One year ago today my Grandma Johnson passed away. I was reading the “Velveteen Rabbit” a couple of nights ago and came across a passage that reminded me of her:
(The Skin Horse is explaining to the Rabbit what it means to be Real.)
“When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real. It doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off. . . 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.”
(The Skin Horse is explaining to the Rabbit what it means to be Real.)
“When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real. It doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off. . . 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.”
My Grandma was so loved and was the closest thing to Charity that I have ever seen. (If you ever read the scriptures about Charity you could just replace the word "charity" with her name.) She had had cancer and a disease called ataxia, so by the time she passed away she had lost her hair (although it had grown back by that time) and was confined to a wheelchair. Because of the Ataxia she was a little “loose in the joints” and she couldn’t do her makeup or hair as well as in the past. But, she was so Real. She was a beautiful person on the outside and even more beautiful on the inside! She is such a great example to me and gives me the motivation to be a better person.
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