smile face + sad face

I had lovely customers from Iceland the other day.  
She had special-ordered smile face & sad face earrings with me before she came to NY with her son.  It's always nice to meet my customers in person!


While I was making smile face and sad face earrings at my jewelry bench, I suddenly remembered about Alma.
Alma was my English teacher, and I remember she was originally from Pueto Rico and moved to LA when she was a child.
I went this English language school from thirteen to seventeen once a week after school and she was always there.


Most of days she was smiling cheerfully, she looked like the happiest person in the world.  She loved making us laugh at a class.
However I sometimes saw her sobbing at school, and later I found out that she got homesick.  


One day she told me "Don't be afraid to express your feelings."  I was fighting back with tears all day, and she noticed something was wrong with me.  But I didn't want to cry in front of other students.  I tried to explain about it, but my English was so poor and I could say nothing to her.


She loved kids so much and it was my first time to be invited to my teacher's apartment for a party.
She ordered sushi for us.  Next day she had terrible stomachache because she ate leftover sushi for her breakfast.


The last time I saw her was when I visited her place in LA during my trip in the US when I was in college.  She took me to a midnight drive, to me everything she showed me was like an American movie.  


If I could meet her again, I would be able to surprise her that I'm now a jewelry designer living in NY.  
I tried to look her up online, and I found nothing about her.  When I was a teenager, I thought every American woman was like her because she was the only American I knew.  But now I know that she was truly the one and only in the world.