A Gift

My mom gave me this Barbie this week. This was hers when she was a kid, and I have always thought it was my favorite thing in my Grandma's house. (Okay, as I've gotten older, I have also developed a fondness for the Lladro with the little girl and the puppy, but I could never play with that, obviously.) I would always go get this doll from the shoebox in the drawer in Grandma's sewing room and ever so carefully stroke its hair and try clothes on it. This dress was my favorite of the few clothes there were. Now I have it in my own home! and still I can hardly keep from feeling her soft hair and admiring the dress that now looks so much older than I used to think.

Maybe it's silly, but I love this doll. My favorite thing about it is that it's not just any Barbie. My grandma cut her own hair and sewed it into the doll's head. My grandma was almost 60 when I was born, and I certainly don't remember her with dark hair like this, and there are not a lot of pictures of it either. This doll is like a piece of my grandma's past, a part of her I can only imagine. I love it.