"Hi everyone. I'm home!" Baruch called in a hearty voice as
he slammed the door.
Devorah, Yanky and Leah came running down the steps.
"Baruch, come see the latest stamps in my collection," Yanky
begged before Baruch had a chance to drape his jacket over a
dining room chair.
"Baruch, I've been waiting for you all week. You must help me
with my Chumash project tonight," Devorah informed
him. "It's due on Monday."
Little Leah just held on to Baruch's hand, with a wide grin
on her sweet face.
Baruch smiled at his younger siblings. "Guys, give me a
minute to taste Mommy's chocolate cake, then I'm all yours,
okay?"
His siblings nodded.
Baruch came home from his Yeshiva every Shabbos. When he
arrived, the house livened up. His happiness and love of life
rubbed off on his family and the days that he was home were
their favorite time of the week.
At sixteen, Baruch was mature and wise beyond his years. His
whole demeanor bespoke self-confidence and self-assurance.
People marveled at this young boy who believed in himself and
others to the point that everyone felt important and content
in his presence. Baruch had come a long way from the unhappy
and angry teenager he once was.
* * * * * * *
"Good morning," thirteen-year-old Baruch mumbled.
His father, Yossi, glanced at his son's face before
responding. It was sullen and angry. He sighed. It had been
weeks since he had last seen a smile on him.
"Good morning, Baruch," Yossi replied cheerfully. "How did
you sleep?"
Baruch muttered something unintelligible beneath his breath
as he stirred his coffee.
"Is anything bothering you?" Yossi asked, hoping that Baruch
wouldn't blow his top at this innocent question.
At first Baruch didn't answer. Then, he seemed to remember
his manners and said, "It's fine. I'll handle things on my
own."
Yossi already knew this line by heart. To him, these words
entered through his ears and left through his grown, fatherly
heart, leaving gaping holes and a resounding ache.
"Last time I checked, I was your father. And fathers usually
want to help their sons."
Baruch gulped down his hot coffee and ran out the door. Yossi
gazed after him with a mixture of love and pity. He sighed
again. He had to find a way to reach Baruch's closed, angry
heart. But how?
The days and weeks dragged on for a confused Baruch and his
exasperated parents.
"Baruch, can you give me a hand with the window?" Yossi
called over his shoulder as he attempted to pull the stubborn
window open.
No response.
"Baruch, how about a trip to the pizza shop, just you and
me?" his mother, Fraida, offered generously.
No reaction.
"Baruch, how come you don't play Lego with me anymore?" Yanky
complained.
Not even a blink.
When Baruch entered the house, the only greeting his family
heard was the angry slam of the door. When he left, the
goodbye was much the same.
The sun continued to rise and set. The moon and stars
appeared each evening. The flowers and trees grew. But in
their house, Yossi, Fraida, their son Baruch and his siblings
felt like there was something terribly wrong with their
little world.
Yossi tried talking to his son. Fraida tried talking to her
son. They both tried talking to their son together. They told
him how much they cared for him. They told him how special he
was to them. Baruch would shrug his shoulders. They just said
so because they knew that they had to say it. They didn't
really mean it. He encased his heart with an impenetrable
sheet of anger. Why didn't his parents know what was going on
in his heart? Parents who cared always knew, didn't they?
He walked around with his head bent low, feeling miserable
and sorry for himself. He dragged his feet and the slightest
provocation was enough to set off a major explosion. Nobody
cared. Nobody really understood. Life at thirteen was
hard.
One morning, as Baruch stamped his way to the front door, his
mother called after him.
"Baruch, the dentist called to confirm the appointment for
today at three o'clock."
Baruch froze. He slowly turned around and for the first time
in a while, he looked his mother in the eyes.
"I'm not going." He stated.
Fraida sighed. "Yes, you are, dear."
Baruch shook his head stubbornly and opened the door. Fraida
came into the hallway. She wiped her hands on her apron.
"Baruch, you remember what happened last time you refused to
go. You'll just regret it again."
She watched as Baruch shrugged.
"I'll come with you," she offered kindly.
Baruch didn't respond. He shrugged again and walked out of
the door.
He hated the dentist. He hated his drill, he hated the smell
of the place, he hated the pain that came along with it. And
he hated the dumb, blue chair that they made him sit in.
However, at three that afternoon, Baruch was sitting on the
detested, blue chair. The dentist poked his fingers into his
mouth.
"Hmm, I think I see a little cavity. Let's take a quick x-ray
and we'll make sure."
They took the x-ray. The dentist ran his experienced eyes
over it.
"Yes, as I thought. We'll have to take care of it as soon as
possible."
Baruch groaned.
The dentist laughed. "Sorry, my boy. You know your teeth. If
we let it go, then in three months time you'll have a root
canal."
Baruch wasn't laughing.
The dentist turned to Fraida. "Ask my secretary to schedule
an appointment for him next week. And I suggest that you tell
your husband to come along to hold him down." He jerked his
shoulder in Baruch's direction and laughed.
Baruch bit down on his lips. How inappropriate! Did he have
to make a whole joke out of his patient's fears?
*
The teeth problem first surfaced when Baruch was two years
old. His mother noticed that his teeth were slightly
discolored. She bought a little toothbrush with a tractor on
the tip, smeared a dot of cherry flavored toothpaste on the
soft bristles and brushed his tiny teeth. However, the more
she brushed, the darker the color became. She took him to see
the dentist.
The dentist peered into Baruch's small mouth. He tapped and
scraped and said. "It's plain bad teeth. We'll have to treat
it now before the teeth rot and reach his gums."
They became a regular at the dentist's office. The dentist
poked and pulled and two-year-old Baruch grew terrified to
step into the toothpaste-smelling office. Every appointment
kept was torture for the toddler. He took one look at the
blue chair and ran out the door as fast as his tiny feet
allowed. Yossi or Fraida, whoever was the `lucky' parent to
take him at the time, would lift him and carry him back. They
calmed him down, but still had to hold him to the chair with
force.
No amount of bribery and threats helped the situation.
Baruch, at the young age of two, shuddered at the word
dentist. And, after the treatment was finally completed, the
dentist insisted on seeing him every six months
religiously.
"With teeth like his, you have to be extremely careful," he
warned.
As the years passed, Baruch's fear and dread of the dentist
didn't diminish; it grew stronger and more intense. His
parents had to literally drag him to his appointments.
When he was eight years old, Baruch decided that he had
enough. He wasn't going to see any more dentists for the rest
of his life. He wasn't going for cleanings, he wasn't going
for any fillings. He wasn't going. Period.
His parents begged and threatened and bribed and promised,
but Baruch wouldn't budge. He refused and that was that.
For one whole, blissful year, he didn't step into the
dentist's office, but, boy, did he pay for it later. It began
as a small toothache. But after a few nights, it felt like
his teeth were constantly under a drill. During yeshiva, he
couldn't concentrate; all he could think about was the pain
in his mouth. At night, the throbbing pain kept him awake. Of
course, he didn't tell his parents. They would have said, "I
told you so" and dragged him to the dentist so fast.
At this point, he wasn't sure he didn't want the dentist to
take care of the pain, but he didn't want to be the one to
ask for an appointment. One day during yeshiva, the pain
became so unbearable that he put his head down on his desk
and cried. Alarmed, his rebbe called his mother. His mother
came to pick him up and took him directly to the dentist.
Root canal was the verdict.
The procedure was agony for Baruch. And it definitely didn't
help improve the way he viewed the dentist and his office.
However, what it did do was to convince him that the bi-
annual cleanings might be worth the trouble if they could
prevent the dreadful pain that he had felt for the past few
weeks.
Now, at thirteen, things weren't much different. He was
supposed to be a man, but with the dentist's fingers in his
mouth, he certainly didn't feel like one. His father still
had to shlep him to the chair and if any fillings were
required, he had to hold Baruch's arm down, so that he
wouldn't push away the dentist's hands while he was in the
middle of doing his delicate work.
*
The secretary scheduled another appointment for the next
week.
Yossi picked Baruch up from Yeshiva and sat with him in the
waiting room. Baruch, as usual, didn't converse with his
father. They sat side by side, but worlds apart. Yossi tried
to open the conversation a few times, but after the seventh
attempt, he got the hint that Baruch wasn't about to open his
mouth. If only Baruch knew how much he wanted to help and
understand him.
The hygienist called Baruch's name. Yossi stood up. Baruch
followed him into the office.
Baruch bit his lips as he sat himself unto the edge of the
chair.
The dentist came in with a smile. He greeted them and said,
"Relax, Baruch."
"Easy for him to say," Baruch thought. "Nobody's going to
drill his teeth."
Baruch lay back in the chair. He took a quick peek at his
father. Yossi smiled encouragingly. Baruch looked away,
embarrassed.
The dentist removed a needle from his tray. Baruch clenched
his fists and his body went rigid.
The dentist noticed. "Father," he joked. "Would you mind
holding on to Baruch now so that he doesn't move around too
much?"
Yossi put a warm hand under Baruch's chin and over his
cheeks. He held it tightly. Baruch closed his eyes as the
dentist advanced with the menacing needle. Yossi tightened
his grip. Baruch sensed the tension in his father's fingers
and instinctively jerked his face away as the dentist
inserted the needle.
The dentist held it for a minute, then realized that
something wasn't quite right.
The needle had been inserted not in Baruch's gums as he had
intended. It had entered a finger in Yossi's hand.
"Oops," the dentist blushed.
Baruch opened his eyes and at once saw what happened. He
cringed with shame.
Yossi's finger began to feel numb.
"Sorry," Baruch mumbled. His face was red all the way up to
his hairline.
Yossi smiled. Forgetting that the dentist was standing beside
him, he stroked Baruch's cheek as though he was a little
child. "Baruch," he said gently. "I'm happy this happened,
because now I can truly feel your pain."
Meanwhile, the dentist filled up a new syringe and carefully
aimed it in Baruch's gums. The pain was sharp. Baruch's eyes
filled with tears. Yet in his heart he wasn't sure what had
made him cry, the needle, or his father's words.
After the dentist had filled the cavity, he apologized again
and showed father and son to the door.
The two walked silently through the hallways until they
reached the car. As Yossi unlocked the door with the hand
that wasn't numb, he glanced up and noticed Baruch looking at
him. He smiled. Baruch smiled back, a lopsided, shy smile
with only one side of his frozen mouth.
Yossi didn't say anything, but his heart breathed a sigh of
release. That stab of pain in his finger had done that which
he had hoped and prayed for. It had made a tiny hole in
Baruch's fierce armor. Yossi just knew that with lots of love
and support, the hole would soon be large enough for him to
crawl in and set things right.
[Editor's note: Would the author of this fine story step up
and claim credit? It was lost in the dentist's office . . . ]
