To Be Real

Over the past couple of days, I've been reading The Velveteen Rabbit with Julietta. I'd forgotten how much symbolism that story offers.

There is one part of the story that is sometimes read at weddings. (In fact, my sister read it at my brother's wedding.) And that's because it is a great metaphor for true love—the kind that really does last forever, even when you're old and falling apart. It can also be a metaphor for true beauty, as well as maturity.

It's just one big metaphorical bundle of wisdom.

"What is Real?" asked the Rabbit one day... "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a 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 who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the 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... And once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

Later on in the story, when Rabbit is declared Real by the boy who loves him, it reads: That night he was almost too happy to sleep, and so much love stirred in his little sawdust heart that it almost burst. And into his boot-button eyes, that had long ago lost their polish, there came a look of wisdom and beauty.

I don't know about you, but I want all of my hair to be loved off.