missing: little girl

Today is a big day.

This morning I took my Molly doll, the companion of my girlhood, and prepared her to be laid to rest.

I've been tired of seeing her dusty face lying dead on the pillow of her doll bed when I wake up in the morning. Or having that tranquil plastic smile being the last thing I see before I turn out my light at night.

It was time.

You'd think Molly was going to spend her dormancy in the arctic, the way I dressed her this morning. She looked cold without her (our) favorite sweater on -- the one she came in. It somehow honors the memory of the little girl who chose her (mostly for that sweater [and the saddle shoes!] and the glasses -- what could be better than a doll with glasses for a girl whose eyesight was unfortunately adequate???) from the catalog 15 years ago, to lay her to rest in that sweater.

In looking through the doll's things, I found a few things I'd forgotten. A Christmas sweater my grandma had knit. A dress I made but never finished. Doll shoes I'd saved for and ordered myself from the catalog.

Time had somehow swallowed the memory of those things.

When I was a little girl, I used to stay at my grandparents' house sometimes. And I remember one afternoon sitting by myself in my grandma's living room with a music box that played "Memories." Sitting there and crying because one day my childhood and even my grandparents would be memories (This is a true story. If it means I was a really peculiar child, then I was a really peculiar child.).

Probably that little girl would have cried, too, over the thought of laying Molly to rest. Actually, I'm sure she would have. Because today I found in the box of the doll's things something I hadn't really expected.

I found love.

Little-girl-love for a little girl's doll. Love in the box with compartments (compartments were important to that girl) that separated hair ribbons from doll socks.

Where did it go?