"What is REAL?" I asked my doll today....
"Real isn't how you are made," said she. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become REAL....."
"Does it hurt my doll?"
"Sometimes," admitted my doll, for she was always truthful. “Remember Chary when you first got me you were just four years old? Back then I had long, glossy, silky hair. Almost every day you would comb it with that red “suyod” (the one with super narrow and straight teeth) as if I got some yucky lice.... Well, that hurt a little bit I must confess and certainly damaged my hair and almost skinned my scalp. You would also love to undress me and launder with your bare hands my one and only overalls; as well as wash my hair not with a shampoo though, but with Mr. Clean blue detergent soap. As a result, my hair now looks like it’s undergoing some kind of a chemo therapy. A little wiggle here and there... and soon I am going to be as bald as an eagle. I may be losing my hair now but I know it’s because it has been loved off. Really, when you are Real you don't mind being hurt.”
“Even if you look very shabby now? And still wearing that jumpsuit which is kind of tattered now?” I teased.
With soft and gentle voice my doll replied, “These things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
“I know what you mean by your last line. One time I asked my daughter if she wanted to have you. She threw one quick glance at you and without any thought of euphemism she answered: ‘No thank you, Mom!’ Sorry about that; whew, kids nowadays can just be so outspoken!”
“Right! She finds me ugly because she doesn’t know me that well and doesn’t understand me at all. Don’t blame the poor girl! But what do you know about me anyway, Chary? After you had outgrown your doll days, what had become of me? Tell me....”
“...Gulp...gulp...I plead guilty here, my doll. You can charge me with abandonment, desertion, and negligence and I won’t contest it. I know I abandoned you during the wake of the super typhoon Undang in 1984 when we had to evacuate to a neighbour’s house and that you had nobody to calm you from your fear of the howling winds. I know I had left you behind when I went to study/work/live in the big(?) city and never cared to write, phone, text, email you. God, that was so apathetic of me! Guilty as charged....”
“Yes, for almost more than 30 years I was all by myself--ignored, forsaken, uncared for, wallowing in loneliness. But the worst part was one of your sisters chucked me out of the house. I was put into a sack along with a lot of crap and junk and was dumped in a compost pit to rot.... Then in June 2008 Typhoon Frank deluged us in Aklan. The surging current untied the sack, casted me out, and swept me away from what would have been my burial ground. And by a combo of fate, luck, and miracle I got tangled between some dead guava tree branches on your yard. And there your dear mother found me few days after the typhoon, soiled and caked with mud. She could have just tossed me back to that pit... but instead she picked me up and right away gave me a good and hard scrub from head to toe.... ”
“My doll, I know about that. When mother told me about your Typhoon Frank horrendous ordeal I was misty-eyed. It was like an ‘it-dawned-on-me’ moment. I then saw the reason why you triumphantly rose above many tides of life with and without me: to happily remind me of a once carefree and worry-free episode of my life--my childhood years; and to gently remind me to unselfishly let my girl seize every single day of her childhood to the max. And will you give me a chance to make it up to you? I pledge, from now on you go wherever I go; after all you won’t need any passport or visa, train or bus or plane ticket...lucky you! Now I’ve got to ask you this one last question: I suppose YOU are REAL?"
And my doll, in an answer, meet my gaze intently...lifted her chin slow motion-ly... and then flashed me her smooching lips affectionately.... MWAAHH!!!
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