Mama and Me Part 7 – The Doll

I’ve hated dolls, especially the ones with the realistic, glassy eyes that blink, ever since a childhood incident — to be frank, they creep the bejesus out of me. My grandmother (Mom’s mom) lived with us for a few years, and she had an extensive doll collection. I used to love going into her room and looking at all of them. Before moving into the nursing home, she said she wanted me to have her bedroom suit and also said I could pick out one of her dolls. She had a few small, cute fabric ones, no more than a few inches long, lying in tiny wicker baskets. I had always been partial to these and was on the verge of picking one of them when Mom nudged me and whispered in my ear to pick a nicer one — specifically, a 2- to 3-foot-tall doll that stood upright, had long blond hair, wore a long blue dress and had those eyes. I didn’t dare defy my mother’s wishes.

I came to learn later that Grandma knew which dolls were my actual favorites and never expected me to select her prized little girl in the blue dress. Mom later told me Grandma was pleased I had selected it, but stuck to her promise that I could choose whichever I wanted. The doll stood on display in my room for some time, too pretty and, well, stiff to ever play with, which is why it wasn’t my first choice. And then it happened. I woke up one night and swear the head had turned so it was looking directly at me, and its eyes were no longer realistic and glassy but were real, human eyes watching me. Terrified, I leapt out of bed, grabbed the doll, threw it out of my bedroom and shut and locked the door behind it.

The next morning I told Mom about it. She brushed it off, telling me I had been dreaming. She was probably right, but that didn’t change the fact that I would never sleep another wink if that thing were in my bedroom. That incident forever traumatized me. I stuffed it into the hall closet and absolutely refused to allow it back in my room. Mom, who always loved the doll, refused to get rid of it but, giving into my fears, allowed it to be kept in the closet. And there it stayed, except on the occasion a sibling, usually Marie, would take it out at night and place it outside my bedroom door to scare the daylights out of me when I got up.

Roughly 15 years later, I was back living in my hometown, helping Dad take care of Mom in her early-to moderate Alzheimer’s years. I braced myself every time I had to open that closet door and every time received the familiar jolt in my stomach when my eyes met hers. Finally, one day I decided I’d had enough and said this was ridiculous! Mom had Alzheimer’s and would never know if I just threw the thing away. It was trash day and Dad had already brought the cans to the curb. I made sure Dad had Mom sufficiently distracted, grabbed the doll, marched her out the front door and unceremoniously stuffed her head first into the can.

Mom at this time had taken to wandering around the house and staring out of windows. If on trash day she saw anything, especially anything of color, visibly sticking out of the cans at the curb, Mom, no matter what the object was, an empty bread bag, a broken hanger, would hurry out and retrieve it and yell and whichever of us she saw first for daring to throw away her prized possession. Dad and I, now used to her antics, were in the habit of making sure everything was well hidden in the cans with the lids tightly closed before taking the trash out, but in my haste to be rid of the doll once and for all, I forgot. The doll’s white, buckle shoes and stockings and the bottom of her frilly baby-blue dress were sticking out of the top of the can. Dad and I were in the family room when Mom entered in a towering temper, clutching the doll. My stomach dropped to my feet.

How dare we throw away her beloved doll given to her by her daddy?! I stupidly first tried to tell her Grandpa had not given it to her, that it was actually my doll. You’d think I would have known better. She called me a liar and insisted it was a birthday present from Grandpa when she was a little girl. She stormed out of the room and proceeded upstairs to her bedroom. I kept my distance, and when she was back downstairs, happy and safely distracted once more by Dad, the doll long forgotten about, I stole into her room, once more grabbed the demon thing that would not die and ran out to the garbage. This time I made sure she was fully hidden and covered in the can. Still, when I went home for the day, I was convinced she would be back to torment me the next day. I was sure she would somehow find her way back. Happily I was quite wrong. The doll was whisked away to the landfill where she belonged.

Sometime after (I really can’t remember the timeline) my sister Jo, who lived out of state at the time, came home for a visit. She has taken many continuing education classes for her physical therapy career and for obvious reasons has taken as many as she could that focused on Alzheimer’s and dementia. She brought Mom a gift during that visit after learning in one of her classes that women with Alzheimer’s often find comfort if they have a dollbaby to carry. Yep. Realistic, glassy, blinking eyes. I may not have liked it, but if it helped poor Mama find comfort, I was more than willing to look past my phobia. But things, unfortunately, took a decidedly creepy turn. Mom loved the doll — a little too much. She actually believed she was carrying a real baby. She walked around the house cooing at it and gently bouncing it, and every person she passed she asked if they had seen her baby. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

“Yes, Mom, she’s beautiful,” I replied every time, inching away and resisting the urge to run. The sight really unnerved me, but Mom was happy — that’s all that mattered. But then she wasn’t. She noticed that one of the devil-doll’s eyes was stuck half open. She became very agitated and looked at me in distress and said, “There’s something wrong with this baby!” Thinking quickly, I said the baby was just tired and needed to lie down for a nap. I gently took it from her, treating it as a real baby (so help me) and carried it back to the spare bedroom where a crib was set up. I thought if I put it in a closet or somewhere else a real baby didn’t belong, Mom would get very upset if she stumbled upon it. So I laid it in the crib and even covered it with a blanket and made sure its eyes were closed. If Mom happened to find it, she could watch it peacefully sleep. Even in her Alzheimer’s state the veteran mother knew never to disturb a sleeping baby. There the doll stayed until Jo’s next visit.

I reluctantly agreed with Jo to get it back out and give to Mom. I tried to tell Jo how disturbing it was when Mom believed the thing to be real and then became upset when she saw something wasn’t right. But Jo wanted to give it another try. Everything was great at first — though creepy as ever, just as before, with Mom showing everyone her beautiful baby. Then on a dime, everything went terribly wrong. Mom became agitated again, realizing something was very wrong with the baby. This time she started trying to pinch the doll’s cheeks and shaking it a bit and all at once started sobbing uncontrollably, saying, “no, no, no—it’s too late—it’s no use—it’s too late.” Jo and I reacted in a flash. I got to her first, grabbed the doll from her and thrust it at Jo. Jo ran from the room with it as I wrapped Mom in a tight hug. I don’t remember what Jo did with the doll; I just know Mom never saw it or any other doll again.

I can’t describe the pain of watching your mother relive the death of her baby girl — I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that is what Jo and I witnessed that day, the memory of the death of our baby sister, Tricia, who died at 3 months old. A knife through the heart doesn’t do it justice. The memory of Mom sobbing over that lifeless doll is burned onto my brain like a scar. If Alzheimer’s had a silver lining, it was allowing her to forget the pain of her loss. Thankfully, her sudden flashback was short lived. Within a few minutes, she forgot about the incident, forgot there ever was a doll, forgot about her baby girl. She was happy again. For me, however, that moment will haunt me for the rest of my life. I hate dolls.