I started this doll about a year and half ago, and just finished her this week. Even though she's called "Joy" there's something not quite finished or settled about her. I think that's because I made her in memory of a friend who killed herself. She kept looking and hoping for joy, and although she loved her husband, children, and family, she felt such pain that she couldn't go on living. She was a dollmaker herself, and her favorite set was a mama doll with baby dolls from all over the world.

My friend adopted her two children from South America and she was a pediatrician. She loved children, and was so gentle and caring with them. She killed herself just as winter was turning to spring, and maybe the feeling I have about this doll is that she didn't quite make it to spring. Do you know the feeling you have when the gray of winter finally gives way to a warm breeze and bits of green pushing up through the earth? When darkness turns to light? It didn't happen for my friend. She never made it past the darkness.