Day 25 What is Real?

1/25/2025

Quiet, and oh so cold! It's a time for lying around in pajamas, snuggled in a warm bed with fleece covers, and sipping on a mug of hot chocolate loaded with marshmallows. That's my idea of a slice of heaven. Today, knocking around the house brought back special memories of my parents, especially my daddy's stories he shared with me. Not to mention that exasperating puzzle I am still trying to finish. Puzzles were more of my mama's thing. I wish she was here to help me finish this one. 

My parents passed away on the same day, three years apart. I was privileged to share my thoughts with others when I did daddy's eulogy. I shared a portion of a story that reminded me of daddy, and I thought, perhaps, it may hold special meaning for the reader as well. It comes from the child's story called "The Velveteen Rabbit" by Margery Williams. The story is about the toys in the boy's nursery:

"The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs on his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those play-things that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it. 

'What is REAL?' asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy up the room. 'Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handles?'

'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'

'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.

'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being  hurt." 

'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'

'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been rubbed off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.'

'I suppose you are Real?' said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

'The Boy's Uncle made me Real,' he said. 'That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.'"