Deep Roots...

I broke my tooth the day Regan died. I broke it on a jelly bean. I lived with it for years. Most of the time it didn't give me any problems. But occasionally it would act up. A searing pain would spread throughout my jaw, trickling down my neck.

But eventually it got too bad to handle. The dentist tells me that a small sac of puss had formed and was causing a build up of pressure on the nerve.

I made a lot of excuses of why I never saw anyone. It was too expensive. I didn't have insurance. I didn't have time. All of them were true, but eventually the excuses didn't matter anymore when I laid awake at night.

The biggest reason has deep roots, like my tooth. When I was a boy, I was playing in the kitchen. Earlier that day I had seen one of my sisters swinging in between the counter and the sink like a gymnast. They said I was too little to play, that my arms would not hold me up. So I waited. I waited until no one was there and I swung my body as hard as I could. Gravity took hold and I fell on my face. All of my perfectly straight, pearly white teeth were broken in the front in a jagged peaks. I had never felt so much physical pain.

We didn't have a lot of money then. So my dad pulled them all. All six, front, top teeth. We didn't go to the dentist. We couldn't afford it. My sister held my hand, as each tooth was pulled. At first he tried dental floss, but it snapped. Then fishing line, but it too snapped. I don't really remember what happened next. Memory has been kind and blotted out the details. I just remember hearing the tick-tact-scuttling of my teeth as they hit the linoleum floor.

So, I made my excuses. But the real reason is that I still have nightmares of my teeth being pulled. I made the top picture black and white. It was a tough extraction and there are still little bits of my gums and specks of my blood on it. There was a lot of pulling and prying until the tooth broke, yet again. The roots had to be surgically removed.

But it is done and the roots have been dug out.