Sharing a toothbrush

Many of us have been there. A long night alone in the ICU waiting room, watching the first pale light of dawn start to glimmer in the window.

I was worried, tired, disheveled, cranky. And scared. My dad had coded once during the wee hours, his 20+ year-old quadruple bypass not the miracle it had once been.

I was hopeful, too, because the darkest part of the night had passed and because he had made it through to another day.
I was alone, and not just because no one else was in the ICU that night. My mom had passed when I was 19, and I had no siblings.

Suddenly a familiar face appeared around the corner of the door. My cousin Brian. He  had always been like an older brother to me -- letting me play with his train set at Christmas, buying my horse-crazy self my first pair of cowboy boots. He was my hero, and I adored him.

I wasn’t sure I adored who he had brought with him, though. Paulette. They were “together." Understand, I wasn’t a kid by then. I was almost 40. But still. I had dibs on Brian’s attention. And Paulette was intimidating as heck.

I have never, before or since, met a woman with such an assured and marvelous sense of fashion. She always looked totally put together from every hair on her head to the tips of her perfectly manicured fingernails. I never, ever did. Especially not at that moment.

Brian and Paulette had worked in the catheter lab at the hospital for years. After I caught them up on the happenings of the night before, they tried to convince me to go home and get some rest, promising they would stay. When it became clear I wasn’t going anywhere, Paulette reached into her purse. And pulled out…her toothbrush.

She handed it to me with a travel size tube of toothpaste, saying, “I always carry a toothbrush with me. I know just being able to brush your teeth after the night you’ve had will make you feel better.”

Who does that??? And I mean that in the best possible way. What greater act of intimacy and kindness than sharing your toothbrush with someone you hardly know.

That’s the moment Paulette and I became lifelong friends, and sisters-in-our-own-way. She was the epitome of the Shakespeare quote from Midsummer Night's Dream, "And though she be but little, she is fierce."

You didn’t mess with her -- and you sure didn’t mess with those she cared about.

My dad made it through that hospital stay and lived on for a number of years.

Brian is still his crazy, funny, irascible self, despite having suffered horribly from Agent Orange poisoning after two tours of duty as a medic in Vietnam.

And Paulette? She was as fierce and determined in her dying as she was in her living. Once she entered hospice, she spent a day with each dear friend and member of her extended family, smiling over cherished memories while she could still sit up in her chair.

She and I shared our day full of goodbyes on a beautiful sunny day last October. And we had one last laugh about the toothbrush story.

And I think about her every time I brush my teeth.

Melissa Moss has lived on Amelia Island for eight years and loves the community of strong, smart and kind women friends she has found here. 
If you have a story you'd like to share here in the Fernandina Observer - about a neighbor or friend or stranger or business that showed you kindness, or about kindness and compassion in general - please contact Peggie Weeks at pegweeks@gmail.com