I’m not sure how old I was when my parents gave me my doll house. It was certainly before my 4th birthday. My father Michael was an artist that never embraced his gifts. Dad could take a simple piece of plywood and build it into a masterpiece with a knowing instinct for wood stains and restoration. His talents matched any classically trained furniture builder. My mother has a keen design sense, she can walk into any secondhand store and in minutes identify the one treasure in a sea of junk. She can always spot potential.
I know exactly what drew her to my father, she was captivated by his intrinsic goodness. I grew up in a Victorian house my parents restored. In today’s world they could have been Chip and Joanna Gaines. Their combined talents were unmatched. It is easy to imagine them planning my doll house, my mother with the design ideas and my dad with the architectural skills. I can picture them in the garage late at night after they had put my brother and I to bed, designing and planning my house. The hours they spent, discussing, planning, and preparing for my surprise. My doll house, just like me, was the ultimate collaboration of their love. It was never lost on me, that my doll house was their last collaboration, the last thing they did just for me.
As a child you don’t understand why your parents’ marriage fails. I know they never fought, I have no memories of broken plates or of shouting matches. What I experienced, was the profound sadness of their failed marriage and its aftermath. My parents managed differently; my dad’s sadness was profound. While my mother, coped the way she had learned to survive- she stayed busy. Their coping mechanisms are the truth that I have spent a lifetime trying to manage. My brother and I are the perfect imprint of both. As I have gotten older, I realize that I’m actually a great deal like my dad and my older brother is very much like my mother. The interesting reality is that we both spent more time with the parent we were least like.
I have no memoires of the day I received my doll house. I think it was a Christmas gift. I do know that it followed me through my childhood to future homes. The doll house was magnificent and large. Its 1970’s contemporary, the Barbie Dream House paled in comparison. For a good portion of my childhood it sat on a large repurposed wooden cable reel. To give you a sense of scope, the reel had previously held the wire to run electrical lines.
The house was stunning, not just in a child’s eyes, it was beautiful by any measure. My two-story white colonial house was very familiar- my parents had designed me my own White House. The house had stately white columns, if you flick the battery power switch, you were able to turn on the drop pendant light on the front porch- the light mimicked the same stately pendant found in the White House portico. From the back of the house, you could see it was open with multiple rooms in the large two-story mansion. What I did not know was that the entire summer my brother and I spent eating popsicles, we were creating the hard wood floors of my gift. My mother meticulously stained each stick creating the floor’s perfect hardwood finish. As you moved through the house, each room had different wallpaper that my father had installed. The wallpaper my mother had sourced was wrapping paper from the local card store in town. No detail was neglected or too small--with each room possessing handmade items my parents had selected for me.
I loved my doll house… It was paradise for an active little girl’s imagination.
Shortly after my parents separated, the doll house went on to move to our new townhouse with my mother, brother and my soon to be stepfather, John. It was a good decision to not leave it behind in my now father’s house. Because not long after, we moved our belongings out of my childhood home—the home where my parents had collaborated and built my doll house; that house burned to the ground. The cause was old wiring, one restoration project my parents had yet to complete. If my doll house had remained, it too would have been lost in the fire.
Even so, at some point, just prior to the move the doll house too had been damaged. My brother Michael had gotten upset and the doll house was the victim. With his tiny six-year-old little hands, he took a large black magic marker to the hardwood floors and the same marker was used to damage the perfectly hand selected wallpaper. The hanging pendant was pulled from its home and wires dangled in its place.
I don’t remember finding the house damaged… What I do recall was that my mom assured me it could be fixed. But the damage had already been done, I distinctly recall losing all interest in my doll house. And although, my mother had assured me the doll house could be repaired, my parents never collaborated again to fix it.
My doll house moved, along with my other belongings from the town house to its final home. This house marked my fourth home with my mother, I would have been about nine years old. In this house, my bedroom was much smaller than the bright new town house, it was an older home that too was a rental. The doll house was much too large for my small bedroom. We kept it in our unfished basement. While the basement was clean, it was an old house and the space wasn’t really a great playroom.
One day we woke to a flood in the basement. My mother always the most capable in crisis, donned her chest high fishing boots and began to clean the basement. Many things had gotten wet, but this flood wasn’t from too much rain, this flood was because tree roots had destroyed the house’s sewer line. The basement had flooded with raw sewage. At a certain point, I went into the basement as my mother was assessing the damage and all the things that had been destroyed- the doll house had become one of the victims.
My mom lovingly explained that the doll house could not be saved…
I often wonder about the doll house, the sweet and loving memories it must have held for both my parents. I think about my brother’s childhood pain, what was in his sweet little boy mind the day he took the marker to my gift. Was he jealous of my parents’ gift, had I hurt him that day or maybe been a mischievous four year old and hidden one of his trains, or was he angry with my parents? These questions have no known answers. My heart also hurts for my mother’s and father’s dreams for me. I wonder what it must have felt like for my mother to carry not only the heavy weight of the doll house but their collaborative dreams for me up the steps and out to the trash. She carried the broken dreams of my destroyed doll house, and the lost dreams of their marriage.
What secret late-night stories of love were buried in the trash with my discarded dream house?
What I can still recall even to this day, is my profound sadness and loss when the doll house was removed from my life. That gift was my cherished heirloom from my parents, my imagination’s first forever home. It was mine alone, to love and cherish and to pass along. You see even after its magic marker damage; I had a profound hope my parents would still collaborate and repair my gift.
I learned a painful lesson that day in my basement, one I was not yet ready to learn- some dreams don’t last forever.
In the story of our life, the chapters that describe our childhood are often written for us. These chapters are filled with pages in which we had no say or choice. But for each of us, there comes a time when we begin to write our own chapters.
What we choose to write in these later chapters, that is what defines us...
Peace be with you.
Kathryn - PilgrimageGal
photo credit: pixabay - https://pixabay.com/photos/book-landscape-nature-wind-weather-2929646/