Toothless in the United States

This summer, the day before I was due to fly to Boston from the UK, my front tooth came out! We’d been cleaning out kitchen cupboards of foodstuffs and a packet of dried mango needed to go. Unable to dump it, but unwilling to carry it all the way to The US, I turned to the only other viable alternative. I sat watching TV late that evening and downed the entire packet. It was only when I was at the last handful that I felt that there was a piece of stone or glass in my mouth. Spitting out the foreign object onto my palm I was perplexed about the shape and colour. This was neither a stone nor a piece of glass. In fact, it looked more like a part of me. More like a front tooth. Rising with a sense of dread from the sofa I approached the mirror above the fireplace and smiled. The reflection felt like a smack in the face.

There is something about losing one’s front teeth that feels grief-like. They say that dreams about teeth falling out are usually about grief or loss. Well, I can say it may be a metaphor for grief but losing one’s teeth also actually causes a bit of grief.

I spent a useless few hours phoning dentists to get an emergency appointment. You then discover the reality that what constitutes an emergency for you just does not hack it for the NHS dentist! My main problem it seemed was that I was not in excruciating pain. The tooth I had lost was a root filling and as such devoid of sensitivity. Had I been writhing in agony I’m sure an appointment would’ve opened. So, there was nothing for it but to fly to the US toothless. It would mean weeks of looking frightening. I tried to smile with my mouth closed and usually managed. However, in an IKEA store in Boston, while holding my four-week-old grandson an American lady approached me and cooed and exclaimed of the tiny baby in my arms, “how beautiful a baby, how tiny his feet and hands”. I agreed and in my total pride as a new grandmother beamed my appreciation of her kind words. She recoiled from me in horror and over her shoulder in a huge mirrored cupboard I understood why.

There is something demeaning about being toothless. The character in the Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Misérables, Fantine, has her two front teeth pulled to sell them for money. In the movie of the novel, the heroine, played by Anne Hathaway, has her back teeth removed instead. The moviemakers knew instinctively that their audience would have lost a degree of sympathy and empathy with the heroine had she been so maimed.

The proof of this is the more recent serial version of the same novel which decided to be brutally honest about the scene and show the heroine having her two front teeth pulled out. The horror of this episode so shocked fans that there was outrage online with devotees furious and angry beyond belief that their heroine was now no longer what she once was.  It had obviously ruined the whole series for them.

Being toothless is not all negative. It taught me a degree of detachment. My son had to have a tooth filled in Boston, while I was there, and the $500 bill made me determined to avoid any dentist help in the US. Toothless I came and toothless I would go.

It was a remarkably useful prop when getting my two older grandsons to brush their teeth each night. I would watch them brush their teeth until they finished and then open my mouth wide and ask “do you want this to happen to you?”. At which point they quickly re-applied their toothbrushes with gusto. Strangely, none of my three grandchildren flinched at my toothless state. They hugged me as much as ever and it was salutary to see that disfigurement is not such a big deal for the young. As long as you play, read to them, take them to the parks and chat and laugh with them they overlook all sorts of oddities.

I enjoyed time with loved ones in Boston.   I also had the fortune to meet up with an old friend of mine who lives two hours north of Boston. She came down by train to see me for a few hours and warned me that she felt she had aged greatly in the 10 years since we’ve seen each other and might be hard to recognise at the train station. I sent her an email and told her not to worry as she could easily spot me as I was missing a front tooth!  It did give me a hillbilly appearance which by the second week began to even make me laugh. Especially when brushing my hair and putting on make-up in the morning. It felt like barring the barn door long after the horse has bolted.

When I returned home I managed to find a dentist to construct a replacement on a post drilled into the root of my old tooth. Thankfully cheaper than an implant! As the dentist held up a card to work out the colour of the replacement tooth she said: “yes, I think it needs to be slightly blue like the other teeth” to her young assistant. Depressing news indeed! Whatever, the gap has gone and I can now smile without frightening nearby strangers.  

I’ve learned a lot from the whole experience. When you pass 60 parts of you have a tendency to fall off or alternatively, weird things decide to grow on you. Physically that can be shocking but there are also mental cracks that appear. Names escape one, reasons for entering a room evaporate. Simple words that are not at all complicated evaporate from the mind. But love remains and it eases all ills, physical and mental. Loved ones work their magic, massaging healthy hope back into old bones and making new wholesome memories to hold onto. There are worse things than being toothless and my replacement may be a shade of blue but I am not feeling blue just very grateful for everything.

"If we are not happy and joyous at this season, for what other season shall we wait and for what other time shall we look?" 

Bahá’í Writings