A Raggedy Reminiscence

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lara604/ / CC BY 2.0

When I was  a little girl, preschool age at best, I had a Raggedy Ann doll. I carried her everywhere. At some point, her face had been destroyed (my mom thinks chewed off by a dog) and my aunt had created a new one out of sheeting and embroidered Ann a new face. I carried her everywhere.

After a visit to the park with some teen babysitters and a rushed departure, I realized I had lost my beloved doll. The babysitters refused to turn back — after all, it was just a doll.  My mom was livid at their dismissive attitude. She fired the girls and took me back to the park, but the doll was nowhere to be found.

* * *

A few years later, I was walking to the (different) babysitters after kindergarten. I stopped at a four-way stop sign, and waited for the car that was coming. He pulled to a stop and waved me on, annoyed — or at least it seemed so to a 5 year-old. I was afraid to step out in front of that big car with that annoyed man driving, but waiting just made him more annoyed, so I stepped out into the street.

The memory ends there, and I’m sure it ended well, since I was never run over by a car as a child. But, strangely, that memory comes back to me every single time I’m at a four-way stop and there’s a pedestrian. Every time.

* * *

It’s funny what memories stick with you. It makes me pause and wonder what things my kids will carry with them as adults. Will they remember a particular fun thing we did, or will it end up in a vague jumble of  fun things? Will Bobo remember last night, when I heard him tossing and turning on my way to bed, and invited him out for a cup of herbal tea to help him sleep? Will the dark year before their father and I were divorced overshadow the happier memories that came before and after?

I hope that my kids will remember that parents are just people, and they do the best they can. I do know that the one thing my kids will take with them from childhood is that they were absolutely unconditionally loved.  And I know that will serve them well.