rag doll
The day the package had arrived on my doorstep, I’d been going about my grown-up life thousands of miles away from my mom. I hadn’t been expecting a delivery, let alone what I’d discovered inside: a pair of Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls. At first, I’d been equal parts touched by the surprise and confused as to why this particular present had been chosen. Don't get me wrong; I'd been genuinely grateful, and I'd experienced the kind of warm fuzzies only a thoughtful mom like mine could conjure. Though the reason didn't ultimately matter, given another ten years I’d finally understood that the contents of that box had exceeded mere whimsy.
Four things you probably don’t know about me: 1.) My lungs have never been quite right; I had not been expected to survive my early childhood. (Three cheers for good old-fashioned obstinance.) 2.) While it had not reached a debilitatingly phobic degree, clowns and anything clown-adjacent (including my first Raggedy Ann) had secretly creeped me out as a kid. This was despite the fact--and probably because--my childhood bedroom had been decorated in them. 3.) I am not, nor have I ever been, a collector of dolls. Even as a little girl I’d preferred the company of animals, whether they'd been living or plush. (Talk about foreshadowing.) And 4.) fifteen years ago, I'd very nearly died of sepsis and acute kidney failure. (I didn't find it cute at all.)
The latter, I discovered, had been the connection. From the occasion of my birth onward, Mom had crept to my bedside multiple times every night to ensure that her youngest daughter's chest still rose and fell with steady, life-giving breaths. This behavior had tapered off as the years progressed without incident, but Mom hadn't stopped checking completely until my age had hit the double digits. She hadn't wished to frighten my sister. To my knowledge, she'd never told her. She hadn't wished to frighten me either, to the point that she'd smiled sweetly and pretended she'd come to my room so often for any other reason, because what mom doesn't tidy a dresser drawer at two o'clock in the morning? But, even as a toddler, I could pick up on the subtlest microexpressions. I could hear the whispers on the rare occasion she'd spoken of my health. I could sense her fear that one day she'd hasten to my side, and I would be gone. I could also detect the telltale gush of relief expelled from her lungs every time she'd closed my door and returned to her bed. My own anxiety about the matter, I might add, had not been alleviated by the fact that I could also read a full two years before I'd entered kindergarten. Not only had clowns stared down at me from the walls across from and to the left of my bed, a giant, embroidered prayer decorated the area directly to my right.
“Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
Mom had put it there--presumably in my infancy--with the purest intentions, a mix of grief, love, and hope that I'd be well looked after, I suspect. As I glanced at those words every single night, my interpretation, on the other hand, had thrown on a jaunty rainbow wig and veered off in another direction altogether, driving a very tiny car that had far surpassed its maximum occupancy. Obviously--my three-year-old brain had concluded--this hand-stitched harbinger of doom prophesied a gang of red-nosed psychopaths leaping off the wall and murdering me in my sleep. Would they come for me with the strangling power of a colorful, infinitely long handkerchief? Or would it be a neurotoxin cleverly hidden within the jovial spray of a daisy boutonnière? I could hardly fathom the myriad manners of maniacal malice that might befall me. The only thing I'd been sure of was that my slow demise would probably include an irksome degree of horn-honking. Naturally, I had done what any rational, problem-solving toddler would have: I'd bolstered my power of invincibility. It is a little known secret that clowns cannot touch you if you are fully cocooned in a flowery percale sheet. (Yes, the floral motif is absolutely essential. Clowns, as everyone knows, are inexorably attracted to your brighter plaid and polka-dot patterns.) Of course, I realize now that not only do bed linens fail to make one impervious to harm, but that none of my kiddie-killer-clown fears had possessed a modicum of merit.
Probably.
Mom had loved clowns, by the way. And when it came to mine, she had been the artist who had created them. They were exceptionally well done, as all her works had been, and they were not remotely terrifying by any adult standard, unless that adult happened to suffer from coulrophobia. I, however, had endured a years-long case of the heebie-jeebies and had never--would never--utter a single complaint about them. Mom had meant well. I would never be the one to hurt her. As far as she had ever known, the clowns had been something special that we'd shared, something that would always remind her of the eager baby who had rushed into the world a month ahead of schedule, the precocious toddler who could prattle on nonstop, the wit-wielding child who had never failed to make her laugh.
Mom and me…a long, long, long, long, long time ago.
Mom had successfully seen me through the childhood she hadn't always believed I'd survive. When my life had been endangered again (for the fourth time--that she'd known about), there had been nothing she could do to help. No late night checks would have eradicated the poison flowing through my veins, wreaking havoc on my internal organs. As travel had not been possible at the time, her only option had been to stand by and await the evening phone call, during which she and Dennie would share updates and comfort. Often, when Dennie had left my hospital bedside for the day, I'd overheard a nurse offering reassurance that I would be okay. On a few occasions, in the wee hours--unable to sleep in the torturous contraption they'd seemed insistent on calling a bed--I'd overheard two or more staff members outside my door. "She isn't long for this world," they'd say, or, "I doubt she has much more time." One nurse had bluntly proclaimed as much to my face. She'd been wrong, obviously, but, while many patients might feel quite the opposite, I'd appreciated her candor more than the steady diet of false hope I'd been fed. Nothing triggers my stubborn defiance like being told I cannot do something, even if that something is maintaining a pulse. I'd kept those conversations from Dennie until after I'd been discharged; I'd never divulged that part of the tale to my mom at all. How much pain and worry had the distance and the helplessness caused the woman who had brought me into this world and nurtured me through questionable odds? As someone who also loves deeply, I can only imagine.
I can see it now. I can see the why.
When these rag doll siblings found their way to me shortly after I'd recovered from the extreme illness that had almost triumphed in its deadly pursuit, the gift had been, after all, very much a mother-daughter thing--these dolls with the clown-like features, these timeless symbols of innocence. They had fostered renewed connection over the miles; they had evoked bittersweet longing for the youthful days that had, by then, long ago drifted into maternal memory. But this yarn-headed duo, had been, most notably, the hurricane-force exhalation of a protective parent who had once again held her own breath and waited...and waited...and waited for proof that her faraway child had continued to breathe.
Fifteen years ago, this uncharacteristically cute pair had arrived unexpectedly in a plain brown box. Plain or meaningless could never be an apt description for them. The nostalgic rag doll and her rag doll brother had come to me as a reminder of the cherished memories Mom had held close to her heart, no matter the geographical distance between us. I still don't collect dolls or harbor a particular affinity for them, but, for as long as I live--on truly good days and downright raggedy ones--Ann and Andy will be treasured, representing nothing less than a mother's enduring love.