Category: Slice ‘o Life

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Rotted Teeth

I went to an oral surgeon this week to atone for my dental sins.  After thirteen years of neglect, part of the price I paid for these dental sins was the extraction of three rotted teeth.

In 2004, the last year in which I saw a dentist, just a few months after getting my first crown, it chipped away as I ate a peanut M & M. That crown was expensive.  And it hurt.  And, just like that, biting down on a peanut covered in chocolate and candy coating, it was busted.  I was angry and afraid.  Getting that crown hurt.  Paying for it hurt more.

I learned to live with it.  I didn’t chew on that side of my mouth for years. Years and years.  I adapted.

After that chip, four more teeth chipped.  Hell, one fell out completely, save the root, which was tucked away in my gums, playing a game of periodontal hide and seek.  That, too, was years ago.

I have walked around the earth for thirteen years carrying a mouth full of rotting teeth.  I have been living one of my anxiety dreams on the daily — teeth so rotten that they just crumble out of my mouth.

Dang, it fells good to admit that.  I am certain I was fooling nobody.  Any wide smile confessed my dental sins and shame whether I intended it to or not.

BEHOLD. My dental shame. This is what 13 years of neglect looks like.
BEHOLD. My dental shame. This is what 13 years of neglect looks like.

My dental phobia was trumped this spring by some pretty intense dental pain.  One of my teeth started aching something fierce.  I experienced the kind of pain that woke me up at night.  It was time.  I called a dentist.  It was a new dentist, someone I had found through an “ISO kind dentist” request over a year ago on a local Facebook mom’s group.

The woman who answered the phone was nice.  So compassionate and so kind.  I spoke through tears, “I have severe dental phobia, but a tooth is hurting terribly.  I need help.”  I am crying even now as I type these words. Crying about a stranger’s kindness and crying about the resolve it took to pick up that phone and crying about a husband who loves and cares for me even more than I do myself some days.

They saw me that morning.  Within a few hours I was sitting in a different office getting the root canal-ed right out of that painful tooth.  There was some antibiotics and one hell of a bill.

Two weeks later was another appointment for another root canal for the next door neighbor of that first rotten tooth.  Teeth 30 and 31, respectively. With my acute dental pain addressed, I had instructions to go back to my referring dentist for follow-up and to begin the process of trying to salvage thirteen years of neglect.

Par for the course, it took me almost four months to make that follow-up appointment.  Dagnabbit.  I hate that I am this way.  I can freaking guide a daughter through cancer treatment, I can give birth, I can claw my way through the adoption process, but sitting my ass in a dental chair is somehow too difficult for me to manage.

But push was coming to shove and my referring dentist started to make polite “reminder” phone calls that I needed to get back on the dental saddle.  Finally, I made an appointment to have three teeth extracted this week with an oral surgeon.  I went for the one stop shopping package, getting three teeth pulled at once, ripping those suckers right the fuck out, including the coy one tucked up in my gum, no longer fooling anybody.

The surgeon was young and had kind eyes.  We chit chatted just a bit, making small talk, all assembled (me, my husband, the surgeon, two assistants) politely ignoring my shame that filled the room, my dental dirty laundry.

The doctor told me I would receive drugs I know well — Versed and Propofol, to sedate me.  I wouldn’t feel a thing.  It made me cry thinking that I was getting what my girl got each morning before her little brain and spine were hit with a harmful radiation that, like me, could not save her.

And then, just like that, three rotten teeth disappeared.  I didn’t feel them come out.  I don’t remember feeling anything.  The drugs did their thing so I could get on with my thing.  And now, with the help of Visa, I can start to heal.  I am still angry at myself that I did not ask to keep those suckers.  They would have been a useful tool in a cautionary tale of “What happens when you don’t brush your teeth,” for my sons.

As the hours give way since the triple extraction, I can’t help but think, Wouldn’t it be lovely to take all that is rotted and rotting in our lives and just extract it?  Take the bad stuff away?  Have someone give us a magic potion that puts us to sleep and wake up to a fresh start, even if that fresh start is a bloody hole, a cave where there was once a rock?  Make a clean break from that which holds us back, leaving room for repair and something better, stronger, not broken and damaged and rotten to its core?

I am so flawed, so broken, but I can still choose hope.  My rotten teeth are gone.  For now.  There is a real possibility that if I do what I am supposed to do, I will never experience this shame and pain and fear again.

I hope I am strong enough.  I hope I learn to value my health more.  I hope my ability to do what is needed is greater and stronger than my fear and tendency to retreat and withdraw from that which I do not like.  I hope my husband forgives me.  I hope I can be a teacher to my sons about the importance of caring for oneself.  I hope I know I am worthy of living outside of shame and owning my flaws.  I hope one day soon I can feel again what it is like to chew on both sides of my mouth.  I hope I can forgive myself for being rotten to my core and knowing I can do better and be better.

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Reading this Stranger’s Obituary Will Make Your Day

Janet Tuck was born in in Aurora, Illinois in December 1931.  She died two weeks ago, surrounded by family, in North Carolina.  I don’t know Janet or any of her family, but came across her obituary this morning while I was scrolling through Facebook.  A friend, also unknown to Janet or her family, had posted it after reading it in the Chicago Tribune.  Janet’s story moved her enough to share it. Hours later, I am still thinking about Janet and her life.  Man, what a good life.  Read it HERE, then come back so we can discuss.

Janet Tuck, 1931-2017, courtesy of obituary published in Chicago Tribune
Janet Tuck, 1931-2017, from obituary published in Chicago Tribune

Are you crying?  I cried the first time I read it, too.  As far as obituaries go, it is lovely and beautiful and sweet and such a touching tribute to memorialize Janet’s well lived life.  The sensitivity in which memory loss is treated felt like a gentle guiding hand of loving reassurance.  I spent a decade working in a retirement community, each day talking and interacting with older adults at various stages of dementia.  If you love someone with Alzheimer’s or dementia, you could only hope this type of compassionate empathy was offered them as they navigated through the shards of what is no longer a life they always recognize.

The wording of Janet’s obituary is like an invitation into her life, a dream sequence, a premonition of comfort.  It reads like settling in with a good book on a cold rainy day, blanket around your shoulders, cup of tea steaming at your side.  I salute the author who clearly wrote from a place of deep love and respect, a daughter I presume.  Having someone like that write your obituary is just another sign of a well lived life.

Janet seems so damn likable.  A perfect combination of artist and friend, equal measures of capable and adventurous.  We get to know her, albeit so briefly and superficially, as a daughter, a sister, an independent young career woman, a wife, a mother, a gifted artist and partner.  I want to know Janet more.  I want to be her daughter and her friend and her partner, too. Full disclosure, I kind of want to be Janet.

Us voyeurs only get a glimpse of her, a smiling young-ish face, head tossed back in wide smile.  She looks happy.  Genuinely happy. She looks free and self-possessed.  Reading about her life gives a window into how and why Janet is able to be all those things.  Are there lessons we can learn from reading about Janet’s life after her death?  Or is it merely enough to read about such a satisfying life and feel fortified, even via the medium of words on a screen?  I don’t honestly know.

Magic is mentioned in Janet’s obituary and that word feels especially appropriate.  Sometimes, when we’re lucky, life is magical. Reading about the life of Janet Tuck, a stranger to me, feels like a bit of magic.  I am inspired, reflective, content, just having learned about her life and the love that surrounded her.  That is, indeed, magic.

Rest well, Janet.  May you only know peace and sunshine and those who loved you be comforted by your memories.

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You may see some of Janet Tuck’s art HERE.

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8 Life Lessons From My Son’s Sensei That I Could Use Myself

I’ve been meaning to write about the benefits of my older boy taking karate lessons for a few months now.  It was going to be a sweet little post about how young kids benefit from the discipline that is encouraged at a dojo.

As a mom in this era of “respectful parenting,” where empathy is seemingly valued above all else, sometimes to the exclusion of discipline and boundaries, I’m not going to lie, there is a certain thrill in watching a sensei (gently) chew out a kid who is acting the fool.

Full disclosure, I was a little kid in the 1970s with an authoritarian father, so discipline is my jam.  When expectations around behavior are clear and understood, even knowing they will not always be achieved, I think the whole parent-child relationship is easier.  Kiddos need boundaries.  Heck, we all need boundaries.

And, lest you respectful parents who are reading this get angry that I am missing the point — that of course there are boundaries at use in respectful parenting, that’s cool, but in so many of the threads I read online, holy moly, the roles and boundaries seem very confused, like allowing a child to refuse shots at the doctor.  Nope.

Anyway.  Ahem.  What were we talking about?  Oh, yes.  The wisdom of my son’s sensei.

In preparation for that post I thought I was going to write, I started recording some of what the sensei says in class.  Sensei Ray is old school.  He requires discipline, respect, and focus in the dojo and believes a room chock full of five to twelve year olds is capable of achieving those things.  It’s quite inspiring, actually, because, for the most part, the kids do.  “Spirit and focus,” is his mantra and I use it often when we get to the drudgery of homework, tooth brushing, and chores.  Trust me when I say that a kid who is brushing his teeth with spirit and focus is bound to get fewer cavities.

Spirit and focus! Thanks for the lessons, Sensei Ray.
Spirit and focus! Thanks for the lessons, Sensei Ray.

Here are eight of the lessons Sensei Ray regularly talks about in karate class that I would be wise to apply to my own middle aged mom life.  Spirit and focus, ladies, spirit and focus.

  1. If you want to learn more, listen more.  This is a universal.  It works everywhere — at home, at work, at school, at your place of worship, in your parenting, in your relationships.  Start exercising those ears!
  2. Strive for perfection knowing it is impossible.  One of the potholes of motherhood is thinking perfection is attainable. Pinterest makes millions off this false belief.  The value is in the trying, not the flawless end product.  And I think our kids realize when we are beating up ourselves or them for not achieving perfection.  Be gentle with yourselves, be gentle with your kiddos. Try hard.  Always try and never stop trying, but know the trying is what is important, not the perfection.  And for my bright boy who gets frustrated with things that don’t come easily, this is key.
  3. The class trains together and gets stronger together.  For me, this one is about family.  I think I don’t always do a good enough job of bringing us together.  Older boy does this, younger boy does that, dad does this, mom does that.  The inspiration I take from this lesson is to engage in more family time.  Oh!  And yes, exercising as a family can only be a good thing.  More this.
  4. Be amazing.  We are all amazing.  The real question is whether or not you believe it.  You should.  You are amazing.  Believe it. Act accordingly.
  5. If you’re comfortable, you’re not doing it right.  This is good stuff.  When I used to mentor social work grad students, I always knew that the tasks that made them the most uncomfortable were the ones we needed to focus on.  They hated me, but it made them better social workers.  A bit like my son, when I deem something too challenging, I tend to avoid it.  At all costs.  That’s not good.  To keep growing and changing and developing, even as a 47 year old gal, I need to endure the challenge.  Welcome it, invite it, get comfortable with it.
  6. Be loud to make your presence known.  I love this.  Writing this blog for the past six plus years is a way that I shout and am heard by hundreds and thousands without even leaving my living room.  Gun violence, social justice, public education, racism, feminism, kindness and empathy, pediatric cancer advocacy, and neck moisturizer — these matters are all so important to me. They influence my life and through my keyboard, I am able to influence others.  Don’t ever be afraid to be loud, ladies. And don’t ever allow yourself to be silenced.
  7. Even in a stance, you should be sweating.  This one is deep.  And deceptively complicated.  And somewhat overwhelming. What I take from it as a mother is to remember to be strong and engaged even in the down times.  Mothering is hard on the bad days, but it’s hard on the good days, too.  Be present, be engaged, focus.  If you’re making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch, if you’re wiping off the pee in front of the kid’s toilet, if you’re turning clothes inside out before they hit the laundry, if you’re taking a walk with your three year old and frustrated that it takes 30 minutes to get to the corner, can you find a space in those moments where you see the beauty in those things?  Refer to lesson number 2 above when you need moral support with this one.
  8. The minute we stop following traditions, they go away.  As someone who was raised in a strong Catholic family of six, with none of us kids practicing the faith as adults, I know this to be true.  As someone who was raised as the granddaughter of four European immigrants who worked so hard to assimilate to their new American home, I know this to be true.  As someone whose parents are both dead and gone, I know this to be true.  When traditions die, it is a loss that can be impossible to reverse. The passing of some traditions is a good thing (slavery being a prime example), but the loss of other traditions puts us at risk for becoming too homogenized.  Think carefully about integrating and celebrating traditions while living your best woke life.

There they are — some of Sensei Ray’s best life lessons that will help you as much as your kids.  And whenever you’re in doubt, just remember, spirit and focus, ladies!