The first time, I heard a man tell 500 people in a church basement about how he broke his teeth on a cement step and didn’t go see a dentist right away because he had no insurance. Instead, he superglued his teeth back into his mouth and every few days, when they fell out again, he’s squeezed that tube of bondo and put them back in place.
Then one day, there was nothing doing and he finally went to the free clinic where a dental student said, in genuine wonder, “What’s going on here?’
Even that didn’t wake him up.
The room roared with every word.
It was, for sure, tragic and funny. But it was also hopeful, because there he stood behind a microphone telling us about who he had been, and living proof that change could be had.
It didn’t sound anything like my story. Or anything I knew. But standing there in the suit I had donned to prove I didn’t belong, I recognized the despair I had woken up from the morning before. In the loneliness he shared, I felt my own loneliness and knew that I had found the place where I had to be.
And that was my first time.
