She Smiled

There are those who will find this post...immature.
There are those who will find themselves...scoffing.
There are even those (cough*mysiblingsandhusband*cough) who will make fun of me...

but here it goes.

I swear she smiled.

The past 15 years of her life have been spent moving from dusty dresser to antique chair to original packaging. Her hair has stayed in the same braid--because styling it another way might mean it all falling out. She's lived for those occasional seasonal outfit changes, hugs I sneak in when no one is looking, times when I proudly pull her out to show a niece or a little friend in my neighborhood, times when I whisper in her ear, I haven't forgotten. I still love you.

Perhaps she doesn't like to be manhandled. And she certainly doesn't like being called a baby.

But "yours little girlie?"

That I don't think she minds.

I confess, it was the new Cinderella dress that did me in. Five bucks at an outlet sale, never quite fitting on any of the baby dolls living in our upstairs.

I wonder...it would look so great...maybe she's ready?

"Just a minute, sweetheart," I tell her, as she begs to play house once again. "Let me go get my doll!"

I run downstairs. She is right where I left her--as faithful a friend as she has been since day one, despite the many moves, horrid hairstyles, preteen tears, and being forgotten one too many times in a hot Utah minivan.

She looks a little worse for the wear--but the past two decades have aged me too.

I enter my daughter's room, wearing my Molly smile, and after getting her dressed in some new, more "modern" clothing, I hand her over, I pass her down, I turn her into an heirloom. She's resurrected, reborn, renewed, refreshed.

She looks at me from my daughter's cradling arms.

I swear she smiled.