The Tooth Fairy Hangs 'em Up
September 10, 1998
5:49 a.m.
There are moments. Milemarkers in life. Things that reach up and grab me and let me know something important has occured. Things that make me understand that this is a one-way trip. Sly things that you don't really even think of and don't realize how important they are until they're already pretty much passed. Then it's too late to see them again. You cannot go back. Innocence lost is always gone. Brigid learned about the tooth fairy yesterday. She found the evidence, put two and two together, and next thing you know Lisa and I were busted. She told me in the kitchen. We were eating chicken and rice and broccoli. She was wearing blue rose earrings in her pierced ears. Lisa had already told me the news via e-mail (Brigid had confronted her earlier in the morning), but I hadn't seen it on Brigid's face or heard it out of her lips. Knowing what was coming, I postponed her announcement, put it off by asking stupid questions and injecting comments that threw Brigidr off the track of what she was saying. But the vehicle keeps moving no matter how hard you jam on the brakes. I looked at Lisa after Brigid told me of her discovery. She was particularly beautiful at that moment. I couldn't tell you exactly why--shared experience, I suppose, but it was a very complex moment and I wouldn't pretend to understand why I think and feel various things at such times. Brigid drank her milk, the full glass almost too big for her hand, the flowing surface jittering close to the brim . . . so close to disaster. She licked milk off her lips and told us about what she had told her friends. Lisa had explained to her that she shouldn't let any of her friends in on this little secret because other parents might want to hold off on the details until later. But this was too juicy to pass up. She apparently checked the status of each friend's understanding before going further, but the message almost certainly got across. Sigh. like always, though, I gave Brigid a bedtime story last night, reading from Dinotopia and talking about the story as I went. She held her little stuffed kitty to her chest as I read. She bargained for another page passed where I was going to stop. She tried to play the tickle game before I left. There are more milemarkers in the distance, I know. And they will come no matter how much I wish otherwise. But this morning I'm peering into the rearview mirror for a last glimpse at this one as it fades into the distance, hoping to hold onto a glimmer of her innocence and experience a last morning where my daughter still believes in the touch of magic the tooth fairy brought to her life. And maybe, just maybe, remembering when I had a touch of that innocence in my own life.  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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