand was placed over mine as I was a child, opening it with me.  I'm not sure when I started to cry.  She was lying on her favorite lilac comforter.  She was laying there looking to the world to be asleep, but the stillness was not that of a sleep.  It was that of a more eternal sleep, the silence that accompanies great sorrow and great joy.  My panda bear from years ago was right beside her, her hand on its head in a reassuring gesture at the end of her life.  Her eyes were peacefully closed to the world, never again to see.  I would never see the silver of life in them.  The blue of the sky reflected in them.  She knew she was going to die yesterday, wanting to see with those eyes for the last time the wonders of the world.

On her face, even in an eternal stillness and sleep, was that crooked smile.

Her funeral was a few days later.  Not many people came, as she had outlived most of her friends.  Her church was there, though, and they were all in a respectful silence.  Even the children did not make a peep.  I spoke at her funeral of what she had meant to me.  My children would never meet such a lovely woman.

We followed the hearse to an old family plot of hers.  When they lowered the casket with flowers on top of it, most of them roses, I placed the panda bear on the top of it amidst the flowers, watching it sink lower and lower, a crooked smile of my own on my face.  It would never match hers, I knew it.  As everyone left the gravesite, I stared as it started to rain.  I could never remember being outside with her in the rain, as though nature gave her the blessing of fair weather.  It wept for her.

And as I left that day, I never went back.  I didn't even cast a glance over my shoulder.

But I would miss that crooked smile.