World of Smiles

    About ten years ago when I was an undergraduate in college, I was working as an intern at my University's Museum of Natural History. One day while working at the cash register in the gift shop,  I saw an elderly couple come in with a little girl in a wheelchair.
    As I looked closer at this girl, I saw that she was a kind of perched on her chair. I then realized that she had no arms or legs, just a head, neck and torso. She was wearing a little white dress with red polka dots.
    As the couple wheeled her up to me I was looking down at the register. I turned my head toward the gril and gave her a wink. As I tooked the money from her grandparents, I looked back at the girl, who was giving me the cutest, largest smile I have ever seen.
    All of a sudden her handicap was gone and all I saw was this beautiful girl, whose smile just melted me and almost instantly gave me a completely new sense of what life is all about. She took me from a poor, unhappy college student and brought me into her world --- a world of smiles,love and warmth.
    That was ten years ago. I 'm a successful business person now and whenever I get down and think about the toubles of the world, I think about the little girl and the remarkable lesson about life that she taught me.