He didn’t reserve his smile for just the few people he knew well.

Everyone who looked at him was rewarded with a smile

because he believed everything was meant to brighten his day

and everything that comforted him should be blessed and thanked.

His mother wrote letters and in all of them the message was the same.

She wanted him to know how very much she loved him.

She wanted him to know how very, very lucky he was.

She sent him cookies and cakes and warm sweaters and gloves.

He knew she sent them because he was a good son.

She never complained and never spoke about herself

and he knew that even when he was not with her she lived for him.

Even before the time came for him to graduate from college

he told her that the very best people stay in school for more degrees.

So he became a doctor who knew the art of saving lives

and he married a beautiful woman who said she loved him

and they had wonderful children who spoke his name with joy.

His little family lived in a superior house in a superior neighborhood

and his children wearing superior clothes went to superior schools.

Every year the Doctor took his family to see his mother in her little house.

He told them that her quaint small house was not enough for them.

It was all right for people who for whatever reason couldn’t do better.

They themselves would never be so unlucky as to have to live there,

so whenever they went for visit they took rooms at a good hotel.

The Doctor still smiled at everyone but his smile had changed.

He had once thought all good things came to him because he was lucky,

and now he knew they came to him because he was superior in every way.

His wife whispered into his ear at night mostly what she thought about herself.

She purred about how they both were better even than their beautiful neighbors.

His Rotary Club told him he was wonderful because he had a confident smile.

Nurses in the hospital told him he was a magnificent gift to mankind.

Presbyterians smiled at him and put him on their most important committees.

Policemen saw his DOCTOR license plate and let him pass and park.

The birds sang their beautiful songs to him because he smiled as he walked.

He thought he was entitled to all the gifts of nature and all the money he earned.

Sometimes he thought for a moment how grand it was to be alive and well,

and he credited it all to his great education and superior skill and wisdom.

Sometimes he remembered that his mother had said how very lucky he was,

and he smiled because he believed she was a simple ordinary woman

who had been extraordinarily fortunate to have had a son such as he was.

One day in a telephone message from the town where he once lived

he learned that his mother had been ill for several days and might be dying.

He would have gone right away to see her but it was Thanksgiving time

and his wife’s superior, handsome parents had planned a wonderful celebration

which he nor his beautiful children nor his superior wife would ever want to miss,

and he wrote that he would come when there was time in his busy schedule.

He called the hospital where she lay in a white room with white lights

and told a nurse and a doctor that he wanted his mother to have the very best care.

He thought how fortunate she was to have a son who had become a doctor

and could meet her needs with a single telephone call from very far away.

He thought how lucky she was to have had such a bright, wonderful son as he was,

and he hoped there was someone beside her bed to tell her so.