Tiny Tears

Please allow me to set the stage- it's winter of 1985 and I am spoiled rotten 4 year old. My grandparents have just moved from New Jersey to Virginia and I'm at their house playing with my toys.
I fall in love with a baby doll. Head over heels, madly in love. It's turning dark outside and my parents are telling me it's time to go home. I put on my coat and grab my baby- I'm ready. My grandparents gently inform me that I can't take the baby home with me- she's my aunt's doll from when she was my age, but I can always play her at their house. Heart is Broken. I wailed and screamed and threw a tempter tantrum worthy of a two year old. Nothing worked, and the baby did not go home with me.
The next time I went over there the baby was out of sight and I forgot about her until the next time my aunt came to visit. I begged her to let me take the baby to my house, promising I would take extra special care of her. But the answer was always no, she stayed at my grandparents house where I could always play with her. Cue tantrum.
This scene happened quite a few times over the next couple of years, always ending with me in tears and no baby doll to take home. Eventually I forgot about her and then I outgrew dolls. She went to the attic and I never saw her again.
Until yesterday.

My aunt came to visit me and Spencer and as she got out of her car I saw something in her hands. As she got closer, I saw my doll and I sprinted for the porch door. My baby doll! (Yes, I'm 27). Just as I was about to take her in my arms my aunt leaned down and said "Here Spencer, I brought you a baby doll!"
What? She's mine! My aunt looked at me like I had 10 heads and said, "well you two can share it." My brain was telling me, you're acting insane, loony bin- commit you kinda crazy. But my heart and my inner child were green with envy. I had wanted that doll for years, begged and pleaded for her, and Spencer gets to keep her- and she never even asked, never even knew my Tiny Tears existed! Um, yes, I do know how immature and ridiculous that sounds.
So I put on my big girl pants and watched as Spencer gave TT kisses and rubbed her back, my heart turned from emerald to lime. Last night as I put her to bed, Spencer laid the doll in the middle of the pillow looked around and then put her own head beneath the pillow- on the mattress. My daughter gave up her own pillow for her doll! There was no more envy, just admiration for my little girl. (And a load of embarrassment towards myself).

If I had gotten TT when I was a child, she would have ended up where all my dolls ended up- the Goodwill, a yard sale, or the dump. I would have taken care of her for a day, maybe two, possibly even a week- but that's about it. She would've become one of my patients that I operated on or the unwilling recipient of a makeover. And there was certainly no way I would've ever given up my pillow for her. It makes me happy to see that my baby is such a sweet, loving little girl.