(This is NOT my tooth, but mine could look like this if left untreated)

When I was five my father (Horace Dewey “H.D.” Blanton) decided to go to college and become a dentist. He succeeded. In the course of his training he had to work in the school’s dental clinics, where he/other dental students practiced on people with real dental issues to learn their craft.

But instead of just practicing on people with tooth problems who signed up and came in for the clinics, he decided to get extra practice. He did so on me - drilling out all my teeth for no reason other than to practice on a real person. That’s right.

When I was 9 he drilled and filled perfectly healthy teeth that had NO cavities just so he could practice filling cavities. That, of course, weakens teeth, setting them up for problems as an adult. That’s kind of like a doctor removing your healthy spleen or breaking a normal, healthy bone to practice their medical skills. Thinking back on it now I feel betrayed. I feel horror, shame, loss, fear and extreme anger and resentment.

It wasn’t just me he practiced on. When I was 10 he pulled ALL of my aunt’s teeth so she could get dentures…and he did THAT in the back bedroom of our house without the proper equipment. I remember her screaming and all the blood and bloody towels in the sink….when my brother cut his thumb half off with a saw (literally), my father stitched it up himself rather than go to the emergency room.

Now, at age 54, I’ve got a mouth full of teeth that are chipping, cracking and in need of crowns and other work and I can’t afford it because of the unnecessary work that was done on them when I was a child. Without that work, I wouldn’t have the problems I do now.

My teeth hurt ALL the time. ALL the time. I don’t have dental insurance, and I need at least three crowns. Crowns are at least $1,200 apiece. One of the teeth may be so far gone it will have to be pulled. It hurts to eat. It hurts to brush my teeth. It just hurts constantly. If things had ended with the drilling, that would be more than enough. But it doesn’t end there. He affected my heart, spirit, soul and mind as well as my mouth.

Not only did my father drill out my teeth, because when he DID work on me he also drugged, molested and abused me in the dental chair, so I have a horrific fear of dentists. Being in a dental chair is a nightmare for me. I wondered if it was just me, but no, my cousin said he did the same to her…as he did to others.

Crowns and the dental work will run into the thousands of dollars. I don’t want dentures. At this point I don’t need them, but I do need extensive work or I’ll be forced to get them. So I’m angry. I’m angry that I have to be in pain all the time.

In 1990, the last thing my father said to me was, “I wish you were dead. I wish you had never been born. I wish you weren’t my daughter.” I responded, “Well I wish you weren’t my father and I wish I had never been born to you either.” I walked away and didn’t speak to him for another 15 years - until I learned he was dying of brain cancer. The night I heard about the cancer I thought long and hard about what my next step would be.

I knew that if I didn’t at least talk to him and get some closure over our last argument, that I would regret it the rest of my life - that it would eat at me and possibly cause cancer in me. So the next day I called him. We talked as though it had only been days, not years since we talked. Later I visited him, had dinner with him several times and asked him about all the things he had done to me and asked him why he had done them. He told me about his depression and anger and how he didn’t know what else to do at the time. He confessed he had planned to kill me, my brother and mother and then kill himself, but never got the courage to do so - even though he did get drunk and hold a gun on us all one night.

I began to see his pain, and although I believed he had choices and had made wrong ones and bad ones, over the next weeks and months I told him I forgave him. I later wrote about it in an essay that I sent to Tim Russert, who was collecting stories of fathers from their children. It’s titled, “The Monster,” (Now you know why). Tim published the story, and added a chapter on forgiveness to his book because of that. My father died less than a year later, but I have always been glad I contacted him and forgave him for what he had done.

I forgave my father for a lot of his abuses - not because I thought it was okay, but because I knew that only through forgiveness can we move forward with our lives. But it’s like God forgiving us. He keeps peeling the layers back so we can see ALL we need to be forgiven for.

I’ve realized this past week that the one thing I didn’t forgive him for was what he did to my teeth, and for how it is affecting me now. The horror, betrayal, pain - all of it is with me - and especially now - because I can’t afford to have my teeth fixed. So the anger is almost unfathomable. And yet, I’m forgiving him. I have to or it will destroy me. Anger and resentment is linked to heart disease, cancer and all sorts of problems I want less than the tooth.

I’m in fear of losing all my teeth, and of the health problems that come with that. I feel trapped, scared, frightened and hysterical with fear - the fear of him still able to reach from beyond the grave to harm me….which is how it feels. He’s dead, but the abuse he perpetuated on me…. is there and will always be there. I can’t describe what it’s like to NOT be able to escape your tormentor - even in death.

I forgave him for everything else - the torture, the physical and sexual abuse, the psychological abuse, and the times he “practiced” (as he said) killing my brother and me by smothering and drugging us. But there’s something about his destroying my teeth…. which is more than I can comprehend.

I’m awake at 4 a.m. because of the pain of one bad tooth….and I’m just totally miserable. Not an hour goes by that I don’t think of my friend that died last year from a bad tooth. What do you do? Without insurance or the thousands of dollars for dental care….there’s not much I can do. I think about all the people in this country that can’t afford dental or medical care and I get it, I really get it why something needs to be done. But what?

The first step is forgiveness. After that? I don’t know. I’ll let you know when I do.