This one hit me hard this morning. It reminded me about the time in my life, that my only daughter and I went shopping for the only doll which my daughter has ever liked or cared about. It was last fall, when my daughter was 16. We “adopted” Betty Faye together at the Cabbage Patch Hospital in Cleveland, Georgia.
I knew that I was pregnant with a daughter before she was born. She is the fourth child, and she has three older brothers. I am a “girly girl.” I like clothes and shoes and purses and high heels and lots of accessories. As a child, I loved dolls in every form. I loved Barbies, and Holly Hobbies, and Drowsy babies, and fancy foreign dolls on pedestals. I had the largest collection of paper dolls known to man. I still have a few of my precious paper doll sets, in storage. So, when I was pregnant with my daughter, I started collecting dolls for her, that I just knew she would love, with her whole heart and imagination. I bought the prettiest, most collectible, most cuddly dolls which I had ever seen, in bulk. My inner little girl bloomed, as my pregnant belly bloomed, and “together” we shopped for dolls for my soon-to-be daughter and I expectantly piled them high, in the closet.
For the first couple years of her life, my daughter was my own living baby doll. I dressed her up in a new outfit, every single day. She had the prettiest blankets and bathing suits and bracelets and monogrammed binkie holders, and I reveled in all of it. When she was about three, I started introducing my daughter to her curated doll collection, but she didn’t show too much interest. Her brothers proved to be much more fascinating, as they bounced her, like a ball, on the trampoline or used her for target practice for their dodge ball games. My daughter showed her athletic prowess early on, and the boys decided that my daughter was a worthy, valuable teammate for a lot of their games, and she was thrilled to be part of the action. Plus, never one to sit down much, she much preferred to play with her toy kitchen, dramatically chopping up and carving up plastic turkeys and lettuce, “Gordon Ramsey” style, with devilish flare, or to jump enthusiastically and tirelessly, mimicking all of the intricate moves on the video game, Just Dance.
One day, we had a “come to Jesus moment”, when my daughter was almost four. As I gingerly pulled out a fancy, antique Madame Alexander, exquisite doll from her still intact trademark cardboard blue box, in order to transition the doll over to the next generation, my daughter looked at the doll with a glimpse of disgust and maybe even despair. Then she looked me firmly in the eye and very matter-of-factly said, “Mom, dolls are scary.”
My daughter is a talented artist. She has long, shiny, beautiful hair and she loves to do it up, in all different styles. She is so creative when she paints her lovely nails. (luckily she didn’t inherit my ugly, stubby, chippy little fingernails) We enjoy shopping together. So, while we have shared a lot nice “girl times” together, playing dolls was never a part of our bonding experience. So, imagine my complete surprise when she seemed eager to visit the Cabbage Patch Hospital with me, this past fall, when we were staying in a cabin in the mountains of Georgia. I figured that it was just an odd fascination and curiosity about a giant plantation-like looking building, where Cabbage Patch kids are “born.” Even my husband and eldest son agreed to go, for laughs, I suppose.
We walked all around the doll hospital. It was the first time in a long time, that wearing a mask felt fun and normal and appropriate. All of the salespeople were dressed like nurses, and there were walls of photos of famous people who had visited the Cabbage Patch hospital, over many years. It was a silly, fun, unusual, interesting experience, at a time when we needed that type of experience the most.
After getting my fill of the place, I noticed my daughter kept looking at one of the dolls. “If you had to just pick one doll, out of the thousands of dolls here, which would you pick?” I asked her casually. She giggled embarrassedly and pointed to little blonde, pony-tailed Betty Faye, all decked out in comfy aqua pajamas.
“I’ll buy her for you, if you want her,” I said casually. (trying to keep hope out of my expression) “You know, as a funny souvenir and remembrance of our trip.”
She took me up on my offer right away, and we headed back to the “nurse’s” office, to fill out Betty Faye’s adoption paperwork. I don’t know why my sixteen-year-old daughter showed the interest and enthusiasm for a doll that day, that she had never shown before. Was it to make sure that she didn’t miss out on anything in her childhood, with college and adulthood now looming, so soon in the future? Was it a form of love and connection that she was trying to express to me? Or maybe, was it that a soft, comfy doll to hug was just the ticket, after a year of so much fear and uncertainty that came with the pandemic? No matter what the reason, I lapped up the experience, and so did my daughter. And every once in a while, when kissing my baby girl goodnight, I notice that Betty Faye has made her way off of the shelf, and into the bed, with an ever smiling face, promising that you are never too old or never too young, to enjoy all that life has to offer, all along the way.
Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.