A few days after dad died, Olivia, who was seven at the time, lost her tooth. Not a big deal, right?! Wrong! Dad has spoiled that girl with a gold coin for every lost tooth. He loved playing tooth fairy with her. It was their thing. I panicked. What do I do? Do I tell her the tooth fairy is not real? Do I tell her the tooth fairy died with Papa? Where do I get gold coins? I broke down and cried and cried. I missed dad so much and now I missed him all over again but through the eyes of the kids I realized Papa was gone. I went to his room, which I still hadn’t cleaned out yet and just sat on the bed, waiting for some wisdom to come my way. I prayed and asked for help, “dad what am I supposed to do now”? Nothing. No answer. I figured I might as well clean up a bit while I was in his room and then….JACKPOT! I found Papa’s secret stash. He had a bowl full of gold coins and $2.00 bills. I cried again, but this time, it was bitter sweet.
That night, Olivia went to sleep waiting for the tooth fairy to come in and leave her gold coin. I was so emotional; I couldn’t bring myself to play tooth fairy. I enlisted my husband to carry out the task. What would I do without him?! The next morning, Olivia woke up, found her tooth replaced with a gold coin and added it to her growing collection. I had enough coins to get us through her baby teeth falling out and to keep the magic going a little longer.

During my little one’s lives, Papa was baby sitter, comforter, nurse, tutor, driver, tooth fairy, Santa, Easter bunny and all the magical roles in between. Olivia is 10 now and helps me us keep the magic going strong for David and Daniel. How I unintentionally enlisted her is another story to be written on another day.