I am sitting here looking at a miracle. Fifty years after my mother’s death, her last gift to me has been returned to me. On the night before she died, December 20, 1959, my mother gave me her antique doll, a doll she had already owned for nearly forty-eight years. Once a year for most of my then twelve years I remember my mother taking the fragile cardboard box down from the closet shelf as I waited nervously for the thrill of holding the doll in my lap. At some point I named her Hannah, though I will never know what my mother called her.
That cold December night I placed Hannah lovingly on my dresser, kissed my mother good night and went to sleep. Sometime around five a.m. on December 21st my mother unexpectantly passed away. In the hustle and bustle of the comings and goings after her death, Hannah amongst other items belonging to my mother disappeared.
I saw the doll only once after that in my Aunt’s sewing room. My mother’s sister was making new clothes for the doll. When I complained that the doll was mine, I never saw it again.
After my Aunt’s death in 1968 I was told the doll was gone, thrown out. I gave up hope of ever seeing her again.
But miracles happen. In 2009 I found my cousin Myrna after a separation of forty-one years. Women grow up, marry, move away and divorce and then the best of intentions often go awry. Finding Myrna was my first miracle. We met at her home in Connecticut in July of that year.
On the chair in the bedroom where I stayed was an antique doll. I gave it little notice only to pause to regret the loss of my own. That evening after supper Myrna asked if I had seen the doll in my room. I replied yes and asked if it had been her mother’s? Myrna led me to the bedroom where she asked if I recognized the doll. I knelt before the chair and shook my head. Myrna stood behind me. Then she said the most amazing thing. “That’s not my doll, that’s your doll, that’s Aunt Ruthie’s doll.”
