Joey

Yesterday as I was tidying the basement I ran across an old suitcase filled with memories of the past. Neither of my girls were particularly crazy about dolls, but when Quinn was 4 years old, Cabbage Patch dolls were all the rage. A woman in our ward raised money by making and selling these “not so attractive” creatures, and mostly to help her, we bought a boy Cabbage Patch Kid for Quinn. He named him Joey. Joey changed our lives. Here’s a paragraph from a letter I wrote on July 10, 1985. “Quinn insists that Joey has a place at the table (not a huge table and already surrounded by eight people) with real food on his plate. Joey goes everywhere with Quinn (after we take the time to put his winter coat on). At the store Quinn never asks for anything for himself. It is always, “Can we buy snow boots for Joey?” “Can we buy a treat for Joey?”

“One day at Church, Quinn was banging Joey’s head against the door to the bishop’s office (the bishop happened to be his dad). One of the women nearby said, “Quinn, you shouldn’t be banging on the bishop’s door.” Quinn replied, “I’m not banging on the bishop’s door. Joey is.” Joey had a problem with one of the dimples in his knee, so he had to go back to the “doll hospital” for surgery. The day he was returned to us Quinn was so happy to see him that he wanted to have a “welcome home” party and invite all of the neighbors over. Then the Hatches called and invited us to come over for swimming and a barbeque. Quinn was disappointed, but we suggested that maybe he could take Joey to that party instead. He thought it over and decided that would be okay if it was an “exprise” party. He wanted me to call the Hatches and have them all hide so they could jump out and say “EXPRISE!” when Joey arrived. I finally convinced him that we could just blindfold Joey and when we took the blindfold off he would be “exprised.”

Quinn has turned out to be a very loving and attentive husband and father. Perhaps Joey deserves part of the credit.