baby come back

During the late fall and early winter of '76,

once a week

after school

we'd go to my Aunt Bonnie's house

and the kids would play

while my mom worked on my Christmas present.

I knew whatever it was would be really special,

because she spent a lot of time on it.

I had no idea at the time, how right I was.

Christmas morning, 1976 (8 yrs old)

Johnny arrived in yellow zippered  jammies stitched with gray thread

and I loved him immediately.

My favorite Christmas present ever!

~

Through all of my moves

and purges

Johnny came with me.

In Fort Smith, he lived on the green bench in the upstairs hall.

Ten or so years ago, I found a girl doll with blond braids

 at a yard sale

made from the same pattern my mom had used.

I was thrilled to have her,

but she didn't have quite the value that Johnny had to me

and when we got rid of over half our belongings,

she didn't make the cut.

Johnny went into storage.

When he got packed away,

the plan was 1 year.

~

Several weeks ago,
almost 6 years after my beloved doll got stuck in a box,

we were sorting through our stored items in the shop.

My wedding veil and flowers hadn't fared well in storage

and reluctantly got tossed in the fire with a sigh.

And then,

we got to the box that Johnny was in.

For the record - plastic tubs make much better storage containers

than boxes.

Wasps and mud daubers can still get in and build nests,

but mice

and other critters

can not.

Not knowing this bit of wisdom, 

Johnny, dressed in a pair of TJ's preemie jammies,

was in a cardboard box,

and he was apparently the coziest thing in that box,

and the mice had a party with him.

Oh, how I cried.

I was going to throw him in the fire, too,

but Tyler told me not to;

said maybe he could be repaired.

I wanted to believe him, but I wasn't so sure.

Heart-sore, I obediently stuck him back in the box anyways.

~

Unbeknownst to me, when we went up for Thanksgiving,

Tyler brought the horribly damaged doll to my mother.

And many painstaking hours later,
she had cleaned and repaired him!

Mom said he was bobbing around in his soak water
so she added some weight to hold him under
and when she uncovered him - this is what she found.
He was just waiting to be re-born.

She sent him back as 'a present from Santa' with TJ.
(who had no clue what was in the package).

His jammies were irredeemable,

but Johnny himself

looks good as new.

I'm sooo glad I didn't toss him in that fire!

 The little kids didn't see what the big deal was,

why Momma was crying over a doll;

but the big boys, and Tyler,

they knew.

With the exception of photographs,

he is the only piece of my childhood 

that survived all my purges.

The one earthly thing

that means the world to me.

Thank-you, Mom, for giving Johnny new life.

And thank-you, Love,

for rescuing him from the flames.