A Fond Remembrance
At a time when I was just on the cusp of being able to get away with the pretense that I still believed a man in a red suit with a white beard was going to land a semi-herd of reindeer on the roof of our house, then slide down a non-existent chimney (we had a faux fireplace with “lumps” of amber glass standing in for the real thing) I had duly written my letter (and one for my younger sister) to the man, asking, because I had been so good, for a doll that was on the oh so popular list of “must have” toys that year.
When the doll was not under the tree on Christmas morning, I was to say the least disappointed. However, I was old enough to know that it was my parents who were responsible for whatever managed to find it’s way to our house with our names on the treasures. My mother, also disappointed at not being able to fulfill that wish, took me aside and quietly, so as not to spoil the magic for my sister, explained what had happened. As occurred in many households and still does to this day, by the time my father had been paid and my mother had saved enough money for the extras for Christmas, she was unable to find the doll at any store she checked. Sold old met her at every stop. I had a number of other gifts to appreciate and enjoy that morning, and before long that doll was simply a memory.
About a month after Christmas, as we came in from groceries, my mother and our next-door neighbour Mrs. B., who was just going out, were standing on the porch discussing the holidays. My mother was lamenting the inability to find the one gift that I had set my heart on. As they were talking, we noticed one of the girls across the street playing on her lawn with that very doll. An arm had been torn off and as she made her way back indoors, she threw the doll in the snow, discarded and forgotten as if it was no longer of any interest. My instinct was to go over, pick it up and take it to her door. My mother said we would just let it be, but I could see that she was upset. The way of the world she explained. Sometimes people don’t appreciate what they have. I wanted the poor doll to be whole again. My mother and our neighbour continued to speak in hushed tones, and I left them to it, eyeing that doll face down and cold in the snow.
A few days later my mother asked me if I would go next door as Mrs. B. had asked me to stop in. No idea why but I went in and sat in the living room while we chatted over cookies and hot chocolate about things that an 8-year-old might enjoy. And then this lovely woman handed me a box. Inside that box was “the doll”. She had been given one of these toys as a promotional gift through her office and as her only child at that time was a boy of two, she wanted me, with my mother’s permission, to have the doll. I was speechless and then tearful and ever so grateful for her generosity and her kindness. That family moved soon afterwards, and I only saw them once more as happens as circumstances change when we visited their new home a few blocks away.
I haven’t thought of this woman or that doll for years - until this morning when reading the newspaper, I came across her obituary. I learned that she had led a full life, with three children and grandchildren and time spent doing the many things that rounded out her life. I imagined her as a mother and grandmother and her giving nature and once more that eight year old girl said “thank you Mrs. B., I’ve never forgotten how you made me feel.”
Generosity is a gift for the giver and the person who receives, and the obligation I believe, once you have been the beneficiary, is to pay it forward. I wish I had been able to tell Mrs. B. how many times the gift of that doll and her generosity to me has been paid forward.
Maya Angelou said it best:
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”