I have just got back from a half-term trip with the family. We all know it’s not really a holiday. There is a limit on how lovely it can be. A certain amount of grit and determination goes into maintaining some sort of equilibrium. In truth, I enjoyed the country, the food, and most of the company! So, a win in my books.
While I was away, I started developing toothache.
Just three days before we left, I had had a cap fitted on a tooth. A cap that cost me £700 (gasp!). I had put off having this procedure because my husband had started on about money issues, which only meant my tooth got worse and worse!
Due to my constant state of anxiousness, especially during COVID, I had ground down my teeth. Over time, my continuous grinding caused a crack in my tooth. Which meant i needed cap it to protect it.
This is a message to all my women out there – if you grind your teeth, wear a mouthguard. Wear it. The truth is, you will get dry mouth, caused by sleeping with your mouth open. You may also get some ulcers or abrasions. However, I promise you, the guard will soften and you will get used to it. The only other option is to fuck or birth a dentist. Although birthing one is a long term strategy! Teeth are expensive.
The last night of the holiday, the pain was at its peak. We had to wake up at 2:30 am to catch our flight back home. That whole night, I was up with my tooth. It silently screaming on and off like an emergency siren in the rythm of my heart beat. I thought at any moment my mouth was going to explode like a glitter firework—debris everywhere.
I couldn’t manage any breakfast in the morning. I looked lovingly at my pre-purchased £15 chicken, mozzarella, romesco sauce, and salad sourdough roll. Just the idea of having to open my mouth that wide to take a bite made me feel faint. Biting down on the tooth caused nerve pain up my cheek and towards my ear.
As soon as the plane landed, I started calling emergency dentist numbers in my home area and 111.
Thankfully, I got an appointment and went straight from the airport into a dentist’s chair. She told me that I would need a root canal. At that point, I would have paid her a grand to punch me in the face. I just wanted the pressure to be relieved.
Two X-rays and a drill later, she relieved some pressure in my tooth. My mouth was numb, and I finally found some relief. Then she broke the news to me: a normal root canal costs about £400. However, my nerves were thin (of course, they were thin). This would mean a specialist dentist. I am guessing this is like cake – and wedding cake prices. She confirmed it could cost me up to £2k!
That was my Saturday.
That night I slept with the assistance of codeine and my phone alarm to take antibiotics at 8 am, 2 pm, and 10 pm. The next morning, I woke up; my head was aching, my ear and tooth were still pulsating. But I wanted to see my mummy, so I had to get out of bed. I only had a window between wake up and 11 am to use the car. After that, the car was going to be devoted to ferrying a child around.
I dragged my body out of bed, went for a wee, and it was dark as fuck. Mental note: drink more water. I tried to make myself as presentable as possible, downed half a pint of water, and left the house. I drove straight to the Gurdwara. That was the best place to catch her in the mornings.
I went into the Gurdwara and did matha tek and sat down. I was offered Parshad, and I took it. I hadn’t eaten a thing since 6:30 pm on Friday night, and now it was 9 am on Sunday. I convinced myself that anything I ate in the house of God would be fine. So, I scoffed the Parshad down in one. Then I left to go to the langar (food) hall to see my mum. I walked over to her, she was making roti in the kitchen section. I felt my mouth fill up with liquid. Fuck, I was going to be sick.
I quickly explained to my mum I needed to go to the bathroom. I barely made it, and I threw up. I went back to the langar hall. I couldn’t tell my mum that I had just been sick, especially that I had thrown up Parshad. After all, Parshad symbolises divine blessings, spiritual growth, and unity. She would have thought that I was pocessed by a demon. and she would be mad i wasted parshad!
She sat down with me to have langar. I had already told her about my toothache and the emergency dentist appointment over the phone on Saturday. Instead we discussed my holiday and her birthday that i had missed. Then she moved the conversation to cutting down the branches of a tree I have in my garden.
This tree is the only item in my garden that survived the house extension and my lack of green fingers. I love that tree. I didn’t want to cut the branches down. Maybe a haircut from the top but nothing else. My mum, on the other hand, had anxiety that the tree was going to grow 50 feet overnight and smash into the house. She was obsessed.
She had borrowed a branch cutter from my sister and wanted me to come to the house, pick it up, and do it. She told me she had considered transporting it to my house on the bus! It is not a good look for an Asian person to carry anything that even remotely resembles a weapon. This applies even to an older lady! I tried to exaplin, that my tooth was my main prority. That and the mountain of holiday wash and ensuring kids ready for school on Monday. So not my priority for the weekend, i told her i would do it the next weekend. She left a short space of silence as she considered it. And then chose violence. She pushed my (swollen) cheek and said, “It’s not swollen – you’re fine!” I piped up, “You’re not being very nice.” She said, “You’re just being lazy. There is nothing wrong with you. You don’t need to go and visit the dentist. You need to have laung (clove) and turmeric. Stop wasting your money at the dentist.”
My mum is from the generation that just fucking survives! She didn’t want to hear that I was unwell. She wanted me to cut the motherfucking branches off my tree, as they were coming into her dreams. I told her to go and do seva. I would carry on eating myself. At my mum’s advice, I had taken some dal. I couldn’t chuck it while she was with me. She had already hit my swollen cheek there was no telling what her next move would be. She was on her own mission, with or without me. If anything I was a barrier to good.
She said fine, she would go, then looked around at me to ask if there was anything else she could get me. More tea? I know I am loved by her more than I will ever understand. And believe me, I always feel loved by my mum. However, in that moment, I could have cried. I pretended to bring another spoon of dal to my mouth, just in case she was still watching. Then I made a dash to the kitchen, carrying my tray as high up as possible. I ran into the kitchen and washed the dal down the sink. I did it quickly in case someone reported me to my mum. As I was leaving, I went to say goodbye to my mum and hug her again. I have to. I can’t leave her cross – what if I never see her again?
This is a huge anxiety of mine. I have carried it with me from a very young age. I have always been aware that I am the youngest of five. By conventional standards, she had me quite late in life. Today, she would be categorised as a geriatric mum. All my friends have younger mums than me. Some of them had grandmas younger than my mum!
Anyway, I left. I got home a bit shaken after being sick and sad about the exchange with my mum. Then, later, at about 1:45 pm, I get a text from my sister asking me if I had seen my mum. What the fuck? Anxiety kicked in. Now I’ve done it. So then I called my dad. My dad confirmed she wasn’t at home. I texted all my sisters to see if she was with them. I had left her at 10 am; she was normally home by about 11 am. I tried calling the sister who had texted me, but she didn’t pick up. I texted her again—she didn’t text back.
Ten minutes as I was convalescing on the sofa, the doorbell rang. I looked out, and my mum was there, with my middle sister holding a telescopic tree pruner. My mum stood behind her, surrounded by branches from a tree. I looked up, and the beautiful canopy of branches over my path was gone, replaced with short, fat stubs. WTF!
Turns out she had roped in my middle sister to join her on her mission. To be in my mum’s favour, she had agreed. She had implemented my mum’s mission. At the direction of my mother’s pointing, she was lopping off branches. It is worth saying that she did this with a fractured wrist. It had not healed properly from a fall, and might require surgery. They had been outside my house for 45 minutes. Then my mum rang the doorbell to get a broom and reinforcement as her worker was getting tired. She told me to come out and help, oblivious to my aghast expression.
I said, “What have you done? Look at my tree! I could have you arrested for this—this is criminal activity.”
My mum snorted, “Call the police? You should be thanking me for this! Now, come on out and help—your sister’s hand has started hurting.”
High on codeine I tried to explain my current health to her again. She was having none of it. She ignored me and huffed and puffed, organising the branches into a pile. Then she said, “At least do something and clear up these branches.”
I started bundling them up and putting them into the garden recycling bin. It filled up quickly, with excess branches scattered around my garden. My sister wanted to appease my mum. She opened up her boot and started randomly throwing the branches into the back of her car. She told my mum she would go to the dump to get rid of them. At that point, I went up to her and said, “You know she’s fucking with you. Look at her face—does she look happy?”
My mum, oblivious to our conversation, looked over with a scowled. My sister carried on complying, trying to shove the branches as far back in the boot as she could. She slammed it shut, but the boot kept bouncing back up, resisting against the branches. Their last hurrah.
My mum was done now. She was tired. She had overexerted herself on the mission and was ready to leave, already sitting in the passenger seat. My lack of gratefulness had annoyed her. My sister now called my son to help her break branches. They snapped branches with their hands and used their feet to compress them to the back of the boot. My sister saw my mum getting out to see what was going on with the boot. This gave my sister the jor (strength) she needed to slam the boot shut.
My mum started shouting at my sister that her car was getting ruined by the branches. Yes, my mum was now moaning about the branches she had forced her to take to the dump. This of course was after making her cut them from the tree. My son pointed out that the boot wasn’t flush and that to the side, thick branches were still sticking out.
Now it was my sister’s turn to get frustrated with my son. She told him to shut up. She was worried about drawing more of my mum’s (negative) attention. He carried on, sticking twigs into the gaps to further highlight the huge gappage issue. She relented. “Alright, alright. One more time, I will lift up the boot, and you use your hands to push all the twigs inside.”
What could go wrong?
So, while she released the boot slightly, I shoved the twigs in with my hands. Without warning, she slammed it shut again. Thank fuck there was still a branch stuck, or that would have been all the tips of my left-hand fingers fucked.
She asked again, “Are there any gaps?”
I considered my situation, i checked the boot lock and it stayed locked. So it was safe. so i said, “No, it’s fine.”
They left.
As we closed the font door my son looked across at me and said, “What just happened?”
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