How she loved

From Memory

1.

I remember a childhood time when I did not yet realize that soon I would be putting my Barbie dolls away for good, and Shana and were playing Barbies in our room. My mother came to the door and eagerly asked "Oh! Can I play too?" We said yes, and her face lit up as she sat down with us. She got so into the play, and we three enjoyed dressing the dolls up and making up stories.

2.

My mother liked to tell me the story of buying me my first doll. I was 2 years old, and she took me to the toy store. This was a very special trip--we did not go there unless it was to Christmas shop (and it wasn't this time). She had great hopes that I was going to choose a Barbie doll. She thought they were so pretty. So she led me to the aisle with all the Barbies, and I said "no." Instead, I wandered over to a baby doll that had an astonishingly realistic face and a soft cloth body. She kept trying to replace this doll in my arms with a Barbie doll and I kept insisting I wanted the baby doll. Finally, my mother said she had to give up and she bought me the baby doll. But I thought each time she told the story, she sounded a bit wistful that I didn't choose the Barbie in the end.

3.

I was in my twenties when my parents moved from the house we grew up in, and I came back to help them pack. I came across my beloved baby doll and carefully packed her in a special box. I wasn't ready to give her up.

One day, I received one of the many care packages that my mother sent me. I opened it and there was my doll! My mother had found her while unpacking and sewed brand new clothes for her. My mother had sewn and crocheted many marvelous clothes for our dolls and stuffed animals throughout our childhood. And because her hair had become scraggly over the years, my mother made a new yarn wig for her.

I was so touched that she did this and I called her right away. Her voice on the phone was bright with happiness and that special excitement and enthusiasm that only she could show--it was a combination of her showing her great love for us and her feeling in return loved and happy, I think. I remember I felt surprised at how excited she was about finding my doll, and how much love and effort went into her gift. She made a special trip to the yarn store to try to match the doll's original hair color, and she created the patterns and sewed the clothes as elaborately as for a real baby.

That was how my mother loved.