Keeping It Real

"You become. It takes 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 your 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."

Velveteen Rabbit

Photo: Terminally ill patient Jackie Beattie, 83, holds a dove on October 7, 2009 while at the Hospice of Saint John in Lakewood, Colorado. The dove releases are part of an animal therapy program designed to increase happiness, decrease loneliness and calm terminally ill patients during the last stage of life. By John Moore/Getty Images)