Last October one of my front teeth came loose. I wasn’t my real tooth, but a post and crown, and the post had deteriorated. As is typical with dentists, I was told that I would need an expensive and painful extraction/implant to solve the problem. I didn’t like the idea, but accepted it. What I couldn’t accept was my dentist’s smug pronouncement that if the loose tooth came out whilst I waited for my surgery, I would have to go without a front tooth until my appointment.

“But I’m a teacher,” I cried. I can’t talk properly without a front tooth. My dentist held firm. If the tooth came out, I would be spending my days with a gaping whole in the front of my smile.

My bad luck didn’t end there. It was the end of the year, and the oral surgeon was jammed with people trying to get in before their deductibles renewed in January. The nearest appointment was six weeks away.

In that time I lost sleep, I fretted. I stopped biting into anything, and in the end stopped chewing entirely on the side where my loose tooth resided. Every time the tooth moved I froze and checked to see if it was still there. The second I woke up each morning I quickly ran my tongue across my teeth, making sure my sleep-grinding hadn’t knocked it out. The day they took the mold of my upper jaw for the surgery–a gummy mixture that had to be set and pried off– I sat shaking in the chair, tears in my eyes as I feared having to go weeks without the tooth.

It wasn’t just about the impaired talking I pleaded with my dentist about. I’ve seen myself without this tooth and it’s frightening. My whole face changes, leaving me looking…well…hickish. Uneducated. Freaky. My worry and sleeplessness was simple vanity. I felt I’d be looked at differently and judged unfairly without a front tooth.

The day of the surgery I had to leave the surgeon’s office and walk toothless across the road to my dentist’s office to have my partial denture fitted. Veri-husband dutifully sat in the waiting room during the surgery, and when I came out after the extraction, I tried to keep my numb and swollen lips closed over the gape. Though my husband has proven so many times that not matter how I looked, he would still love me for me — I foolishly didn’t want him to see me toothless. The denture was fitted and my fears were *finally* over.

Back at school I was talking to a parent who was born deaf and runs a sign-language activity. By ‘talk’ I mean me flailing my arms around trying to remember the few signs I know, and her gamely reading my lips. She asked about how I was healing, and I tried to explain to her that I was fine, but the denture was giving me trouble. I had trouble getting across the word, “denture” largely because I don’t think it’s a word she was looking for me to use. And then, without thinking, I popped the denture out to show her it…and my gaped smiled. Just like that, I showed her the very thing I’d been vainly trying to hide – from everyone, including my husband.

The only explanation I can think of is that, compared to her daily struggles, a hole in the middle of my mouth is nothing. Compared to her constant battle to understand be understood, which I watch her do with endless patience, grace, and humor, I didn’t fear judgment or disgust. Just acceptance.