Last night, Ryder bit into an apple and lost another tooth – his seventh – right before bedtime. He put his baby tooth inside his tiny fabric tooth pouch and stuck it beneath his pillow. The only trouble? He now loves sleeping in our guest room – in a double bed vs. his “little kid” car bed. He was concerned that the Tooth Fairy might not think to look for him there. So, he wrote this note to her and placed it in his real bed. A brilliant move. And, sure enough, she found him in the guest room and left a dollar behind.
“I’ve never really seen her,” he told me yesterday. “But I know she’s really real.”
He has no proof, of course. No pictures, no sightings. But he has no need for evidence; he has an unshakable faith. One night, I think after he’d lost Tooth #5, the Tooth Fairy didn’t show up. When he came into my room the next morning to tell me, my heart sank. I felt so awful. And I held my breath, waiting for my boy to wonder out loud if she was really real.
But he didn’t skip a beat. “Guess she had a really busy night and couldn’t get here,” he said. “I bet she’ll make it tonight.”
Of course, I know eventually his faith will be tested to the max. It will break my heart to watch, each and every time. First with Santa and the Tooth Fairy. Someday with angels and spirits and love and God. My hope is that he’ll realize we are are blessed every day by unseen forces. But he will have to discover and decide for himself what he believes. I can’t do it for him; faith cannot be forced. I can only promise that whenever he has questions or worries or revelations to share, I will be there for him…right next door.
