Mrs. Beasley I miss you

When I was a little girl I had a Mrs. Beasley doll. She was the best with that polka-dotted blue and yellow dress and silly face that made every girl feel absolutely beautiful. Really though, I loved her. She had a string that came out of her back that would make her recite really great things that I don't remember. But the best thing about her was she was my unconditional little friend. You know childhood can be rough. Kids sometimes steal your candy and slam the door in your face (that's a story for another day). You need an unconditional friend, anyone being nice to you is good too...you think.
So when the older neighbor girl, Ruthie, from down the street came knocking at my door and wanted to play with me and both of our Mrs. Beasley dolls I quickly accepted. My mother seemed to think it was nice that the older girl wanted to play and went about busily in the house. I ran to get Mrs. Beasley as Ruthie so impatiently requestly. Eager to play with me, I thought. That's nice.
Now out on the front porch, the same concrete porch that held the day's heat and warmed me in the evening, on this porch she told me, smiling from her large frame, to take the scarf I put on my Mrs. Beasley, hand her my doll ,close my eyes and spin around. I did. She handed me Mrs. Beasley and said "they look exactly the same." Yes, they did.
That was all the playing she wanted to do. Odd I thought, but whatever. I went to my room to have tea with Mrs. Beasley. That's when my little girl world unravelled. Mrs. Beasley would no longer speak her kind words that I don't remember to me. The string was stuck, broken. I had been duped by the classic bait and switch! I ran crying to my mother.
I approached Ruthie's house many times in an attempt to get my friend back. She had two very large, very mean brothers, which could explain a few things. But I never did get my Mrs. Beasley back.
As a child I was sad for quite awhile about this and I couldn't fix it, no one would fix it. I have thought often of this since, and thought how mean Ruthie was, how much I'd like to tell her a thing or two about how to treat people. But then what could I say about how I treated her?
This story brings me back to the only thing that can fix the unfixable stuff. Forgiveness.
Makes me think of how many tangled situations I've put myself in when I make bad choices, it gets unfixable. And God forgives me every time.
OK, so Ruthie, I still miss Mrs. Beasley, but you're off the hook.
Forgiveness fixes a lot of things, not Mrs. Beasley's voice box, but still, a lot of things.