the things that matter

I have a fair amount of responsibility at work. You know, reports, recommendations, judges, blah blah blah. Whether or not someone gets out of jail depends on the information I approve and distribute; a mistake on my part can cause jail time to be prolonged unnecessarily, it can cause the premature release of a perpetrator and the re-victimization of a vulnerable person. If it were my ass in custody, or my safety dependent on someone's incarceration, the job I have would seem like the most important in the world at that moment. But somehow, I don't normally feel cowed and humbled by this awesome duty that has been bestowed upon me.

So, I'm wondering if maybe I just don't take things seriously enough, if nothing is sacred anymore.

Then today, I get a phone call. "Brogan's a little shaken up and wants to talk to you.” 

I hear a rustle of the receiver being exchanged, and then a tiny voice comes over the line. "Susie," she says, "I bit into my burrito and my tooth bent back and its about to come out." There is a squeeze in my chest as I listen to the waver in her voice and think back on the very few times in her life I have heard that distress. I have a flash of her at five years old after an encounter with the dagger-like claws of a cat, latched onto me like a Velcro monkey and trying so hard not to cry even as blood spilled down her face and into her eyes, asking in that same shaky voice, "is it bleeding?" I feel her four-year-old arms like a boa constrictor around my neck at the Haunted Mansion, a ride she insisted we visit at Disneyland, while she buries her head in my neck and wails, "is it almost over?" I feel her warm baby weight in my arms as we rock in a living room chair, me singing softly as she whimpers over the injustice of new teeth -- the same teeth she's slowly becoming too grown-up for.

So many times I have marveled at this brave little fawn who is so fragile and so strong all at once, who wears batman boxers under her flowery jeans, who chooses football gear for her dress-up bears but still loves glittery lipgloss. This little tomboy who picks fabric with flaming motorcycles and skeletons for the blanket she's asked me to make for her, then almost chooses pink velvet for the backing. This tough little peanut who bit back the tears, like always, before another one of the many long separations that have punctuated our entire relationship, then broke down and sobbed in my arms for 30 minutes; who never seems to believe my reassurances that tears are not weakness; who insists on always being "brave."

As she tells me about the errant tooth, her voice is full of apprehension, but I hear a flicker of something else: hope. Hope that I can somehow make it better, that I will reassure her that its okay, that she can somehow draw from the sound of my voice the strength she needs to navigate this important life event. Suddenly, I am belted to my knees by the enormity of the responsibility that goes along with my role in her life. When she is hurt, or scared, or upset, she wants me: my voice, my comfort, my reassurance.

Me.

As always when faced with a task of this magnitude, anxiety and self-doubt rises in my chest, and my heart aches with the need to do this right. Thankfully, as it seems, I do. As we talk, my words and her responses soon fall into their familiar, easy rhythm, fitting around each other like the pieces of a puzzle. We discuss the almost-out tooth, I validate her concerns, we talk about the tooth fairy, I say something silly, she laughs. Soon the waver in her voice is all but gone, and when the phone rings again an hour later, she is victorious: the tooth is now a tiny pearl in her palm. Now she is giddy with anticipation of a visit from the Arizona Tooth Fairy: maybe she will get another floppy, rubber, bandana-wearing antenna cactus with two dollars tucked in his hat. (Apparently in Houston, where she lives nine months out of the year, tooth fairies do not bring floppy rubber antenna cacti).

As anyone who has ever been a parent -- or in the role of a parent -- knows, the love of a child can make you do extraordinary things. It can make you stay up until 6 a.m. on Christimas morning wrapping gifts, only to drag yourself out of bed half-hour later to watch them be clawed open. It can make you sacrifice time and money that were previously spent elsewhere in order to provide clothes to cover her reedy, growing limbs, ice skating lessons, birthday parties, road trips to stretch her mind outside the borders of her small world. It can make you violate a personal commandment and enter the evil empire that is Wal-Mart, when the aforementioned floppy antenna cactus proves elusive at other retailers. And as I have found, it can make you stay for years in a place where you are no longer happy, simply to avoid letting her down.

Tonight, as I tuck the blankets around her shoulders, Brogan says, "Susie, what does the tooth fairy do with all the teeth she gets?"

"I dont know, what do you think?" I say, thinking of the tiny white teeth -- hers, and her sister's -- tucked away in a small pouch in my jewelry box.

"I dont know," she says thoughtfully, and then adds, "maybe she gives them to all the new babies that are born. Kim's teeth were sharp like mine, so maybe I got hers."

I smile at the innocent common sense of this suggestion. Why wouldn't teeth be recycled, passed from one generation to the next, like outgrown clothes? As I say goodnight, I think of writing a story, a tooth fairy who collects outgrown teeth and delivers them, shiny and new, to drooly, cooing mouths that will one day outgrow them as well, the cycle repeating throughout time. I think about the things we give one another, things we outgrow, the things we receive and treasure from those who no longer need them or have some to spare, the things we are given that we then pass on to others.

So tonight, I will slip silently into a darkened room and collect the glittery pink tooth fairy box with its tiny offering. I will exchange it for a pack of monster truck stickers and a $5 bill (the quest for the elusive rubber cactus having been unsuccessful). As I take her little tooth out of the box and tuck it in with the others, I will think about time passing, limbs growing, teeth being passed on in a sensible chain of shared humanity. I will think about beloved rubber cacti and little girls who can wear shimmery pink boots and hot wheels boxers at the same time. I will think about what she has given me, and I her.

It seems some things are still sacred, after all.