It started when I was 14 and my younger brother and I were playing a common, not seemingly dangerous game of throw the object at each others' faces. Haven't heard of it? Well it was a common occurrence in our shared basement family room turned bedroom, (lots of space for launching said objects). The object of choice for this particular round was our niece Alyssa's soft, furry Elmo doll. What could possibly go wrong? As Chris and I hurl Elmo back and forth I decide I'm going to dodge the next assault by diving between our bunk beds. As I take flight my head instinctively turns to see my nemesis fail and BAM! One of Elmo's rock solid eyes in the midst of all that plush finds my mouth and I'm left with half a front tooth and lots of self confidence missing.
I thought my life was finished. Come to find out, the tooth could be fixed with relative ease. So I went on with life, braces and all. Until two weeks before I left on my mission. Another fun-filled game this time with a friend from college. We were taking turns holding a half-sized punching bag for each other. Obviously in a girl filled apartment, because we were so extremely tough and very impressive by our own standards. With one uppercut from my colleague one of the two straps that support the bag when hanging bounced toward my face and the metal ring secured on the end of it found my mouth as quickly and covertly as Elmo's stealthy eyeball. I stood there as unimpressive as I could possibly be with the same half of the one tooth absent and the bottom fourth of the other deciding to follow suit. I snatched what I could find of my teeth from the ground thinking the shards must be worth saving and made myself absent.
I went the next two years without incident. I returned home and my dentist told me veneers were the way to go in fixing them for good. Not knowing any better I went with it. After grinding my poor teeth down to nubs the veneers were attached. And with almost nothing for the veneers to glue onto they eventually started breaking off if I bit down on something hard.
Today I have no choice but to avoid any contact between food and my two front teeth. And I mean food in general, not just the hard stuff. It's a terrible way to live your life; trying to bite everything with the side of your mouth. Jamming everything in the corner so you can get a good rip. Try it out, it's extremely unpleasant and borderline savage. In restaurants I'm 93% positive people are asking themselves, "Who's the caveman that can't bite his food like a civilized human being?"
My current dentist knows how poorly the veneers were done and suggested fixing them for good. However, our insurance wasn't going to cover any of it and fixing my teeth became a want instead of a need. I didn't give fixing them a second thought until this Christmas.
My loving, caring and amazing wife decided to surprise me a bit. My final gift this year was a little box, light in weight but heavy in compassion. As my wife played the song "All I want for Christmas..." on her iPod I opened the gift to find a ring box inside. I knew what it contained. My older brother Aaron's two wisdom teeth that we pass around my family as a gag. I laughed and thought, "My wife is funny." Then it started to hit me. There is more to this than I thought. Steph started to explain and my tears started to flow. She knew exactly what I really wanted and needed. A normal life! So within the next month I will be going through the process of getting my teeth back. What an amazing, sensitive and understanding gift! I love my wife and she's made it obvious that she loves me.
Aaron's wisdom teeth representing my new two front teeth.
. And why should they? It's not something that pops up in normal conversation very often. Bu...){kind=link}
2 comments:
Steph was soooo excited to give you your "two front teeth". I hope they look way prettier than Aaron's old wisdom teeth do, tho. Ha!
This gave me the chills... Who would of known teeth could be so sentimental! Awesome.
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