Today I bought a dollhouse for a little girl I will never meet. She is six years old, and she wanted a dollhouse, or so her card said on the “giving tree” in the Manhattan Mall.
To be honest, it’s rather ugly – hot pink and white, and plastic everything. The only thing even remotely appealing to me is the real working lamp in the “living room.” Yet, I have a sense she’ll love it, because I wanted something similar at that age.I was a huge Barbie fan, and when I was 8, I wanted her house – the Barbie Dream House. This pink and white plastic palace with a real working elevator cost around $100, a fortune even by today’s standards. But I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and something that, if I were exceptionally good, Santa (a.k.a. Mom and Dad) would buy for me for Christmas.
I vaguely remember taking my father into the toy store and joyfully pointing it out to him. I remember he looked at it for some minutes, as I did when I purchased this little girl’s dollhouse. I clearly remember his quietly-determined voice saying to me, “I can do better than this.”
So, for my eighth Christmas, my father built me a dollhouse. It was a two story blue and white Colonial with a wrap-around front porch. The sides opened out so I could sit practically inside of it, and the roof also opened, swinging up to reveal a two-sided attic. It had miniature replicas of our dining room furniture, our living room furniture and bunk beds that fit together. My next door neighbor sewed curtains for all the windows, and I think there were bedspreads for all the beds. Mom still talks about the wonder she saw in the eyes of my sister and I when we first saw it.
I was initially disappointed with it. It didn’t fit my Barbie dolls (they were too tall); it was not pink; and, to my horror, it didn’t have an elevator. I remember that I did thank him for it, and I did play with it, but my heart still pined for the Dream House I didn’t have. As the year progressed, however, I began to forget about the Barbie Dream House and played more and more with my dollhouse. I spent hours making up stories, imagining what life would be like in a house like this, sipping iced tea on a hot summer day on the porch, watching my children play in the yard and learning what I wanted my life to be like.
As I grew older, Mom and Dad moved the house downstairs to the basement, where it sits to this day on a specially designed platform. I remember a few times as a teenager going downstairs and opening it up again, remembering how much pleasure it gave me, how it helped mature my imagination, and even set the stage for my love of writing, of creating, and of fiction. Over the years I’ve slowly realized how much work my father put into it, and how much he, my mother, my next door neighbor and countless other people who helped create this most beautiful of gifts, loved me.
My father and that next door neighbor passed away years ago, and Mom keeps the dollhouse next to my childhood tricycle. These are tangible memories of the child I once was, memories I hope to share with the children who I hope to have one day.
I didn’t build the dollhouse I bought for that little girl, and I know my father, wherever he is, is laughing at the irony of it all. In a weird way, I got that pink plastic wonder that I always wanted. Now, however, I realize what he was ultimately telling me about life – sometimes, when we want something so bad, we don’t see the imperfections. We don’t see the ugliness and how it will ultimately become another thing which we throw away, and don’t treasure. Things that come from the heart, however, things that possess intangible qualities – elements of magic, wonder and love – are the best gifts.
I hope this little girl realizes one day that I intended this dollhouse to be one of those gifts, and that she will get as many years of enjoyment out of her dollhouse as I have gotten out of mine. – Mary Bernard
You, too, can submit essays to the Back Page! Write: The Current, Box 3069, 1400 Washington St., Hoboken, NJ 07030. Or e-mail: Current@hudsonreporter.com.