A Tiny Tooth Recalls The Past

On Christmas Eve day, my granddaughter, Hannah lost her first baby tooth. She was six. Running toward me as I came into the house, she exclaimed, “Look, Granmom!” She pointed to the gap in her bottom teeth. With the other hand she held out a small zip lock bag.

“I pulled it out myself!” Pride gleamed in her brown eyes.

“Oh, Hannah, congratulations! Let’s see.” The tooth had been loose for weeks, the subject of much discussion.

She opened the bag and rolled the tiny tooth into her palm where it lay, pearly white, a minute splotch of blood dried just inside the root end. Our heads inclined together as we gazed at this perfect tooth. With the suddenness of a lightening strike, I knew I’d never seen anything more beautiful, more stunningly innocent, than this baby tooth resting in Hannah’s small hand. Hannah placed the tooth back in the baggie and carefully zipped it.

We talked about the fact that the tooth fairy would come on the same night as Santa Claus. Hannah wondered if Santa and the tooth fairy would meet and I offered that they probably already knew each other and would work it out. “They know each other because they are both magic,” she affirmed, her eyes bright.

“Granmom,” Hannah commanded. “Watch.” She pressed her folded tongue against the empty space between her teeth. The soft, pink flesh protruded between the two white teeth. I reached my hand toward her mouth and tickled the moist protrusion with my fingernail. She broke up giggling.

Most of the afternoon Hannah had the baggie either clutched in her hand or on a table or chair nearby. Finally her mother,Taylor, told her to take the tooth upstairs and leave it in her room. “It will get lost,” Taylor said. “And then what?”

On Christmas morning, early, I found Hannah in the upstairs hallway. She signaled me to come into her room. On her night table the tooth was in the baggie and lying beside it was another baggie containing some money. I queried, “The tooth fairy didn’t take the tooth?”

“She always leaves you your first tooth,” I was informed.

 That morning, in Hannah’s Christmas stocking, among the toys and treats was a small square box painted white and decorated with tiny pink roses. The box was inscribed in pink: “Your First Tooth.” Inside, a white satin pillow provided a proper resting-place for a perfect tooth.

“How did Santa know to bring me this?” Hannah exclaimed. 

Reaching for the ever-present baggie, she placed the tooth in the center of the satiny pillow and snapped the box shut. The rose-covered box was by her side most of Christmas day.

Hannah doesn’t remember herself without teeth, but I do. I remember each white bud pushing its fretful way through her pink gums. Tiny teeth marking the end of babyhood. Now space was being made in her mouth for the adult teeth she would have for the rest of her life.

In spite of her excitement about the passage that the loss of her baby tooth represented, Hannah was reluctant to let the tooth go. It’s one thing for that tooth to leave her mouth, another for it to be gone entirely. Making space for the new is challenging and exciting. Letting go of the old, more difficult.

 I imagined that gradually the rose-covered box would not be opened quite as often, would not be displayed to all her play dates. Eventually, her adult teeth having sprouted, the box would sit on her bureau with other small treasures, unnoticed for years.

Maybe, when she was 14 or so, with a mouth full of braces, she would say to herself: “Why am I hanging onto this old tooth?” and toss it out without a backward glance. Maybe not, but it wouldn’t surprise me.                                 

***

Hannah Lupica on Samba

It turns out that I was wrong in my conclusion when I wrote the original of this story. As I admired the girl above: the sixteen year-old, courageous, competitive rider, flying over the jump at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center, I found myself wondering about that first tooth. 

So long ago.

 I sent a text asking Hannah as to its whereabouts and she texted me right back. “I still have it!” That tiny tooth remains in the rose-covered box on her bureau.

 I find this fact comforting. At whatever age, it may simply be human nature to hang onto bits and pieces that connect us in memory to who we once were.