Throughout my time thus far at Fletcher, a lot of people have been asking me lately, “Why do you smile so much?” And so I thought to myself, Leland, why do you smile so much? So I put some thought into it, and I figured out the answer. The answer is my faith, and my mother who gave it to me. 

My mom has the biggest smile of all because she’s a strong woman of faith. When I was young, I remember her and I sitting together every night on the living room couch, teaching me to memorize simple Bible verses.  To this day, three of her favorite verses continue to stick with me. The first one is “I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me.” It encourages me to say that despite all the exams, all the essays--and yes, all the speeches--I have to do, I can do them. 

But it is also this verse that encouraged my grandma to leave Panama--the little country she ever knew--to board a plane with her six little children, and travel to the United States, the land she heard was a place of liberty and justice for all. And it’s the same verse that has sustained my Mom throughout the hardships in her life: a first generation immigrant born in Panama, raised in inner-city Brooklyn, and overcame both racism and sexism to join the ranks of the few black female doctors in the country.

The second verse is “treat thy neighbor as thyself.” It's a variation of the golden rule: treat others the way you want to be treated. Now, every major faith in the world teaches the golden rule, from Christianity to Judaism to Islam to Hinduism to Buddhism. Even folks who don’t practice a faith often practice the golden rule. This verse gave my Mom a big heart for others. She treated everyone--whether it be her patients, my friends from school, or even a person she bumped into at a supermarket-- as if they were family, no matter their background.

Think about the last time that you were walking down the street or on the subway. How many people smiled at you? How many people said “hi?” Really said Hi? We tend to be so busy that we don't take the time to show kindness to others. Faith helps us to hit pause on the pressures of life, and help alleviate the pressure of others by showing kindness.

The third verse is “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil”. Now, I didn’t have a deep understanding of this, and neither did my mother  until four years ago when she came down with a rare liver disease.  In an instance, the doctor had become a patient. One moment she was in the hospital telling my Dad and me that everything would be all right. And the next day she was in a coma. So my Dad, my grandma, my aunts, uncles, cousins, were also devastated because the doctor said that she had just 48 hours to find a liver. But you know what? A small voice told me to keep a smile on, and to have faith. And at the end of those 48 hours, a liver was found in Florida, flown up to New York, the doctors operated on my mom and she survived.

Now, was that a miracle? I'll leave it up to you to decide. But that positive spirit that served as my guiding light in the midst of that darkness makes it every bit worth it to believe in a faith. So why do I smile? Because through my mother, I learned that you can do all things with the help of faith. Faith teaches me to show kindness and love to all my neighbors, all of you here today. And like my mother, faith has taught me to stare in the face of despair...and smile. 

[600 words]

[Fletcher School, Fall 2014; Teaching Assistant, Spring 2015; Faces of Community, Spring 2015]