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Shelby Maerker

Caroline Reynolds

English Composition 1100

August 25th, 2021

The Peace in a Smile

My parents are divorced. They have been since I was three

years old. My dad made a life out of driving a semi-truck all

over the United States of America. He would be gone for days at a

time, sometimes even weeks.

He bought me my first car. It belonged to my grandma. A 2003

red Ford Taurus. It was nice to have a car at sixteen years old.

I could drive to the football games with my friends or drive them

to school every day. I charged everyone five dollars a week to

ride to school with me. I had to pay for gas somehow. I did not

have a job at the time.

My dad would drive his semi-truck to Canada to drop off the

load he was hauling then he would catch a flight home. Another

way I made money was to pick my dad up from the airport. I would

wait with the other cars in the pickup lane until his flight

arrived and listen to my One Direction CD that was well

overplayed. Once his plane landed and he got his luggage, he

would dance out to my car as the other cars honked at him and
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encouraged his ridiculous dancing. He loved to embarrass me along

with himself. His company would pay me forty dollars to be his

ride home from the airport, so it was worth it. Plus, he normally

bought me dinner so we could catch up.

One day on my drive to the airport, I was driving over a dam

that had metal rails on the side of the road to prevent people

from driving over the edge. I was having a rough day. I was sad

and depressed. I had thought that the world would be a better

place without me and that no one loved me. I considered crashing

my car as I drove. Something caught my eye that stopped all those

depressive thoughts. On the yellow reflection plate that was on

the end of a metal road rail, someone had taken a Sharpie and

drawn a smiley face.

It was vandalized government property that put me at peace

that night. I was at war with my own mind. That smiley face made

me so happy. I laughed for the rest of my drive to the airport.

The person who vandalized that yellow reflection placard may have

just done it as a joke or a dare from a friend but that night it

saved my life. It was a glimmer of happiness in the darkness I

was experiencing. That was eight years ago. To this day I still

drive by that road rail with the yellow smiley face placard just

for a smile. My times are not dark as they were when I was
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sixteen but that smiley face will always put a smile on my face

and peace in my head.