The Kindest Man I Know

Sitting in a hot tub in the middle of the night with a hot facecloth pressed as hard as I can stand on my mangled jaw. Waves of pain like white hot knives pulse from my tooth and and surrounding gum and I think I cannot bear one more single second of it. I could take all thirty of the controlled substance pain pills, hopefully drift off to sleep, slip beneath the water and hurt no more. During the fraction of a second when this seems like not just a good but a perfectly reasonable solution, a small black paw appears on the edge of the bathtub, followed by a small black body and an inquisitive meow. The black kitten's blue eyes, filled with curiosity, meet mine and through the haze of the last 36 hours of intolerable agony, I dimly remember that I am responsible for lives other than my own. Don't cry! a barely recognizable inner voice screams at me, It will only make it worse! Some part of me knows this is true but I cry anyway - pain, exhaustion, lack of sleep and depression have taken their toll. The kitten meows again, this time a little louder, a little more insistently. Lives other than your own, he seems to be reminding me, and I reluctantly crawl out of the hot water and stagger to the kitchen where five cats and two dogs are gathered, concerned and impatient to be fed.

It wasn't, I tell myself a couple of days later after nearly four hours of root canal, a genuine suicidal thought, just a passing impulse born of pain that for the merest blink of an eye seemed rational and a little tempting. But as I explained it to the dentist and watched his eyes - noting a sudden and quite serious reaction - I realized that it might have sounded like a warning or worse, a cry for help. It got me to thinking about chronic pain and the people who bear it, by choice or not, and how they survive it with minds intact and bodies still drawing breath. Free of responsibilities, I'm not sure it's something I would choose for myself.

In dental school, this angel of a man in a mask with the kindest eyes I have ever known tells me, They taught us to pay attention when a patient mentions suicide, even if it's just in passing.

Pain can make you a little nuts, I say through a welcome haze of nitrous and local anesthesia, It was just one moment. It wasn't real.

He says nothing to this, just watches and lets me drift away while the nitrous goes to work and the pain blessedly stops, but I can feel his hand on my shoulder as well as his gentleness and caring. He is the kindest man I know.