©September 1998
Carol Jane Remsburg
THE TOOTH
FAIRY DIED TODAY
The
Tooth Fairy died today. She went the
way the Easter Bunny did this Spring.
So far, Santa is hanging on until the end, the very bitter end. It’s the timeline when a young child grows
enough to lose that total belief. I’m
not too sure that this is progress.
It
begins with a question. The “Is The
Tooth-Fairy Real?” So, like the Easter
Bunny, but these things die hard. We’ve
ingrained them so strongly in our children, and within ourselves that it’s hard
to let go.
With
genuine wariness, my daughter confronted me this eve. I couldn’t deny it. For
the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy are just fallacies. They are wishes come true that we give to
our children as we struggle between shielding them from the ugliness of life
and teaching them how to safeguard themselves.
Now, Santa, is something entirely different. I don’t know how to explain it.
Santa Claus, Kris Kringle, or Father Christmas, is still very real to
me. Okay, okay, I know I buy the
presents, but it isn’t that. It’s that
ethereal and unspoken sense of innocence and the chance of being whole yet
again. It’s the sense of fantasy that
becomes so real that it’s hard to put it away in a dusty old box labeled
“forever gone.”
As
we weary parents plod through each day, life is hard. We hide these things from our offspring. We put on fake smiles—that they see through
immediately, to lighten the day and evening at home. Our homes are where we are most vulnerable. They’ll learn soon enough that being a
grownup isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
So
tonight, when Erin arrived home from summer camp with tooth taped in a paper
cup, I needed to explain to her the realities of life. She questioned and I had to answer. Yes, dear old Mom and Dad made it for
her. We were the ones who put the
dollar beneath her pillow at night. The
Tooth Fairy, Mr. Sandman, and the Easter Bunny were all one in the same. Just us.
And, while she was disappointed, she also was dealing in logic which is
the first killer of imagination.
However,
she hasn’t let go of Santa. We have no
chimney for him to climb down. It
rarely snows on Christmas, and when we do get a snow, it’s normally so awful
that it’s scary for her and us.
Me,
I still live for Santa. He hasn’t left
me a gift of the material sort since I was a child, yet his presence is always
felt. It’s the magic of knowing that
he’s really there. These are the things
Erin doesn’t understand yet enough to truly know, or cleave to. What she does understand is that Mommy isn’t
fibbing about Santa. Little kids can
spot a waffling fib at five paces. So,
it must be true. The hard part for me
will come over these next few months.
To
say that I could manage to filter through to a young child the same type of
ethereal feelings I have about Christmas, Santa, and the Elves, is
monumental. The cold facts are that no
presents, however gaily wrapped beneath the tree, are ever really from Santa. No, the elves don’t make them, yet the
spirit is there. Yea, more than that,
it’s the inner knowledge of specialness and uniqueness that we all have. It’s a glow that we grow, tending with
kindness that comes that one season of the year. It’s the gift of realizing that each and all of us is
special. It’s a time of realization and
awareness of one another.
It’s
the adults that plunge into the free-for-all shopping madness to purchase the one special thing their child wants
most at Christmas no matter how it breaks the budget. It matters not all the overtime hours worked, nor the sleepless
hours spent assembling said gift, nor the quiet bickering between spouses as to
who lost the damned instructions. It’s
none of that. Most years, we adults
don’t even get it. It remains such a material and heartbreaking
time. Yet, sometimes, sometimes the
real part of the season shines through.
It’s
when a young child waits quietly to give you their most precious possession
because they have nothing else to give.
They work no job, they have no money, all they have is love. My daughter did that at four years-old to
me. She offered me her favorite toy
when she realized that Mommy and Daddy hadn’t gotten any gifts. All the presents had been for her. She then turned and gave another especially
cherished item to her father. When that happens, it’s like seeing the sun for
the first time.
Oh,
Don took it in stride, but I nearly lost it completely. Things were very tight for us and it wasn’t
that we were worried about it. Neither
of us had realized that our little Erin would notice with the bounty that she’d
received—but she did, and she acted upon it.
What
frightens me most about the passing of the fantasy of these unseen beings is
that Erin will lose her sense of imagination and wonder. Going with it will be the unpondered
possibilities. It’s so hard to keep
that and let go of the rest.
We see it all around and about us. The young and the old seem jaded by life, not uplifted by the wonder of it. Perhaps this is a concrete reason that we introduce to our offspring the chance to believe in something they can’t touch. It’s very like the religions that most of us hold dear. It isn’t tangible, yet we are expected to take that leap of faith. Perhaps these are the baby steps toward that. With that acceptance, aside from abstaining altogether, we put faith into something other than just ourselves and strive harder to be better than what we now are.
Still,
it’s more than that too. Like I
mentioned before. It’s the first killer
of imagination not to mention faith.
When we open ourselves and give ourselves only to find that it all isn’t
what it’s supposed to be.
It’s
just not the oneness or bonding we feel with others, it’s that filling of the
spirit and joy of simply being. That we
are watched over and dear. Each of us
are you know, special that way. Often
we just don’t recognize it as the world buzzes past. It’s time we and our fellows know it. The Tooth Fairy died today for my daughter, yet the touchstone of
our spiritual selves shouldn’t be lost.
Remind yourself this morning or this eve as you shake your head to
regain your bearings that life is more than work, more than vegetating in front
of the tube, it’s about being. And
being special to yourself and others.
Don’t let the Tooth Fairy die in vain.