by Roshan Richards

Created on: February 13, 2009   Last Updated: September 25, 2009

My 12-year-old son was diligently working on a loose baby tooth a few weeks back. He had mentioned a couple of times about how it was soon to go the way of the all baby teeth, and how he was looking forward to the generosity of the tooth fairy; but, I only half heard and acknowledged his comments due to hot and cold running teenagers and a list of things to do as long as my arm. One night at supper he looked at me and broadly smiled a knowing smile. I caught the emphasis and looked at him a second, then realizing it was a missing tooth, congratulated him on losing yet another one. "Mom, this isn't just another tooth. This is my last tooth. I think the tooth fairy should bring me $5," he said with a gapped and impish grin. I sat there staring at him with the words .last tooth - last tooth ringing in my ears. You see, it wasn't just his last tooth. It was mine. He is my baby, the last. I struggled to finish lifting my fork to my mouth, which had stopped mid air with what seemed the heaviest mashed potatoes I had ever eaten. All I managed to say was $5 was a bit pricey in this economy but the tooth fairy was sure to bring more than the normal booty for one who was gifting his very last baby tooth.

It was many years ago when I read a fabulously written freelance article in O, The Oprah Magazine about a woman's experience with last times. It outlined a life-truth about how we notice and celebrate the first times in our lives but the last times so often go unnoticed. She had written about how her daughter had fallen asleep in her bed and she went to pick her up to take her to her own room, but she couldn't lift her. She wondered when had been the last time she could pick her up and mourned that it had gone unnoticed because it was unknown. Despite my aggravated efforts to locate that article and author, my attempts to find it again have been fruitless so instead I have played the profound lesson of that article in my mind as I have watched my children grow. I wanted to at least try and notice the last times and brand them to my memory, if possible. Would this be the last time I can carry him up the stairs? Would this be the last time he can sit on my lap? Will this be the last hand-crafted Christmas present? Will this be the last time he isn't embarrassed to kiss me in public? Will this be the last time he listens to my advice?

I did my best. I really did. But, true to that anonymous author's word most of those lasts I don't know because they couldn't be known. Time and events have a way of slipping in to blur the details and numb our knowing. I think it is life's way of being kind, really, for how can we truly go forward if with each step we must pause for mourning? Yet, there are times, like with my son's last tooth, where life sparingly gives us precious tokens for pause. And we mourn them. Life reminds us with these lasts that all seasons and things must end. It whispers that there will be a last kiss, a last touch, a last look, and breath. And it declares with this truth of inevitable lasts that we must truly live, for time is short.

So here was one of my tokens in the form of a tooth. It is a last for me. I cried as I placed the money ever so gently under his pillow so not to wake him. And he didn't. Never again will I be the tooth fairy. How naive I was to think I always would be.

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