Things We Keep - Jinny

This is Jinny.  I received her as a gift for my first Christmas when I was five months old. This year Jinny will be 58 years old. 

I was told that when Jinny was new, she was covered in a soft velvety material and she had white plush fuzzy 'fur' around her face.  The only remnants of the velvety material is right behind her legs, where it hasn't worn off.  The white fur is long gone and the material worn thin. I have to keep Jinny under glass to lessen the further deterioration of the brittle fabric.  

Why did I keep Jinny for all these years?  She is not particularly cute, nor cuddly.  In fact, as Bill has pointed out, she is a bit scary.  "It's the plastic face" he says.  He's right of course, she is not a "sweet" doll.  

I'm not even sure that she was sweet when she was new, but yet I kept her.  Every single seam on Jinny has been repaired.  And her face has remnants of markers - thanks to my older sister Cathy, but yet I kept her. For more than 50 years. 

I don't remember carrying Jinny around everywhere I went.  I also don't recall tea parties with her and my other dolls either.  I really don't have any special memories of Jinny except for one.  It was when I around 5 or 6, I was crying at the side of my mom while she repaired Jinny with a needle and thread.  I have that proof of my love for Jinny, and of my mom's love for her child who wouldn't go to sleep without Jinny.  

Jinny is the oldest thing I own that belongs to me.  Through 11 household moves, Jinny has stayed with me.  While I have a difficult time connecting feelings of love to her, I have an easy time applying sentimental feelings for her.  Jinny has made it with me for 58 years, she deserves to be preserved for the next 50 years. 

In my house I have many items that have no direct connection to me.  I pick things up at estate sales, flea markets and auctions.  Other people's belongings - other people's memories.  I have their photos, their diaries, their autograph books from grade school and their Christmas cards.  I have their embroidered linens, quilts, their leather luggage and their china tea cups.  So many treasures that belonged to someone else have found their way into my home.  

I see these items at estates and it hurts my heart to think that there was no one in the family that wanted these 3rd grade report cards, these quilts, these photos.  I feel bad and I take them home.  Someday, when relatives are going through my belongings, they will hold up an item and ask "Is this something?".  Someone will inspect it further and say "Doesn't look familiar" and it will get added to the 'Yard Sale' pile.  

Perhaps they linger longer over my scrapbooks and pause to turn the pages.  They will see all the silly Calvin & Hobbes comic strips, the poignant quotes and the pictures from magazines that brought me joy.  They turn a few more pages, and find a locket of red hair from my niece Kelsey's first haircut, a picture my now 47 year old brother Bernie drew when he was 6, and a birthday card Bill's oldest granddaughter Rebecca drew when she was 8.  Six large scrapbooks full of delightful little nuggets of joy that have no monetary value but which mean the world to me.  

And then they find Jinny.  They will see that she was kept under glass and someone will say "This, this here must be a real treasure".