Teeth and Mortality
A few weeks ago I was visiting friends and having a jovial time. There was nothing out of the ordinary. I went to the bathroom and washed my hands. I looked in the mirror and noticed, as I often do, the repair job on my chipped front tooth. It isn’t obvious, but if you look, it’s there. You can imagine what it looks like without the repair.
I thought about how teeth don’t grow back. That at some point, if they get bad enough, they’re replaced. Some older folks have whole rows replaced with fabricated teeth. False teeth are funny in cartoons and chatter by themselves.
For some reason, the potential loss and damage of teeth became so real in my head, that it led to what felt like the next logical step. The disintegration and death of the body. Teeth seem to be some kind of indicator of general health, age and vitality. People who buy animals look at their teeth. When people used to buy other people, they looked at their teeth. Bad teeth mean sickness, old age and death.
I’ve been aware of my mortality before. I’ve come close to death a couple of times. Those few brushes seemed intense, but there was never this kind of stop. Like all the blood settled to my feet. I saw my teeth disappearing. I could feel my body disintegrating. Slowing down. Ceasing to repair itself. I felt the inevitability of death - what it must feel like to know this body is fading away and there’s no bringing it back.
It’s the thing that holds my soul. This vessel is all I have, to continue to speak, to eat, to see and to love. To hear music and sing, to draw, write, act, yearn, debate, kiss, nestle, play, dance, drum, this is all I have. And it is going to wear out. It will die. I will die.
None of this is news. I know about death. But knowing and feeling are so very different. And in that moment, looking in the mirror, I felt it like I’ve never felt it before. It’s one of the scariest and saddest things I’ve ever felt.
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