The Past is Pending

If it were even a remote possibility, I'd wonder if I were pregnant or going through menopause – I found having my wisdom tooth out a strangely emotional experience.

There was less than 24 hours between when I learned the tooth needed to come out and the appointment I booked to have it done – in fact, there was barely more than 12. I dread anything with a potential to cause pain like nobody's business, and I want it over and done with as quickly as possible.

I was fairly zen about the whole thing the evening before. I felt briefly sorry for myself, remembering that when my sister had all four of her wisdom teeth out in high school, my mother was around to look after her (and my parents paid for it).

I remembered the only other wisdom tooth I had taken out: I was alone in London. I'm pretty sure it was in the last few months of my mother's life, and I remember I went to a screening of a very depressing movie about women in Catholic laundries in Ireland after the surgery. (I think I must have also been attempting a diet at the time, because I recall my post-surgery eats consisted almost exclusively of soft M&S Count on Us puddings.)

About an hour before I headed to the doctor's, I decided perhaps I ought to text my sister, just so someone in my family knew I was having this done.

"Wish I were there," wrote my sister. "Will think soothing thoughts."

"I'm thinking turkey meatloaf" – I actually hated all forms of turkey and baked meat-type-product as a child, but this particular creation of my mother's I liked -– "applesauce, and moose soup," I wrote. My mother was an excellent cook, but her most delicious and legendary mistake was nicknamed moose soup –- she tried to make chocolate mousse for a crowd when we were in fourth grade, and it ended up soupy. We tried freezing it to turn it into ice cream, but everyone in the family preferred it in liquid form, spooned up out of these Mexican pottery bowls my parents had.

"Awww, moose soup," my sister wrote. "I'm thinking pastina." My sister loved the tiny pasta stars, served with loads of butter. I'd eat them if someone made them, but I think I preferred grits.

"With a chaser of spinach soufflé?" Another food I haven't eaten since high school.

I had to race to make it to my appointment, and I thought of my sister and all the years of hand-holding at doctors and dentists office she has ahead of her.

As I arrived at the dentist, I felt suddenly panicked, terrified, and overcome. I sat in the chair and remembered my mother taking me for a root canal when I was in college. I remembered in elementary school her taking me to Dr. Wander, the pediatric dentist, and conferring with him out of earshot about a tooth with an abscess after he'd had a look.

"I have to go to the bathroom," I announced, when they returned chairside.

My mother exchanged meaningful glances with the dentist.

"This will only take a second, and you can go after that," he said. He pulled the tooth, and handed it to me in a tiny pink plastic treasure chest.

I had realized years ago that she suspected all along he'd pull the tooth, a baby tooth, and that she'd no doubt told him I'd be terrified. My eyes welled up just thinking about it.

"Wow, your eyes are really red," said the dentist's assistant, returning to the room. "Are you OK?"

I wasn't, but how to explain that you're 35 years old and crying for your nine-year-old self who was naive enough not to appreciate having a mother to take you to the dentist, and for that little girl who had no idea what was coming.

I shrugged. "I think I've just got myself worked up all of a sudden."

"You've got nothing to worry about," she said. "Dr. Markowitz is the oral surgeon for the Rangers." She said the last word in awed tones. I didn't know which New York sports team the Rangers were – I only know football, basketball and baseball, and they're not one of those. (I later found out they're the hockey team.) Either way, I don't find the notion that he's a surgeon for professional athletes reassuring – surely an athlete is good at withstanding pain?

She left, and the harder I tried to stop the tears, the faster they flowed. Luckily I managed to dry my eyes before anyone came back to the room, and returned to my usual coping mechanism, which is to chat away and ask loads of questions. Did you know that in dental school dentists – or at least this particular one – learned to administer Novocaine by practicing on each other? Ugh.

I sat in the chair, waiting for the numbness, memories washing over me. I remembered trips to the dentist and the orthodontist, and my mother's sympathy – she, too, hated and feared the dentist, and I'd inherited her terrible weak teeth. (My father and sister have excellent teeth.) I remembered the parade of waiting rooms I'd sat in for her over the years, starting with one for her orthopaedist, when she broke her leg when I was in middle school. The waiting room had floor to ceiling glass columns; fish tanks.

I remembered in the last years of her life knowing that she was no longer the person I knew – if, in fact, I ever really knew her – when she would walk into the dentist or the doctor completely without fear.

"Mom just marches in there like it's no big deal," my sister observed. The tumors in her brain had robbed her of any ability to express emotion (we couldn't be sure whether she felt it). When her younger brother died suddenly of a heart attack, she seemed to struggle to figure out what the appropriate response should be.

On her birthday that year, about six months after he died, she said: "He's never going to kibitz me again and sing happy birthday." It's one of the few phrases I can hear her voice actually saying. She sounded like she didn't know what to do with the information.

When Dr. Markowitz finished with me, I went to stand up and nearly fainted. I stumbled to the desk to pay, then across the street to fill my prescriptions. (Ever had a meeting with your boss while on Percoset? I highly recommend it.)

On the subway, again, I started crying, and couldn't stop until I got to Times Square. I imagined what Anna Wintour would think if she saw me, and laughed at myself for the thought.