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What’s the oldest thing you own? (Toys, clothing, twinkies, Grecian urns: anything’s fair game.) Recount its history — from the object’s point of view.
The oldest thing that I own and that I came into my marriage with is John, my doll that my great aunt Georgette gave to me when I was a baby. He has a cloth body stuffed with rags; I know because over the course of his 46 years, he has been stitched up more times then I care to count and he has an adorable plastic head with painted on brown curlicues and deep brown eyes that open and close and a cute little mouth all ready for his bottle.
I was never a doll kind of girl, but I loved my John, mostly because my great aunt Georgette gave him to me and I adored her. John was always either sitting on my bed or sitting on my dresser and I took him with me when I got married because I had planned to give him to my eventual daughter. Which I did; I gave John to our little girl so that she would have him to play with if she so chose, but at the very least she would have his faithful companionship at night, he was very good for that.
Our daughter played with him and so did our dog Marshall, in fact Marshall loved John so much that he would show it as dogs often do by licking and chewing on John a lot. That is when John was often admitted for emergency surgery; when the last admittance into the E.R was prompted by an almost complete decapitation, that is when I sat my daughter down and asked “wouldn’t it be safer for John if he came back to Mana’s room?” our daughter said “yes that would be probably be for the best” and John has been safe and sound ever since on my dresser.
I think that everyone needs a special keepsake from their childhood, I don’t know why, but it gives me solace and comfort knowing that John is still with me.
laurieanichols 