Behind my childhood home, buried under rocks and gravel in the very far corner of the backyard, my two little stepsisters rest in peace. They are not flesh-and-blood sisters. Actually, I have no sisters. The occupants of these earnest makeshift graves are my dearly beloved deceased dolls, who were buried with full honors. Let me tell you how it happened. Did you know that dolls, like humans, have a life span of many years—but that dolls in a home where there are boys have an average life span of only a few months? Dolls in the latter category quickly lose limbs in battle. They accumulate black-and-blue marks made by pens and markers, and they suffer more perforations than their frail bodies can handle. The first of my dolls to go was little Tammy. She had porcelain skin, beautiful blonde hair and blue eyes. On that fateful day she was perched on top of my chest, relaxing peacefully, when Shulem ran into the room to grab something from the top drawer. He couldn’t reach it and pulled out the bottom drawer to use as a step. Before he knew it, the chest had toppled down on top of him and Tammy crashed to the floor, breaking into shards. My beautiful little porcelain sister was gone. I burst into uncontrollable sobs. I was nine years old and inconsolable. My heartrending cries reached the older boys, who considered it a golden ticket to entertainment.
They entered the room with serious faces and began gathering up all the pieces. They said Tammy had been a fine doll, had never done much harm and deserved to be buried with honor. They then led me out to the backyard, dug a hole in the shady far corner, and ceremoniously lowered what had once been a beautiful doll into the ground. Doll number two was Sura—or, as my brothers liked to call her, Sewer. She was three feet tall and defied the odds by living way past her second birthday. On Rosh Chodesh Adar of my freshman year in high school (yes, I still played with dolls at that age—please don’t tell anyone), I got off the bus and looked through the front window of our house to see an extremely unpleasant surprise. Dangling in the window, a rope around her neck, was my dear Sura. She swayed gently from side to side in her Shabbos finery, the hand-me-downs I had bequeathed to her. In the background, the Friedman boys’ choir was singing “Shoshanas Yaakov,” their faces hidden from view. Before long Sura’s frail body came loose from her neck and landed on the ground with a thud. The chevrah were still singing harmoniously, unaware that the only thing swinging from the rope in their hands was Sura’s head.
Until they heard my bloodcurdling yells. Within seconds they had all disappeared. I was livid! In the first place, my brothers had publicized to all my friends the fact that I still played with dolls. And in the second place, the only heir to my outgrown baby clothes was now gone. After the boys’ chants of “Haman is hanging” had died down, they got out their shovels, dug a grave next to Tammy, and gave my Sura her final honors. Then they turned to me and said, “HaMakom yenachem es’chem…may you merit to have real live daughters of your own, and they should live to 120.” I never got a new doll. It just wasn’t worth it. Years have passed, and now, baruch Hashem, I am looking into the eyes of my very own daughter. I pray that my brothers’ brachos of long ago will come to pass. In the not-too-distant future I will be going doll-shopping, and I hope that my daughters’ dolls will be no more than that, dolls—and that she will have many sisters to play with and brothers who will create sweet memories for her.