Closest thing to a memoir for my doll

(Dolly)

Meet my cat- Snowflake! (wanted a picture for this space but couldn’t find anything that matched this piece.)

I was tucked in the bed with my mother on one side. My other side populated with many relatives that were scattered in the room. It was my grandparent’s house (mother’s side) and they all were gossiping, laughing loudly.

I don’t why, but I was scared. My house was a mere 30-minute drive, but I was scared sick.

I had hidden myself under the sheets. The room’s bright light was piercing through the fabric. I could see the threads of light and of sheet being sewn together. And then I started crying. No reason.

But the tears had begun to form before I could even know that I was crying. They were in a hurry to depart from my face and onto the over used pillow that I didn’t even like but was laying on.

In between my sobs, I’d have to gasp to catch my breath which would leave me more scared everytime. Scared that they may hear me or worse — they may see me crying. And to my misfortune, that did happen.

As I was crying with my hand clutched together and eyes open just enough to convert the room light into the great white light that, I had hoped, would transcend me to the great beyond and rid me from all the miseries of life (I wasn’t even 10), my aunt removed the sheet.

Oh, the amount of embarrassment that attacked me- worse that any punch I’d bared from my sister during our superhero fights. Everyone was looking at me. They were thinking that I was a weird little kid who was crying herself to sleep (which wouldn’t have been a lie).

“Beta? What happened?” one of them went.

I curled into a little circle trying to hide away from them. What was I supposed to say “I have no idea why I’m crying but I just am?”. That’s a weird thing for such a little girl to say.

Thankfully, one of them said “Do you miss your father?”

I thought “Oh that makes sense! Maybe I do?”

So, I just nodded and curled up further. Little did I know, that won’t be a one-time occurrence. My years to come will be filled if not made, of such scenarios where I’d want to cry without any comprehensible reason.

By the next morning, I was completely fine. I was sitting on the couch doing something that I can’t really remember, when someone knocked on the door. My mother opened it, and it was none other than my father. Oh, how delighted I was!

I rushed to him and hugged me with a force that felt was enough to squeeze him with my affection. And then he produced from his bag the biggest and sweetest memory anyone can ever gift me — my blue doll. Dolly was her name.

She was an extremely slender doll which came with a stand onto which she was supposed to be kept. When turned on, she’d rotate and hum a song. I think that doll was a gift for me that had been kept safe by my mother for many years and one fateful day, after days of toil, she’d finally let me unpack her and play with her.

That was probably a few years back. Back to that day when my father had so lovingly bought her for me, she had no body lower to her torso- only a long light blue gown that covered it all and gave the impression of her body hiding under it.

How dearly I loved her.

And that night of finally having Dolly, I’d slept a comparatively sounder sleep. My aunts had made fun of her for missing half the body, but she was perfect for me.

And I still think about her sometimes. Its so easy to forget toys when you were blessed with parents who had enough to provide you with new toys once or twice every year, but Dolly.

This is perhaps a shameful thing for an almost adult girl to admit, but I think about her sometime. Especially because I don’t know what happened to her. I remember having her for years until she was so old that her head would fall off, and then one day I realised I didn’t have her.

I finished watching Toy Story a few hours ago. (I hope that gives some context for this odd piece)

After a bit of diving into the depths of Google engine, I finally found this picture of a doll that looks closest to Dolly! (This made me so happy!)

Refer to this video for a 3D look at a doll that looks like Dolly but can never be her (Also becos the gown’s a different color): Youtube

Result of author’s hard work and little to no investigating abilities