The Trauma of the Tooth

Nathan walked into a pole and broke his tooth. He was so happy, going to get his hot dog at the park, he turned to look back to make sure the other kids were following him, and he turned back just in time to break his front tooth on the huge cement pole in front of him.

I didn't see any of it. I just found my eight year old coming back to me, distraught, crying, blood on his lip, big tooth piece in his hand. "Is it my big tooth?" he cries, knowing there are no more teeth on the horizon. This was the last soldier, meant for life. Taken down after only one meager year of use.

I hug him, my heart splitting. I broke my teeth as a kid. I hated having broken teeth. It's a big deal to feel broken, incomplete, perfect before and now suddenly not. As a mom, I would gladly give up all my teeth. He could have them all, maybe this is a dream, I keep thinking. This can't be happening. He's my boy. Nothing bad can happen to my boy. Why is this happening?

The family we are with is frozen with us on the grassy hill, in this weird limbo of everthing was going well and now everthing has stopped. There aren't going to be hot dogs. Things have changed, and it's permanent.

We pack up our stuff, and the mom I'm with gives me a very deep look before we get in our separate cars. Compassion, is the word. She knows how much you feel your kid's pain. She feels it too.

The drive home with the three kids, there's no music. Everything sounds weird and echoey. There's a heaviness to the car, and Nathan who is usually talkative, irritating, funny is now silent. The car is a boat of despair.

After I put them to bed, I lay there thinking. Why did I say yes to the hot dogs? Why did we go to the park? We never go to the park after gymnastics. Why is it that bad things happen? Why can't things stay the same perfect way they always were? I try to talk to Barry, and he says, rather accurately, there is no meaning to things. Things just happen. As hard as it is. He isn't being mean, just practical. I lay in bed afterward thinking things don't happen to me. Why can't I stop things from happening? I was right there and I could do nothing. The trauma of the tooth is a hot, dark feeling in my stomach. Helplessness, and lack of control.

The next morning, we go to the dentist. She's wonderful. She makes his tooth better with a little bonding. It might hold a long time, it might break off. His other tooth is cracked, but might last his whole life. Might break at some point. I'm watching my little boy in the big chair, two women around him, one with a drill. She reassures him. He glances back at me where I sit in a doorway, nursing the baby. I'm still here, I say. The dentist tells him, You're doing well. You're my best patient of the day. She tells me, he's still your perfect little boy. He just has a chipped tooth. Don't worry, Mom.

His tooth has a crack in it where the fake part starts. You can see it if you look really hard. If you don't know it's broken, you'd probably never notice. He can't bite into apples or corn on the cob, probably until he's 17 when he can get a permanent crown on the tooth. But he looks like Nathan again.

There is some relief, flooding back. I don't think it's the the tooth, although it's a relief. It's the compassion. We buy a big deli sandwich and soup across the street and it turns out costing about 700 dollars somehow. All I can feel is something creeping up on me, replacing the dark feeling. As the baby and Nathan and I sit on the plastic end booth waiting for our sandwich, I'm feeling all these returning flecks of joy.

The rest of the day. It's the return of hope. It comes flooding. Hope that had abandoned us on the grassy hill yesterday. That dark feeling that comes from something that breaks, is broken, changed, disappeared, gone. Seeing your baby hurt. What scared me more than the tooth breaking was Nathan being silent in the car. Nathan keeping his mouth closed. More than anything, I didn't want Nathan, at 8, to realize that bad things sometimes happen. I didn't want him to grow up. I didn't want him to stop being Nathan, the boy.

The kids and I play. We snuggle, we go to Wal-Mart to wander around. We eat hamburgers. I feel like our house burned down and we got to leave with our favorite pajamas. I look at them, all three, eating hamburgers and I think thank you. Thank you for the cracked tooth. For the horror of the realization that we can't control anything, that all we have is this one perfect moment, the very one we're in. There is no stopping cracking, breaking, bigger disaster, bigger hurt, trouble. There is going to be plenty of it, either created or thrust upon us. That doesn't mean you don't just bask in this one moment, this one right here, that you are being given. Because everything is already perfect, and all that wanting other things, it's all fog to distract you. You have it all. A tooth is nothing.

When we get home, our great neighbor family brings love, hugs and brownies decorated with yellow flowers. My neighbor mom checks Nathan's tooth and says cheerfully, lovingly "oh, that's nothing," and embraces us all. She looks at me, with a smile of complete compassion, thick, mom-coated with understanding.

Hot dogs, broken teeth, yellow flowers. We're okay, we're still here.