On a lazy summer afternoon, my granddaughters sat close to me as I read them “The Velveteen Rabbit.” One squeezes my arm seeming to be intrigued by my lack of muscle tone. “Squishy-squishy,” she said as she pats and pokes my soft flesh. I just laughed to myself and said, “yep.” I’ve reached the mental maturity to not take offense to such undiplomatic but honest comments from youngsters. I have resigned myself to the fact that ‘yes,’ I am mostly squishy and it’s ok. But that is not to say I have given up on taking care of myself. I began a running regimen over a month ago which involves half walking so parts of me are not as squishy as they used to be.

Grandmas in my day were all soft and saggy rather than hard and stout. At least my grandmas were, and I never thought twice about it. As I read further into this favorite old story, the story line weaved into my own reality especially as we heard from the rabbit’s wise old friend the Skin Horse who was, as many may recall, the longest living toy in the nursery. He long outlived the flashy modern mechanical toys so much so that he had bald patches in his brown coat, his seams were showing and most of the hair was pulled from his mane and tail. I loved his sage advice, “Real isn’t how you are made. 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.” When asked if it hurts to become real, he said yes but you don’t mind being hurt and it doesn’t happen all at once. “It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t 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 by people who don’t understand.”

Now I know I am not at this stage of “realness” yet, I still have my hair and only a few of my seams are showing but I wondered if the grand girls saw the bigger picture and were able to allow the story to jump off the page into their own lives. They are so lucky to have many grandparents and great-grandparents in their lives, are they able to see them for their wisdom and love that has developed over many years? Do they understand that being “Real” may involve losing hair or growing more where not wanted? Do they know that “Real” skin can fade and become threadbare and “Real” eyes lose their luster and ears lose their hearing? If they don’t know, I hope one day they will understand that no longer being a bright shiny toy doesn’t mean you are not loved and are not valued. No, in fact, most often a person has gathered many loved ones over the years and is loved more than ever.

As adults, I am sure we can see the lesson in this book. It’s about how a person loves and treats others that really matters and it is returned in kind. You don’t have to be the newest, sleekest model to be loved. The Velveteen Rabbit didn’t even have hind legs, he couldn’t march or hop or spin around like other toys. He was just soft, huggable and always there to snuggle with every night through sickness and health. The Velveteen Rabbit was much loved by his boy, and he realized it doesn’t matter if his velvet coat is sparse and his buttons have been lost, or if he is bunchy or sleek, he knows he is “Real.” As I read the lovely conclusion, where a fairy comes down to save the Velveteen Rabbit from  being incinerated with the other Scarlett Fever infested toys, I saw the smiles on my granddaughters’ youthful faces and felt well… “Real” squishy, but “real.”