"The Smile I Thought I Lost"

I asked God to give me my smile back, and He gave me you.

For the longest time, I thought my smile had died with my past. I didn’t mourn it all at once. It faded slowly, like a sunset no one notices until the world is suddenly dark. And when it was gone, so was I—at least the version of me I used to recognize in mirrors and photos.

Grief doesn’t announce its arrival. It slips in through the cracks: a favorite song, a forgotten voicemail, the smell of their old shirt still hanging in the closet. I had been left by someone who promised forever, and that betrayal didn’t just break my heart—it rewrote who I was. I laughed less. I avoided friends. I stopped wearing lipstick because what was the point of dressing up a face I couldn’t bear to see?

Then one night, when the silence got too loud, I did something I hadn’t done in years: I prayed.

“God,” I whispered, not even sure He was listening. “I don’t need much. I don’t need him back. I don’t need to forget. Just… please. Give me my smile back.”

I expected nothing. But you came.

You weren’t lightning. You weren’t a whirlwind. You didn’t arrive with grand gestures or a fairytale script. You were just... there. At first, a stranger with kind eyes who held the door open for me at the grocery store. Then the stranger who handed me my scarf when it blew off the park bench. Then, finally, the not-so-stranger who asked if I wanted to sit and share a coffee instead of always rushing away.

You didn’t know I was broken. I was good at hiding that. You didn’t know that every compliment felt foreign, that every touch made me flinch, that trust felt like a dangerous cliff. But you treated me gently, as if you did know. As if you could see the fault lines in my soul and had no intention of stepping too hard.

One evening, as we walked under a sky painted in quiet pinks and blues, you said something simple: “You have a beautiful laugh. I hope you let the world hear it more.”

I stopped in my tracks. Not because of what you said, but because in that moment, I realized I had just laughed. Not a polite chuckle. Not a forced smile. A real laugh—from somewhere deep inside me that I thought had turned to stone.

That night, I cried in the shower. Not out of pain, but out of gratitude. Because somehow, without even knowing it, you were stitching parts of me back together with your patience, your presence, your gentle kind of love.

We never talked about falling in love. There were no declarations, no sweeping romances. Just late-night conversations about music and books. Quiet dinners where your hand brushed mine. Mornings where you brought me coffee without asking how I liked it—you just knew.

One rainy afternoon, I told you everything. About the heartbreak. The hollow days. The prayer I whispered to God when I thought I had nothing left to give.

You listened. You didn’t interrupt. And when I finished, you took my hand and said, “Maybe I was praying for something too, and that’s how we found each other.”

I don’t know if love always looks like this—soft, patient, without fireworks. But it’s the kind of love that brought me back. The kind that reminded me my heart wasn’t broken—just bruised. The kind that didn’t just give me my smile back…

It gave me a reason to keep it.

Now, when I look in the mirror, I recognize her again—the girl who used to hum while brushing her hair, who lights candles just because, who smiles not for the camera, but for herself.

Because of you.

Because of a prayer.

Because of a love that didn’t come loudly, but came exactly when I needed it.

So yes, I asked God to give me my smile back.

And He gave me you.