O P I N I O N
NOT THAT PROFOUND
By Nathan Graziano
When I was 12 years old, my cousin and I were racing our bikes on the street in front of my aunt and uncle’s house. We were gliding, neck and neck, toward the finish line at the end of the curb, when my cousin pulled ahead, and my front tire clipped my cousin’s back tire, launching me over the handlebars, face first, onto the cement.
I knocked out my two front teeth in that accident, but with all said and done, it could’ve been worse—much worse.
But I was approaching the age when I was starting to notice girls, and not having my front teeth ushered in the advent of a persistent adolescent malaise over my appearance.
Luckily for me, my parents had dental insurance, and our dentist was able to put temporary crowns on my front teeth, and when I turned 18, I had permanent crowns put in. No one ever noticed.
Still, those crowns pestered me throughout my adult life, occasionally loosening or falling out. Luckily, I had dental insurance and replaced the old crowns with new ones in my late-30s.
A few weeks ago, I had another accident. While moving furniture into my basement with a couple of my son’s friends, I missed the bottom step on the stairs and face-planted into the laminate floor, breaking my nose and knocking the crowns so far back in my mouth that I couldn’t bite down.
After visiting my dentist and an oral surgeon—luckily, I have dental and medical insurance—they determined that the crowns needed to be extracted and replaced with dental implants then a new set of crowns, a process that will take around six months to complete.
With all said and done, it could’ve been worse—much worse.
In the meantime, I’m wearing a cosmetic retainer that I take out to eat and sleep. However, with the marvels of modern dentistry, if I wasn’t writing this column right now and sharing it with the world, few people would ever know my front teeth weren’t real.
But I want to write about this, and I have a hunch that I’m far from the only person to experience some kind of dental trauma. I want to write about how this experience has taught me humility, how the cosmos seems to be keeping my vanity in check.
The fact is that with the retainer out, I look ghoulish with a giant space where my front teeth should be. Perhaps if I were a hockey player, or a boxer, or just some tough guy, I could pull it off. But I’m none of those things. I’m a writer who can be a bit of a dandy, and my vanity has been pinged by this whole ordeal.
At first, I felt a lot of self-pity1. Woe is me. Why do these things always happen to me?
Then I stopped and thought about the people who don’t have dental or medical coverage. I looked at the bill before our insurance kicked in, and my wife and I would’ve had to take out a home equity loan to pay for the dental work that was the result of the accident.
My heart breaks, not for myself, but for the people who are forced to move through the world without their teeth intact, simply because they can’t afford to have them fixed. Should dental health really be a privilege? Is fixing your teeth entirely cosmetic?
Right now, I’m reluctant to smile and find myself unconsciously covering my mouth when I speak2. But this is only temporary for me. For many people without insurance, short of hitting the lottery, it is a life sentence.
Our teeth are not simply about vanity. We should all feel free to laugh and smile whenever the mood strikes us. But I’m not about to launch into some socialist screed about free healthcare3. This is simply about learning empathy and compassion for people whose teeth keep them from feeling beautiful.
And it took two teeth to teach this to me.
- I excel at self-pity. In fact, self-pity could accurately be labeled my default mode. ↩︎
- The worst part, actually, has been learning to talk with the retainer in. Even now, I still sound a little like a young Cindy Brady. ↩︎
- I would, however, be happy to indulge anyone who would like to hear my socialist screed. ↩︎
You can reach Nate Graziano at [email protected].