For the Girl I Was

Five years ago, when I was living in Canada I wrote this story and it’s been lost all this time. I ran across the file on my computer and so I decided that I would publish it on my blog. I hope you enjoy reading it. Even five years later it gives me joy to read it and remember that happy day.

For the Girl I Was

And there she was. Carefully scraping her thumbnail over the bar of soap and transferring it to the belly of the doll that she had begged me to undress. I observed her deliberately repeat her task over and over again. I smiled indulgently as any surrogate grandmother might do while playing with her favourite 18 month old. As I began to observe more clinically, to see if there were any good ideas for my series of studies on toddlers, I glanced at the doll’s eyes. I had to shake my head as I suddenly had a flashback. I recalled the story of the “Velveteen Rabbit” and remembered the words of the old Skin Horse, about toys becoming real when they were well loved. The doll was certainly well loved. She was missing half her hair and what remained was matted and ugly. Her painted on eyes were faded. She had what looked like crayon marks on her cheek and some permanent dirt on her tummy. She is very old I thought. She must be more than forty. I hunted through my memory banks to remember her name. It was Toodles. She was the only doll I kept because I loved her so. Looking at her brought out buried emotions from my heart. I thought I saw love in that doll’s eyes. And I remembered.

I remembered that I played with her until I was far too old to be holding baby dolls. She had such a sweet expression on her face. She even wore one of my old baby dresses. Maybe I was just feeling sentimental on my almost birthday, but for just an instant I felt like she breathed a sigh of freedom. It was as if she was muttering, “At last, off the shelf and into a child’s arms.” For sure, Christina didn’t care about the dirt and the wear and tear. She laboured over the baby doll’s pretend bath for nearly twenty minutes. That’s an absolute marvel in the world of a toddler.

Tears welled up as I watched. Not just a few tears. It might be said that I began to weep. I felt again how much I had loved this doll. I even remembered how sad I was to put her in a box because I really was too old for her. I didn’t want to be too old for my doll baby, and yet still too young for a real baby. I had wanted to hold on just a bit longer, not ready to release my childhood. So, I didn’t let my mom give her away with all my other toys. Even when I went away to college, moved to Korea and then to Brazil, Toodles stayed packed away, waiting for me to be ready for her again.

But I was never ready for her again. I never had my own babies who could play with her and love her like I did. There was no place in my home for an old worn out baby doll. Consequently she was moved with my mother’s things to Chicago, Raleigh and finally to Kentucky. When I finally came close to moving home, arriving in Canada, my mom said, “That’s it! Some of your junk has to go.” I began sifting through years of memories stored with my mom. Somewhere in a ratty old box I found Toodles. Fortunately no one was around and I could hug her and give her a big kiss. She would not go into the throw away pile. She would go in my suitcase and onto the airplane all the way to Canada. I knew what I would do with her, too. I would clean her up and buy a beautiful dress for her and keep her on my bed. She would be a kind of antique decoration. She would be a beloved reminder of my infancy long gone.

Toodles made it safely to Canada, but not to my bed. I never seemed to remember to buy her that beautiful new dress. She did get cleaned up, but I decided I didn’t want to repair her hair or repaint her eyes. It would like wiping out all the love she had received. I put her in the laundry room where she sat and I talked to her occasionally as I folded my clothes. Somehow she looked forlorn and always made me a little sad. She made me think of loss, abandonment, of times that could not be recaptured and of things that would never be. That was very strange, for after all she is only an old doll and I’m so very pragmatic and unsentimental.

Still, my strangely evocative doll (and to some people my very ugly doll) stayed on the laundry room shelf for several years until Christina was here that night. I thought Toodles would be just right for Christina. So she was. It was endearing to see Christina embrace that ugly old doll. Then came the moment of my tears. “Oh, Toodles, at last you are being loved on again.”

Truth be told there was more going on. “At last”, I thought, “ I have a living, breathing baby I can touch and hold and love and it doesn’t hurt.” Christina is a wonderful, precious little girl who has that lovely, sweet baby smell and who comes running to my open arms when she sees me. Never has a baby loved me so. Never have I been able to love a baby, except maybe my Toodles. And now I was watching  the two of them love each other.

On the eve of my 52^nd birthday, it is crystal clear that I will not have babies to play with Toodles. Until now I don’t think I knew what to do with that little girl who loved her baby doll, but could not have her own babies. So on this night I mourned what I had lost. The tears were for the girl I was. But there was also a smile. A smile for the woman I have become and, of course, for the baby Christina who plays with the baby Toodles.

PS:  My mother made a beautiful dress for Toodles. She “lives” with me in Brazil now, sitting on my nightstand, wearing my bracelet I used when I came home from the hospital in 1952