Am I Real?

I've always been amazed on how stories for kids could mean much more for grown-ups like me.

This morning I was having my usual morning chat with my friend, Katz. She told me a story she read to her daughter last night. As how I would normally react, I got curious in the beginning and of course, touched in the end. It's so funny that Katz was teary-eyed after telling her girl about the Velveteen Rabbit. Then her little one goes, "Mommy, are you OK?". Hee hee! Wisdom becomes deeper as we age, I guess.

So here's an excerpt. I totally agree with Katz that it's the most beautiful part. I'm definitely putting this on my Shelfari wishlist. =)




"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "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 happen often 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."

"Am I real?" I now ask myself. Funny, I just can't tell.