Okay, I know I should prolly save this till I actually get to the episode in question, but....I wanna talk about it now.
In Episode 27, “Little Billy”, Spencer gets his mom a small doll of Billy for her birthday, specifically stating that the fact Billy’s her distant cousin is one of the reasons why it’d be the perfect gift for her.
And that’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Billy is Jane’s relative. Her dead relative. Of all of the people in the house, Jane is the one most closely connected to Billy in terms of family. To her, he is really gone, permanently.
I wonder if, after the episode finishes and she’s alone with the toy, if she ever looks at it and silently mourns.
Mourns because she never really knew him, mourns because he was family-less, alone, prior to his death, mourns because he was taken far too soon from the world, mourns because this little doll with his real hair is the only piece of him she’ll ever truly have and the closest she’ll have ever truly been to him. Mourns the loss of a piece of her family she hadn’t known she had until it was too late.
Because even if you hadn’t known them, hadn’t been apart of their lives, it still hurts to loose them. Distant family is still family.
Jane doesn’t play with the doll. She doesn’t cut its hair, she merely styles it into the way its supposed to be. It sits on a shelf along with the other precious knickknacks and handmade gifts her children and husband have given to her over the years. Jewelry from long-passed grandmothers, dogtags from slain uncles and grandfathers, a ceramic plate handed down to her from her mother depicting the details of her own birth. These memoirs of her family, both still with her and not, all collected into one place where she can admire and remember them, because they’re all worth honoring.
The doll doesn't look out of place at all. It’s always belonged there.