From the DOD: When I was a kid and I put my baby teeth under my pillow I remember getting a nickel or dime or occasionally a quarter. Not long before Mary and Lydia started losing baby teeth we went to Creative Discovery Museum in Chattanooga. The change I got back at the parking booth was dispensed in coin dollars. I decided this would be a wonderful thing for the tooth fairy to leave for my kids, so I collected the several dollars worth and put them up to use for this special purpose. Last night Lydia lost another tooth. The golden dollar coin had been just the ticket for the past couple of years, but Lydia was not looking forward to this treasure this time. She informed me that some of the kids in her class got $5 or $10 or $20 from the tooth fairy! Holy moly! If you see me walking around without a tooth in my head you’ll know that I cashed in! $20!!! I may have to call a parent’s meeting about this! I debated all evening about whether I would cave in. There was no way I was going to put a $20 bill under that pillow. Heck, I didn’t even have a $20 bill on me! No, I decided. I was going to stick to my guns. I said the tooth fairy brings dollar coins so the tooth fairy was bringing a dollar coin! End of story! Or so, I thought. I found the bag I kept the coins in and discovered that I had run out. I looked at the sweet face of my beautiful Lydia while she slept. I thought of a line I had read that very morning from Gilead, a novel by Marilynne Robinson. It’s the story of a minister facing death. He has a young wife and a son who he loves deeply. He decides to leave his son a family history. He writes: “There’s a shimmer on a child’s hair, in the sunlight. There are rainbow colors in it, tiny, soft beams of just the same colors you can see in the dew sometimes. They’re in the petals of flowers, and they’re on a child’s skin. Your hair is straight and dark, and your skin is fair. I suppose you’re not prettier than most children. You’re just a nice-looking boy, a bit slight, well scrubbed and well mannered. All that is fine, but it’s your existence I love you for, mainly…” I dug around in my wallet and found some cash. I wrapped 5 one dollar bills around a toothbrush and tied them with a ribbon. As I gently lifted Lydia’s pillow to collect her dainty little incisor and place the tooth fairy’s offering, I breathed in her hair, kissed her eyelids and whispered a prayer of thanksgiving for her precious existence. –Grace and peace, Rachel
“You are the one who put me together inside my mother's body, and I praise you because of the wonderful way you created me. Everything you do is marvelous! Of this I have no doubt. Nothing about me is hidden from you! I was secretly woven together deep in the earth below, but with your own eyes you saw my body being formed. Even before I was born, you had written in your book everything I would do. Your thoughts are far beyond my understanding much more than I could ever imagine. I try to count your thoughts, but they outnumber the grains of sand on the beach. And when I awake, I will find you nearby.” -Psalms 139: 13-18 (The Message)