Kitchen Ice Skating

A playful kitchen mishap leaves me toothless, teaching me a lasting lesson about identity, vulnerability, and growing up.

1992-

The first thing anyone sees when meeting someone new is a smile. The day I lost my two most precious pearly whites stands alone in time. Surprisingly still sturdy, yet oddly sharp, front and center for the whole world not to see—they were no longer there at all. My most valued coral enamel, just gone. Lost forever.

---

The seventies kitchen was a riot of color and pattern, with dark solid wood, Mediterranean-style cabinets, and canary yellow vinyl countertops. Matching canary and green swirls of vividness laminated the floor. Every day, my brother and I had the chore of doing dishes before Mom and Dad came home from work. We would fill the sink with warm soapy water—using way too much water and twice as much soap. Then, we’d press our thumb and pointer finger together in a teardrop shape and blow brightly opalescent pear-shaped bubbles. We took turns blowing long spouts of hot carbon dioxide toward the bubbles, seeing who could keep theirs afloat the longest. Then came the challenge of popping each other’s airballs as quickly as we could make them. The overflowing kitchen sink made the soapy, iridescent bubbles cascade to the floor. Water squished between our toes as we stepped in the slushy puddles.

My fifteen-year-older brother and I could always find a way to turn a chore into a mischievously fun time. Being three years younger, I always looked up to him with inquisitive eyes, eager to see what adventures the day would bring. Towering at six foot two, with broad shoulders—bold and robust—a cheerleader, to be exact, he stood tall washing the dishes. I was twelve, not yet through puberty, fifty-nine inches small, standing on the top step of a footstool rinsing dishes to his right. The stool allowed me to meet his eyes and reach every challenge he threw my way.

Shrills of joyous hysteria escaped my mouth as we slipped and slid around the kitchen floor. My brother could make any boring situation into a magnificently exciting game. Most days, his facial expressions made me keel over with laughter—especially when he’d sculpt a Santa beard with pastels of rainbow prism-scope gooeyness on his chin.

That day, we decided we were entering the Grand Prix skating competition. We choreographed jumps, axels, spins, toe picks, and loops. We performed every move to earn a perfect ten. Ice skating is a sport in which people glide over a smooth, icy surface on sharp blades. Ice and skates are typically required—but we had the perfect rink: slick floors and smooth feet, slippery as a greased pig.

The floor was so slick it felt like ball bearings on steel. Before I even knew what had happened, my face bounced off the rock-hard floor like a basketball. I heard the crooked floor smack the front of my face. The pain was like a soaked towel whipped against raw skin. An intense, abnormal torture shot through my mouth and up to my brain. My eyes widened—like the unwashed breakfast plates forgotten in the sink. In place of my teeth was a dark cave where my tongue now peered out, like a bear emerging from hibernation. The blood in my mouth tasted of copper, salty like a handful of pennies. I felt my throat closing. A deep shiver ran through my lower lip, warmed by the tears that dripped down my face as I gasped for quick, shallow breaths. But no sound came out.

As I carefully turned in terror toward my brother, I tried to speak. “This isn’t happ-en-thing,” I lisped, blood pouring from the gap where my teeth once were, staining my already soaked shirt—a mix of tears and dishwater.

Once my brother caught his breath from laughing at my fall, he quickly realized I was in the worst psychological state a little sister could be in. His Cheshire cat grin shattered like broken glass dropped to the floor. He scrambled to grab a dry towel from a nearby drawer, then quickly opened the freezer, scooped out some ice, placed it in the towel, and handed it to me.

The ice felt like an unimaginably hard, icy phantom as I pressed it against my face. I winced in pain. It felt like a million fire ants launching a full attack.

He ran down the hall, grabbing every clean towel in the house. Instantly, he shifted into a panicked cleanup mode. Like a firefighter battling a grease fire, he moved faster than I’d ever seen before. Sheer terror took over his face as his eyes grew ten times their normal size and his skin turned pale with dread. Like a broken record, he kept repeating, “They’re going to blame me. They’re going to blame me,” as he scrambled around the kitchen—until he suddenly stilled. Then, with dread in his voice, he picked up the phone and made the irrational, dreaded call to our mom at work. She needed to come home early.

That day, I learned how to be silent, aware of myself, helpless—and much smaller. I lost more than teeth; I lost a part of my whole self. But I also gained something. The realization that what people see first—my smile—was now broken. Still white. Slightly crooked. Surprisingly sturdy. And yes… sharp. The question remained: could I put the brokenness back together again? I was going to have to learn to be so much bigger than a broken smile.