Dad's Whiskey

Vito’s mouth looks like he’s sucked on a baby bottle of Mountain Dew night and day since birth.
In a few short days, he lost nearly half of his puppy teeth. Right now he’s missing all four canines and a bunch of molars.
Throughout the house, droplets of blood from his gums dot the floor. So do his teeth. We step on them and shriek.
Vito himself moans. He is in terrible pain as adult teeth break through his gums.
When my children were babies and lost their teeth, they would run a fever and cry. With the twins, the teething woes doubled. I bought lots of Baby Tylenol.
My father, who was born in the old country, didn’t like that I gave his grandchildren store-bought painkiller. He worried it would hurt them. He wanted me to do what his mother did when her babies were in teething agony.
“Rub whiskey on their gums,” he said. “Just a drop. It helps them sleep.”
His medical advice, which he gave freely, always scared me because my dad came from a small town where the barber doubled as the doctor. The barber could cut your hair and repair your punctured eardrum, all in the same visit.
I told him that here, in the new country, we had powerful chemicals to knock the pain out. Sure, if one accidentally happened to give a kid too much, it could cause liver failure, but that hardly ever happened.
My dad has been gone a while, and it’s been ages since my children lost teeth. My heart ached for Vito because it seemed like his mouth really hurt. I wanted to help him, but I realized we hadn’t had children’s pain reliever in the house for years.
Every time Vito cried in misery, my dad’s words ran through my head.
Finally, I could stand it no longer. There was an ancient bottle -- given to us by my dad -- of Seagram’s VO in the cabinet. I asked Nick to see if he could find the brown bottle. He located it, and I poured some in a shot glass, dipped my finger in, and rubbed it on Vito’s gums. The puppy seemed to smile. His body seemed to relax. It seemed to work. I dipped and rubbed Vito’s gums a few more times over the next couple of days, and it always seemed to settle him.
My dad would have been pleased with the way his whiskey worked. I wish he’d been here to see it -- and to meet his gummy-mouthed grandpup.