this is from "The Velveteen Rabbit" and it really struck me on several levels...i encourage you to find your own "take-away" from it...
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were laying side by side near the nursery fender..."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 too often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or 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."
"I suppose you are REAL," asked the Rabbit. And then he wished he hadn't said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.
"The Boy's Uncle made me real, " he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are REAL you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."
