Murder House

Little Teeth

Showing off big and little teeth in Fiji, March, 2012

Remember your best friend during your baby teeth years? 

Remember the one-level rancher where you lived; the taste of sugar cereal in the morning; the feeling of running circles around your mom’s legs; the smell of shaving cream on your dad’s face?

“Does it hurt, Dad? Do you hafta do it every day? Can I try?”

Life’s uncomplicated with milk teeth. Your biggest worry is how soon your BFF (Best Friend Forever) will return from family vacation, or whether Mom will serve macaroni and cheese (your favorite) for dinner or whether your little brother will LEAVE YOU ALONE. For a change.

Life’s simple before your baby teeth start ker-plinging like broken piano keys. Unless your dad dies. Unless your grieving gypsy mother drags you around the world, far from family and friends for a year and-a-half. You lose the milk teeth in time zones nine to nineteen hours away - in London, Luxembourg, South Africa and New Zealand. The tooth fairy exchanges early enamel’s innocence for Pounds, Euros, Rand and Kiwi dollars. If you’re my daughter, Fiona, you return to your birthplace – Spokane - to learn you weren’t the only kid performing a dentile disappearing act.

One evening, before dinner, Fiona says,

“Mommy, Rachael changed while I was gone. She used to have little teeth, but now they’re bigger, and so is she! I missed seeing her change – if I was here the whole time, she wouldn’t look so different!”

Fat tears roll down Fi’s cheek. I know where this is going.

“I want my little teeth back,” cries Fiona. “I don’t wanna get bigger! I wanna stay small and have little teeth, again” she cries, climbing into my lap.

Wait for it. Here it comes.

Fiona says, “I had little teeth when Daddy was alive. I want Daddy back! All I want for Christmas is Daddy.”

I stifle a sob, and tell her,

                “You know Daddy’s not coming back. His spirit will always be with us. I wish I could bring him back, but I can’t.”

My Spokane bedroom is blanketed with baby pictures of Fiona (mostly) as well as several shots of Finley, who as Second Child, must play the role of ‘also-ran.’ The professionally-shot and framed portraits tell the story not only of my kids’ infanthoods, but also of the time before. Before Sean got sick. Before he died. Before Fate’s cross-cut saw bisected our family – transforming it from four-legged table to three-legged stool.

The house, the pictures, the trappings of before act as new triggers for the kids. And me. I enroll Fiona and Finley in a childrens’ Hospice support group so someone else, someone not emotionally invested in before, like me, can help the kids discuss their feelings. Since Hospice also hosts a parent group at the same time, I decide to attend at least the first session because I’m there. And while grief’s parking meter knows no time limit, I figure I’ve done much of this work already: therapy, group sessions, crying, running and more crying. More running.

The kids decoupage colored paper onto glass while I sit on a couch in another room. I join this group, which I privately name Sorrow’s Circle, to see what I might learn. Confidentiality prevents me from divulging specifics, but I feel I can share the character of the discussion without revealing details or identities.

A counselor begins the session by lighting a candle and asking how we’ve done with our grief the past week.

 A man with two pre-teen daughters, who lost his wife to cancer, says,

                “I’m busy trying to keep groceries in the house and keep up with my girls. I have no time to grieve.”

I feel my head nod up and down. I look around to see other parents sporting similar bobble heads.

A man and woman next to circle member #1 sit close together. She lost her mother (another victim of Cancer’s insatiable appetite); her husband is here not only to support his wife, but to process his own grief. His mother-in-law lived in their home during the final months of her life. They bonded. One year later, their pain is palpable. 

“We talked a lot those last months,” says the man. “There’s so much she still wanted to do. She was going to travel after she retired…”

Some people in Sorrow’s Circle are sniffing, clutching tissues, wiping tears. My eyes remain dry until a woman next to me says she lost her ex-husband with whom she had two young daughters. She sniffles while her new husband, just over her shoulder, says,

                “I’m here to support her and the girls. I’m not trying to replace their dad, but to be a father figure when they need one.”

A wet bead slithers down my cheek. Shit. Now I need a tissue, too. I blow my nose, trying not to imitate a Canada goose. 

The be-there-when-they-need-me comment triggered the tears. I’m grieving not only the loss of Sean, but the sudden loss of my Kiwi partner, Pete. I swear I never sought a surrogate dad for my kids, but when I think of what The Boyfriend was for me and Fiona and Finley, my heart crackles like a bowl of Rice Krispies swimming in milk. I picture Pete, scooping a sleeping Finley from our bed to carry him downstairs; Pete, laughing as Fiona body-slams him on the couch; Pete, allowing Finley to drag him outside (again) to kick a soccer ball.

I had the partner. I left the partner. I miss the partner.

The next disclosure pulls me out of my head, out of the recent past, into the present:

A mother tells us her family lost their teenage daughter less than six months ago. She was 15 years old. I inhale and reach for another tissue.  I’m afraid to think what I’m thinking: Surely there’s nothing worse. I would want to die. Every day, I would wish to die.

The mom says, “The house is so quiet now. And I’m afraid to let my other daughter do anything.”

Inside Sorrow’s Circle, we lean in. Wipe tears. Swallow hard.

I tell you these stories not to depress you, but to remind you (and me) of why we live, love and laugh in these bodies, with our friends and families, in this world that’s fatally flawed. Even though our children may (will) infuriate us, our partners may (will) disappoint us and our circumstances may (will) send us running for red wine and the clearance aisle, we seek solace mainly in the arms of our fellow time-limited humans.

Your days are finite. The number of  sunsets, soccer games, conversations and runs you’ll experience – all finite. That’s what I hear in Sorrow’s Circle.  The inner voice whispers: The only way to fail at love - is never try.

 It’s tough to discern these messages through the din of chattering children, the call of unpaid bills, the beckoning of distractions such as TV, iPhones and yes, Facebook. If I remember the lessons of Sorrow’s Circle, I’ll spend less time on things that don’t matter and more time with people who do. I’ll be less fearful of risking my heart.

The man who lost his mother-in-law says,

                “We fantasize about going somewhere far away, like Belize, to escape.”

Another man says, “Yeah, I want to go to an island somewhere.”

I smile and pause while another group member voices the same desire. I can’t hold back. I speak up:

                “I did that. I took my kids and traveled. We lived in New Zealand for a year.”

Eyes widen. Heads turn. Someone asks, “How was it?”

I pause and reply,

                “I feel guilty for saying this, but it was fabulous. It was very freeing to be away from – everything. I still grieved, but I grieved in some of the most beautiful places in the world. We scattered my late husband’s ashes from the top of Northern Ireland to the bottom of Africa.”

The facilitator assures me I have nothing to feel guilty about - we all grieve in our own way.

I don’t sit in Sorrow’s Circle to give advice. I’m here to listen and learn. But if I were to offer something to those who mourn, it’s that grief is like a scar – much like the horizontal line below my navel left over from the cesarean section I had with Fiona: at first, it was red, raised and painful. Within months, the pain ebbed. It took several years, but that once purplish-red line is now barely discernible. I never imagined in the weeks and months after surgery that one day I’d point out a scar to a partner who hadn’t even noticed it before. I didn’t fade the scar – time did. Thank God for 812 days – the time that’s passed since Sean died. Thank God for fading scars, for friendship and the regenerative power of travel - of seeing life through fresh eyes in the new place.

So this, dear Fiona, is why you lost your little teeth all over the world. This is why you missed seeing your friends lose theirs. I want to give you a better explanation for our departure. But I can’t. I wish I could reclaim the time before you lost those milk teeth. But I can’t.

All I can say is love as best you can. Today. Because you never know when Sorrow’s Circle will expand.