In the attic of our sage green, 850-square-foot house on West 12th Street in Juneau, Alaska, Ben found four things:  

• An old wicker baby stroller
• A hatbox with a fancy brown ladies dress hat 
• A dark grey hand muff edged in fur  
• A partial gold denture made with real teeth  

Ben showed me the hat and hand muff. He told me about the stroller we couldn’t bring down because of an old remodel job that made the attic opening too small. Then he grinned and presented me with a small jewelry box. “Here Julie. This is for you from Mrs. Lea.”

I look at his big grin and know I should be suspicious, but I’ve been home with a newborn baby and a three-year-old, and I’m a bit starved for attention. “Oh Ben! Thanks! Wow! Who’s Mrs. Lea?” I ask excitedly, opening the present. He’s grinning. 

“She used to own this house,” he reminds me, with a chuckle of anticipation. 

I carefully unwrap and lift the lid off the little box. “Oh! Yuck! What IS this?!” Ben bursts out laughing as I hold up a gold partial denture and read his note: For Julie. Love, Mrs. Lea.  

“God! That’s just gross! I can’t believe you’d wrap it up and give it to me for a present!” We’re both laughing.  

Then, impulsively, I open my mouth and pop this ancient partial denture into my mouth. Like a kid, I’m curious if it’ll fit. It doesn’t occur to me that this might be forbidden, until I take it out of my mouth and look at Ben, horrified. I’ve never put someone else’s teeth into my mouth before. Plastic gums painted pink. Gold bands attached to real teeth. The teeth are small like mine. He’s still laughing. I’m not.  

Twenty-five years later, I’m looking in the mirror and crying. I’ve just had two failed teeth from a bridge pulled out of my mouth. Now I have a three-tooth gap visible when I talk. In public I’m grateful for my Covid-19 face mask protection. When I laugh, my hand covers my mouth. Self-conscious, I hide my smile even from Ben.

I grieve the loss of my teeth, even though my sinuses are no longer swollen from infection. 

I grieve the loss of my teeth, even though I can afford expensive implants. After a bone graft and painful sinus lift, the dentist says it will be several months before he’ll know for sure if I’m able to tolerate implants.   

I grieve the loss of my teeth, because somehow it brings me too close to Gloria. She lost all of her teeth before she was 40 years old. I’ve inherited Gloria’s smile and her teeth. But I’ve always been able to keep my smile intact. Cavities filled. Crowns glued on. Until now.  

The dentist fits me with a temporary upper partial denture. It’s tight, thick, and clunky, but it looks good.  My tongue can’t rest on the roof of my mouth because of all the plastic. I am on automatic pilot, doing a bad job of fighting back tears. “When you get home, read a book out loud for a half hour. That will help you to learn how to talk with this in your mouth.” The dental assistant is kind. I’ve known her for years. I nod and look away.

Losing teeth is a sweet rite of passage for children. I smile, thinking about how special my mom made the magic of the tooth fairy, hiding coins under my pillow in exchange for a tooth. I’ve still got several of those first baby teeth taped into my original baby book, which begins at four days old. Ben and I created that same ritual for our kids. Now that I think of it, I go looking for the jewelry box with our kids’ baby teeth in it. I’m not as organized as my mom was with a baby book, but I still kept everything. I find sweet little tiny teeth, each one naming the age and child. That’s when I see Mrs. Lea’s dentures and I find myself slipping them into my mouth again, thinking of Gloria.

TOOTHLESS

Teeth rotting in her mouth, pain pills numbing the shooting nerves, Gloria finally has them all pulled, bringing an unfamiliar relief. Her mouth is sore for a long time, but it’s nothing compared to the head-stabbing pain of teeth disintegrating in her head. When she gets her full set of dentures fitted, she has a beautiful smile, thick wavy brown-black hair, and a swagger that turns heads once again.  

This is short lived because not long after, Gloria loses the bottoms of her set of dentures. She has no idea what happened or where they went. Retelling her story to older sisters Betty and Barbara, who try to talk her into coming back with them to Washington, she cracks herself up by showing them that she’s still got the tops. Then erupting into peels of outright laughter, she tells them that she lives for free at an old bail bondsman’s apartment. He lets her sleep there as long as she agrees to clean his little apartment topless. Yes, she laughs, at least she’s still got her top.  

It’s part of the routine. Friends, family, doctors, social workers. They all try to help her. Family comes to visit and is horrified that she lives like this. Some family members shame her youngest daughter, saying, “You’re mother is a tramp and a prostitute.” Horrified at the empty cans and bottles, the overflowing ashtrays and garbage, they can’t understand why Gloria would choose to live this way when they have exhausted themselves trying to help her out of her tragic situation for as long as she’s been crazy.  

She asks for money, always one step away from eviction or having her babies removed or being locked up for delusional ideations. No wonder she isn’t quick to accept people’s help, but still, it’s hard on her big sisters who love her so much. No one knows how to help her. No one understands what happens when she goes crazy—so crazy that she loses her teeth, literally. No one understands why she won’t come home.

When she dies, Gloria is homeless, toothless, and completely out of her mind, which is why they put her in a nursing home and assigned her a guardian. She refused palliative care at the end of her life, even though all those nurses are trying to do is help her to die pain-free, in peace. She even fights that. Well wouldn’t any of us, with a life like Gloria’s?  

Toothless. No ability to bite or sink one’s teeth into. Toothless. Can’t sing or whistle, breathe the smell of rotting nerves and despair. Toothless. No ability to chew on the cud of life. A head thrown back in one of her signature laughs flashing swollen gums. Toothless. The softest moments of her life being the tender foods she held in her mouth before swallowing.   

Gloria worked three doctors at a time to help ease the hallucinations, to help ease the grief that swallowed her like thick volcanic ash, to help ease the loss of each of her four children. To help ease the pain of living. To help feed the chemical addiction of getting by. Gloria was a schizophrenic, alcoholic, addict who was toothless, topless, and still laughed about how crazy her world was. Gloria is my mother.