I found your Raggedy Ann on the doorstep alone yesterday, quite alone! You gave no word of explanation to anyone as why you'd suddenly deserted her after a full year and half of faithful companionship.
Two black threads dangled lifelessly where one button eye used to be. The embroidered mouth was left in half smile--the other half was very worn away. Her hair was split, frizzy and highlighted by bald spots and her insides were showing through quite indelicately at both shoulders. Her once cotton dress begged for soap and water and the snaps were dangling or missing. I gave up sewing them back-on some time ago just as I quit giving her a bath.
Yes, she looked pretty raggety, but that never alarmed you. You even dragged her by the hand to church countless tines while I explained to friends that you did have better looking dolls. You preferred that one.
There was the day you carelessly misplaced Raggedy Ann at the Rummage sale and a ten-year-old girl bought her. I guess I was not aware at the time I made Raggedy Ann that I stuffed her with a magic ingredient, "only little girls could see". But we got Raggedy Ann back that day and never let her go again--until yesterday!
Today I made a new Raggedy Ann! I sewed the same patience and care into the seems , but that certain magic ingredient "only little girls can see" must be missing. She sits perched on your bed for days, gathering dust on her yarn hair and on the mitten hands wistfully folded across the everlasting clean apron. Oh, one eye is missing, but your little brother pulled it off. I didn't see it again. Somehow Raggedy Ann looks more natural with one eye.
Trying to keep my memory alive.
I remember taking the old second Raggedy Ann without one arm and one leg and reconstructing it to keep my memory alive. I think I was 14 or 15 years old. My sister had a Raggedy Ann also. Her Raggedy Ann had one leg and one arm. I took her Raggedy Ann and disassembled the arm and leg and attached it mine. I was thinking that the Raggedy Ann she kept was not as meaningful to her. She never paid attention to hers and hers was crammed in a plastic bag untouched. I wanted a whole Raggedy Ann. Now that I had a whole Raggedy Ann, I displayed her proudly on my bed. My sister never said a word about Raggedy Ann. Until her children told me a different story. They told how I had stolen their mom's Raggedy Ann and took it apart and ruined it. They told how selfish I was to have taken the Raggedy Ann and left it legless and armless. I felt horrible that I had not asked my sister for the doll and that I assumed had no meaning to her. What could I do? This happened 30 years ago.
Raggedy Ann is gone. There is nothing left of the doll that I held close and hug the stuffing out and loved without eyes. The memory lingers good and awful. Awful when I think of my selfishness and good when I imagine the little girl faithfully taking the Doll to church, shopping and garage sales and dragging her by the arm.
I kept the second Raggedy Ann for many years and partly into my married life. Raggedy Ann started to disintegrate and I threw it away.
I once sewed large Raggedy Anns for my nieces and nephews. They were never attached to the large red haired doll. .
Today every time I see a Raggedy Ann in a store, I want to buy her. But I don't because of the memory of my selfishness. I don't because the orange haired, big button eye doll is not the same as the one sewed with patience and care by my mom that "only little girls can see". It is the memory of being loved by my mom, that is what makes it special.
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