My parents taught me from a young age the importance of a smile. To them, it demonstrated not only joy, but a sense of welcoming for people around them. When I was in middle school, they bought me a little door hang that stated, “a smile is a curve that straightens everything out.” They taught me to believe that if I took on the world with a smile, I would enjoy each day more, and, more over, give myself an opportunity to help those around me.
Fast forward through high school and most of my undergraduate career…
I had just married my high school sweet heart at the ripe old age of 21. We moved into a small apartment on the campus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She had just started a new job after graduating in May and I had 1 more year of undergraduate studies left before I started graduate school in North Carolina. I had completed my 2nd Biking for Babies ride and had committed to a 3rd year of riding for them. It is early December when my wife’s stomach is giving her some issues – she wasn’t hungry for dinner. Nothing I made seemed to do the trick and then I offered her chocolate, her absolute favorite food in the world! Or so I thought, it turned out just the smell of it made her nauseous. In my 7 years of knowing her, she has never turned down chocolate and for whatever reason I look at her and ask her if she could be pregnant. We do some detective work, a pregnancy test later and we decided it would be best to visit a doctor for a more accurate pregnancy test.
I must admit, like most 21-year-olds who find themselves in this situation, I was absolutely scared out of my mind at the possibility of a mini-Kevin crawling around in this apartment. We did not “plan” for this to happen so soon, and at the time I could not see how we could make ends meet, attend college and start a new job with a baby in the apartment. We decided it would be a good experience to go to the Women’s Care Center of Madison (the same center I had supported the past 2 years with Biking for Babies) and see what it was truly like to be a patient.
The next day we drove to the center and I had never been more nervous. I was about to find out not only if the center was everything it had appeared to be the past 2 years, but whether or not I was a father (my mind lingered on the latter, shocking I know). We walked in the door and was greeted with…
A smile and a friendly conversation. If there was a moment in my life where I needed to feel “straightened out” it was then and if there was ever a smile that did just that, it was the smile my wife and I received when we walked into the Women’s Care Center of Madison. The true “kicker” to this story is the 2 volunteers working that day were brand new. They had no idea my affiliation with the center and had never heard of Biking for Babies before. The treating my wife and I with an unbiased, authentic kindness that all started with a smile.
I could go on and talk about the experience, but I’ll save you the details and tell you this: The Women’s Care Center of Madison is even better than you can imagine. We ended up at the end of the appointment explaining who we were and denied the free services, but yes that is the place I found out I was going to be a father. They definitely did not expect to meet us that day! And it all started with that smile, with a warm welcome and a hand extended as an offering to help. No judgement, no bias, true authentic love and kindness. Mother Teresa once said, “Let’s always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.” Those words could not have rung out more true than the day I walked into a pregnancy resource center, not as a Biking for Babies member, but as a patient with a situation that needed a little straightening out.
