Eternal Smile

Here’s this week’s reflection. I hope it resonates with you and ask that, if you enjoyed, please comment and share on your social media. Heartfelt thanks for all your support!

Keeping the light on for you,

Carol

As a nurse, I have had to clean more than my fair share of other people’s dentures. As my parents aged, theirs were also added to the duty queue. Let me be honest and say I abhor this task, even when performing it for loved ones.

Dad was especially fond of his choppers and would quickly thrust both upper and lower plates out with his tongue, then quickly retract them, much like a frog’s tongue deftly catching an insect within range. This stunt was conveniently timed for the dinner table, causing squeals of laughter from our young daughters. Chastising from my husband and me meant Dad would simply grin and repeat the ill-mannered behavior. 

Dad also delighted in completely removing his false teeth and pocketing them – usually at the dinner table – though he could slip them out at a moment’s notice pretty much anywhere. He would then screw his shrunken face into that of a toothless hillbilly to the delight of all the grandkids. The only accoutrement needed was a long sprig of grass firmly held by his gums to complete the picture. There was no higher praise for him than the innocence of youth asking: “Grandpa – why are your lips so funny?”

Mom possessed a bit more class and preferred to keep her faux pearly whites firmly in place. An obsessive-compulsive chatterbox, and incredibly vain, she relied on Fixodent to provide the stay-put power for her chops. Too much candy as a child in the 1930s led to her youthful dental demise. Mom got her first set of dentures at age 13 and remained a true professional in their care and handling til the end. Throughout the years, Mom and Dad always looked forward to the arrival of new sets of dental dreams like kids waiting for Santa. On the coveted appointment day, they would return home in sheer triumph, proudly showing off their new smiles.

But alas, on one such occasion, dear Houston, we had a big problem.

Remember Mr. Ed, the 1960s TV sitcom about a talking horse? Well, Mom’s false teeth were so prominent they made her appear a frightened, or maybe frightening, caricature of herself, and not unlike Ed’s equine wife. Dad’s, on the other hand, appeared far too demure for the male species. 

I delicately asked if the orders had, perhaps, gotten switched. 

Mom looked at me aghast and proclaimed that no, she rather liked her new set. Dad, a simple guy who avoided confrontation like the plague, merely shrugged his shoulders in apathy, content that he could just continue to eat. Over time, Mom and Dad’s new teeth became  quite the topic, providing ripe fodder for jokes at any family gatherings involving eating. And we were always eating.

My brothers and I teased our parents mercilessly and yes, we will likely all be sautéed in the same hot skillet in you-know-where. As the years passed and less attention was focused on their looks, Mom’s draft horse beam nonetheless remained front and center while Dad’s content simper always flew just under the radar.

After Mom and Dad died we came across both sets of dentures. Once again marveling at the sizing paradox, we shared a good laugh as Mom’s buoyant smile and Dad’s smug grin came to mind. And, for reasons unknown at the time, we kept the dentures. They were expensive, after all, and the thought of recycling them somehow seemed prudent, if not insane. 

Our rationale went something like this: If the Lions Club willingly accepted old eyeglasses for redistribution, surely there was a dental organization devoted to sanitizing and dispersing old dentures to the needy. Given my overwhelming interest in recycling, I was the lucky sibling tasked with solving the reuse problem. But there were no such groups online or, seemingly, anywhere. So I did the next best thing and sheepishly asked my personal dentist. You know, straight from the horse’s mouth.

Our family dentist was a quiet, pensive man. He considered my question seriously and did not respond at first.

“I’m guessing I’m the first person who has ever asked you this?” I cautiously queried.

His concentration erupted into a smile, then into a hearty chuckle, as he admitted that, in all his years of practice (and there were many), I was indeed the first.

“But dentures are soooo expensive,” I gushed. “Why on earth wouldn’t they be given to those in third world countries who have no teeth, or others in this country who have a need?!” He agreed it was a good idea but because they were an impression-fitted item they would be hard to successfully share, hygiene notwithstanding.

Undaunted, I pressed on: “If the Lion’s club can share highly specific, prescriptive eyeglasses, why are dentures so off limits? Anything can be sterilized, after all. It’s such a waste!” It was a genius idea, even if I was the only one who thought so. By this time Dr. Dentist was outright laughing – and likely at me, not with me.

But sadly, no viable option existed for toothy reprocessing.

The chattering pairs were therefore put in a “safe place” at home. While I did not want to view, much less handle them, for some odd reason, I just could not trash them. 

And then it hit me.

Mom and Dad’s ashes were to be buried together in the family plot back East. Their neatly matched black boxes resembled the iconic Tuxedo and Little Black Dress (LBD). It was only right that their smiles should go with them. Chatty Cathy Mom adored parties and Dad grinned his way through any social event, all the while cursing under his breath. I made an executive decision: their smiles would ride along to the Distinguished Family Reunion in the Sky.

Looking at pictures after the funeral, a brother casually asked what had happened to the dentures. 

“They’re in the boxes.”

“What boxes?”

“You know – the cremains boxes – Tux and LBD.”

My brother eyed me incredulously. “You didn’t!”

I calmly replied with an arched brow and a side glance: “I did indeed. I hid each pair under their respective bag of ashes. No one will know and besides, what else was I going to do with them? No one wants them. They were too expensive to trash. Now Mom and Dad can smile with reckless abandon up there. What’s not to love?!” My brother shook his head as we chortled, envisioning our parents’ mismatched smiles, socializing with heavenly kin. We could only imagine what the opinions of the aggressively assertive in our past would have been; especially from those who’d watched Mr. Ed on black and white television. 

We meant no disrespect by taxiing Mom and Dad’s teeth to the Great Beyond. To the contrary, we thought it fitting that our parents dutifully planted these seeds of morbid humor in us kids and, in the end, got to smile and chat about their parental success all the way to eternity.