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.
Dawn,
ReplyDeleteTripods have three legs for a reason: It's the most stable and adaptive design for the widest range of circumstances. Three isn't bad.
Larger tables that have four legs have purpose also. They can support more things at one time than a tripod can. But to do so, the table at times needs a flat floor. At other times, one leg or another doesn't quite seem to be able to reach, so one must help that leg with a shim, a book, perhaps a wall to lean against until the table can find balance again.
Neither one is better.
A table brings more, but it requires more care for it to function best.
May you have peace as you work between tripod and table.
Ken,
ReplyDeleteI love that image - really powerful. Thank you!
Beautifully written and profound too I think Dawn. There is a wrenching pain in the loss of those teeth but there are also Halloween teeth and the old wax candy kind that were filled with a sweet funny red liquid - so just know that while the loss of those teeth is wrenching..there are other kinds that bring a touch of joy...and we are here to see that sweetness will never be far from your soul
ReplyDeleteOh, Polly! So true. All kinds of teeth out there. We lose the old to make way for the new. Thank you.
ReplyDelete