The Groom Returns For His Bride

(Written by Kathy Overshiner)

When I was a small child at Christmas time, I would thumb through the pages of the Sears, JC Penny and Montgomery Catalogues. I was looking at the Christmas toys. My eyes would focus on the doll section and one particular doll. I admired the beautiful bride doll. My heart was set on this doll. There was a time that I had to leave during the middle of school as I was ill and I had to go to my great grandmother’s for her to take care of me until it was time to go home. During my visit with my great grandmother, she took me to her neighbor. This lady made dolls. I was taken into her crafts room and to my surprise the room was filled completely of dolls. It was a little girls dream. On each wall there were many shelves that went to almost the ceiling and on each self, there were dolls that lined it. But once again, my eyes and heart focused on the bride doll. There was only one there. A year or two later, my great grandmother asked my parents if she could see me. So my folks took me to her. She was by then in a wheel chair. She told me she had something for me that I had wanted. She looked for it, but she could not find it. The only thing that I remember wanting was the bride doll. I never was told what she had wanted to give me. I am left with the mystery, was it the bride doll I had been waiting for?