When I red the book “The Velvetin Rabbit” to our children the first few times I choked with tears and emotion. Once I even had to hand the book to a friend to carry on reading when we where on a long weekend away together. Brene Brown read this passage in one of her books I listened to recently and I decided to write it in my journal. Here it is for you to enjoy and ponder:
“Real isn’t how you are made” said the skinhorse, “its a thing that happens to you when a child loves you for a long, long, long time. 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 have to be carefully kept. Generally by the time you are real most of you hair has been loved off and your eyes drop off and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you re real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”