A light blue cast of my ex’s lower teeth sits on top of my toilet, a bizarre bit of sculpture that I can’t seem to part with. Every time I go to the toilet I think about putting them away or emailing him to ask him if he wants them for future dental-related issues. But I do nothing, and so there they sit atop the porcelain goddess.

Sami is oblivious to the presence of the teeth, as far as I can tell, but he has started asking about his father again. The other day, we were parking in Dupont Circle and he saw this house, which he insisted was daddy’s house. I gently explained to him that it was not daddy’s house and he seemed to be satisfied with that. I just try to validate his questions without a whole lot of addition on my part.

Where’s daddy?

I don’t know, where is daddy?

He doesn’t usually have an answer for that, but in the past the answers have included, “Daddy’s sleeping,” or “Daddy’s working.”

I have to admit — I am actually starting to enjoy this life of totally single motherhood. I no longer see myself a pathetic victim, and that is huge for me. Just a few months ago I would have been spewing all manner of self-pitying, self-righteous pablum regarding this situation. Today, I feel differently. I love that I don’t have to quibble about visitation like so many of my divorced friends do. I don’t have to think twice before making plans with friends or travel or any of that. The only thing that dampens my enthusiasm is the knowledge that Sami is growing up without someone he still obviously loves very much and who remains in his thoughts. As someone who grew up mostly without a father, I could project so much onto Sami, but the truth of the matter is that I have no idea what is in his head.

Since Sami was born, I have had this enormous fear of damaging him or messing him up in some way. Perhaps it comes out of my historical sense of my own brokenness, fear that early childhood traumas have left me “damaged goods,” all of which is slowly shifting over time. But it also occurs to me that he is always watching me for his own emotional cues. As Scott Noelle, one of my parenting gurus, wrote so eloquently in a recent email, “children ALWAYS cooperate.” If I am calm and connected, his storms tend to pass much more quickly. If I am agitated, he senses that immediately and does whatever he can to participate in the party.

So when it comes to the absence of his father, I am very relieved that I have gotten to a place of acceptance, and maybe even joy, for now. Perhaps other waves of sadness and darkness will envelop me in the future, but for today I understand that neither Sami nor I need to be scarred by the experience. Not that I think it will be thrilling for him possibly to grow up without a father, but all I can do is to model my own acceptance of the situation and hope that he will absorb that energy.

I feel like one of the most important jobs I can do as a parent is to take care of my own emotions, to let them flow through me, to “clean up my vibration” in New Age-speak. I want to teach him that joy and connectedness is always within our grasp, regardless of external conditions. We do not need for the outside world to cooperate with us. It is only human to react negatively to things we perceive as negative, but perceptions of what is “negative” and “positive” all depend on our limited perspective in any given space and time. It’s all mind-stuff. Potent mind-stuff, to be sure, but it’s all ephemeral, all labels that we attach to the events of our lives.

For today, my ex’s teeth sit atop my toilet, silent and blue. Sometimes I look at them and I imagine him smiling at me. I don’t know how, but his teeth remind me that divorce, father loss, single parenthood, all of these experiences are simply “grist for the mill,” as Ram Dass says. Everything that happens to us in life is useful if it allow it to be so. Everything points to awakening, if we are willing to follow along the dimly illuminated trails life blazes. I hope that I can continue to remember this, for it is so easy to forget. Without a lot of boring talking to him about it, I’d like simply to live this way as an example for my son.