"Dear Tooth Fairy,
I've lost my tooth and can't find it so please give me some money. Thank you very much. From, Cindy. (P.S. One tooth is very, very loose)." Even at 10, I was full of it; but that fang paid off in ways I wouldn’t understand for more than 15 years.

While I was vacationing at my grandparent's house in Ontario, I lost a tooth. Don't remember which one, but it made a pretty big impression. It was just a scratchy note, written with little forethought, but one neatly tucked under a pillow waiting for a magical fairy to whisk it away.

Fast-forward 15 years to a great realization: believe in the magic. (That sounds like a sappy Disney slogan, but stay with me on this one)

.I watched as my grandma closed the creaky drawer of her dining room hutch. "I wanted to give you this", explained Grandma. "It's a note you wrote to the Tooth Fairy years ago". In that moment, I felt like the most precious young woman in the entire world. It was like a supernatural millisecond you get as guest of honour at your own surprise party. And, considering we didn’t see eye to eye on everything in the past, it was surreal. I was a young woman too foolish to appreciate the wisdom or love of my elders

.To this day, I don't remember writing that note. "You lost your tooth that morning and left it out all day to put under your pillow that night", Grandma remarked. "Then, when it came time to leave it for the Tooth Fairy, you couldn't find your tooth". She chuckled in her always-addictive way, "you were so worried that the Tooth Fairy wouldn't leave you any money without proof, so you wrote her this note". I read the note. Yup, that was my poor penmanship alright, inked on that faded, thin sheet of yellow paper.

As the story goes, I awoke to discover a quarter under my cozy cushion. I was thrilled with my find. Far as the Tooth Fairy was concerned I had thought, "no tooth, no proof, no coin";

this blew my theory out of water! No tooth, no proof, but coin?! Ah, but there was proof.

There was a note…a note so powerful as to render money!

Here, in my desk drawer, lies that famous note neatly folded, just waiting to be picked up again; my first written masterpiece I suppose. And, every time I gaze at it, I am reminded of the power of the written word. "The pen is mightier than the sword, Cyn", my father once quipped, when I was the ripe old age of 12. So this note keeps me in check. It reminds me of the importance of integrity, truth, and balance: after all, most of us are not as naive as the Tooth Fairy. Or as I like to say, "the tooth, the tooth, and nothing but the tooth"

.As I think back, it wasn't just about the note, the power of words, or even a memory of tooth loss. It was about the magic a sweet woman created when, more than 15 years ago, she decided to save something lost on youth. And now that I have lost her – she died in September – I have discovered something else. Magic never, ever dies.

Keep the magic alive in your children, in your grandchildren, in yourself. Believe in the Tooth Fairy, in Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny. Believe in one another. Believe in this magic called "life". Now, go call your grandma.