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|
Drawing:
Yukiko Hattori
My dream finally came true
when I was six. One day my father
came back from his business trip
with three store-bought
dolls!
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Memories
of Dolls
Yukiko
Hattori from Japan
My
mother seemed to be able to make dolls out
of anything. She would make my two older
sisters and me cornhusk dolls with golden
corn-silk hair, rag dolls with shiny
button eyes and yarn hair, eggshell dolls
(as breakable as Humpty-Dumpty) and even
tiny matchstick dolls for our cardboard
dollhouses.
I
enjoyed playing with them, but still,
secretly, I yearned for a store-bought
doll like the one our rich cousin had. Her
doll had beautiful blonde curls, and it
could open and close its blue glass eyes
and even say "Mamma." I never stopped
admiring it, but somehow I could not tell
my parents that I also wanted that kind of
doll. I knew, though vaguely, such dolls
were a little too expensive for my parents
to buy for all three of us.
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Drawing:
Yukiko Hattori
Their dolls were abandoned and
in miserable condition. One had
lost one of her arms, and the
other was one-legged.
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However,
my dream finally came true when I was six.
One day my father came back from his
business trip with three store-bought
dolls! They were much smaller than our
cousin's doll and their eyes were just
painted ones, but I did not care about
such differences. They were real
"store-bought" dolls, hard plastic dolls
in princess-like fancy dresses and with
wavy nylon hair. What more could I wish
for? We each chose one and I named mine
Misako.
Soon
my sisters and I became devoted mothers.
Our "children" kept us busy all day. We
gave them a bath, dressed them, brushed
their hair, took them out for a walk, and
put them to bed. We thought up all sorts
of things we could do with our dolls and
tried everything.
Several
months later, they got more like real
children—their faces and bodies
became dirtier; their dresses got stained;
their hair less smooth. I felt that Misako
was closer to me than before because of
these familiar changes.
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Drawing:
Yukiko Hattori
You can take care of them if
you want," my sisters said to me.
Thus, I was unexpectedly promoted
to being the luckier mother of
three children instead of just
one.
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But,
by then, my sisters' interests seemed to
have moved into different toys. Their
dolls were abandoned and in miserable
condition. One had lost one of her arms,
and the other was one-legged. "You can
take care of them if you want," my sisters
said to me.
Thus,
I was unexpectedly promoted to being the
luckier mother of three children instead
of just one. They were more or less
handicapped and they often looked to me as
if they needed me to help them. I enjoyed
this feeling of being needed—being
the only one in the world who could
protect them with a lot of love. Indeed,
they made the rest of my childhood days
very happy.
More
about Yukiko's dolls:
Finding
My Dream
Doll
| Messengers
of
Friendship
| Doll
Slide Show
Return
to: A
World of
Dolls
| Issue
3
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