Goodbyes. What to keep; what to hang onto.

Since my diagnosis, I’ve become more focused on simplifying my life.

Marie Kondo and her book, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” is sweeping our culture right now. And this has infiltrated my desire to de-clutter, however, not without some huge challenges.

I have a doll collection. Don’t worry. It’s not anything resembling a horror film in which Vincent Price emerges from a bunch of melting wax figures.

My husband is fine, also, by the way. He’s not prevented from sleeping because he feels eyes are constantly watching him.

Actually, I only display a few of them in our office; I subscribe to the “less is more” principle. A lot of dolls, in one space, as much as I love them, also creep me out. But my collection does feature some significant ones in my decades of collecting: Mark Twain, dressed in his white suit, the Spanish Precious Moments doll my mom got me for my 17th birthday and, of course, my Gorham Bride doll. I fashioned my wedding dress after her attire.

And then, there’s Linda Lullaby, a/k/a, “Jane and Jenny.” That’s what she was known by, in the 1960s, anyway. According to some online descriptions of this rather unsettling-looking doll, she is described in this manner:

“This darling 19- inch doll winds up in the back and plays a lullaby while her body and head move back and forth in a rocking motion. She also opens and closes her eyes as she rocks her little baby doll… A great flashback doll!”

Yeah, it sounds creepy, doesn’t it?

By the time she entered my world, she debuted in the 1970s Montgomery Ward Toy Catalog. There she was: sandy brown hair in two low ponytails, tied with pink ribbons, matching her pink and white gingham dress. The same gingham theme repeated in the romper of the baby doll she cradled while “Brahms Lullaby” played.

But I never got her for my birthday or for any Christmas. For all of my pining, I just resigned myself to not having her be a part of my collection. Eventually, life moved on and I forgot about her.

Until one “routine” trip my parents and I made. It was to one of those all-encompassing stores where you can buy tires, large cannisters of cheese balls and toys.

Yes, the toy aisle.

As any curious kid would choose, I scurried there. And wouldn’t you know who I stumbled upon? No pink gingham, blue instead. All the better, as blue was my favorite color at the time, and the color of my bedroom. It was fate. Destiny.

One small hitch, however- my dad was a part of this store experience. Mom and I had to navigate this precarious situation. It wasn’t “just a doll.” It was TNT and our reaction to Linda Lullaby, in the next few moments, could light the fuse that created another explosion.

No, a doll was not just a doll, as far as my dad was concerned. It was the reminder to all three of us that I was not born a son. Adding more insult to injury, I was an only child. There would be no second, third or fourth son to redeem the family name and make up for my presence.

So, early on, I learned not to compound the resentment by flaunting a bunch of dolls around my dad. They only enraged him. He’d throw some of them away. I have one painful memory of fighting for my Star Wars Princess Leia doll as he grabbed her by the throat, throttling her, again, threatening to destroy her. I was only able to save her by appealing to my dad’s sense of practical purpose; she had a job. I pled my case of how I had to bring her to school the next day, for “Show and Tell.” He relented and dropped Princess Leia. I grabbed her quickly and tried to disappear with her.

So, I had these traumatic lessons rifling through my brain as the three of us were in that toy aisle. Mom knew what I wanted. She saw me fixate on the doll. But I knew the drill. Walk away from it. Don’t beg for it; don’t show an interest in it. Keep things moving.

I did. And I thought I pulled it off. My dad didn’t seem to notice that I was smitten by Linda. We were just window shopping.

So, what happened next threw me. We walked away, getting ever-closer to exiting the store. And then, suddenly, we stop, pivot; my dad walked back to that toy aisle. He goes to the shelf where Linda was sitting in her gigantic box. He picked her up. There was no expression on his face, no smile, but no anger either.

Just blank. What did that mean?

All three of us walk, Mom and I following his lead, and made a straight line to a checkout counter. Excitement, confusion and fear welled up inside of me. This isn’t happening. This doesn’t happen.

My dad bought me the doll.

Really?

I was still dazed as we walked to the car. At any point, surely, he’d take it back. It was all a cruel joke he played on me. He’d done it before. He had a “mean streak,” relishing instances in which he made me cry or be terrified.

But no, we got in the car and drove away.

Once home, I quickly took the doll box and raced to my room. I nervously displayed her. He could choose to come after her, take her away, destroy her whenever he was so inclined. Should I even enjoy her? He fully knew about this doll- no hiding its reality. He was there; he chose to walk back to the toy aisle. He chose to pay for it with his money.

In the trend of de-cluttering, Marie Kondo often advises us to only keep things that “spark joy.”

With Linda, it’s more complicated than that. She “sparks meaning,” not necessarily joy. It’s the same kind of feeling I have as I still keep my dad’s World War II dog tags. It’s meaningful. I’ve gone back and forth, over the years, questioning as to whether it’s healthy.

I’m still not sure.

And, as you can see in the accompanying photo, which is a representation of my doll, Linda is, well, Linda is… creepy. Her blue eyes that have a splay of black rivulets, creating this disturbing iris in her blue eyes, as they open and close. I don’t display her; she’s in storage. Honestly, she is not a doll I want to see in some eerie pre-dawn light. It’s a little too “Amityville Horror” for me. More disturbing than Vincent Price.

Still, even after all of these years, after all of the abuse, after her less than adorable aesthetic, I have not gotten rid of her.

I’ll never know why my dad bought her for me. I’d like to believe that, maybe, he saw I was his daughter and wanted to get me a gift. Maybe he was trying to connect.

Or, maybe this was just a part of his abusive way of thinking. Maybe it was just another mind game. Maybe it’s a weird mish-mash of all of these possible explanations. I don’t know. I’ll never know, as long as I’m here on this planet, anyway.

But I cannot deny this doll is special to me. To deny is to lie, to clutter and to hurt my life further. And I’m trying to stop doing that now.

Linda Lullaby, for all of her mystery, creepiness and complicated backstory, is still special to me. Perhaps, one day, I’ll let her go.

But for now, she remains. And the only thing I know for sure that remains with her is this:

My dad bought her for me.

Copyright © 2019 by Sheryle Cruse