A Tear and a Smile

In his book "A Tear and a Smile," Gibran Khalil Gibran crossed an important stage in his journey with writing that may have answered questions that kept bubbling within him, so this text of his seems to intertwine absolute imagination and abstract truth; He also combines a tear and a smile in one instance, and this is a kind of difficulty that Gibran combined, sincerely in his belief in his words and in his vision of humanity as a whole. He says: "I hope that my life will remain a tear and a smile, a tear that purifies my heart and makes me understand the secrets and mysteries of life, and a smile that brings me closer to my grandmother''s children and will be a symbol of my glorification of the gods, a tear with which I can share with those who are contrite in heart, and a smile that will be the sign of my joy in my existence."