30 September 2017

 Hello everybody,

   Sorry about that last email...I really thought I had sent it!  

   Joseph's 12th birthday was just the other day, and it looks like it was AMAZING!  We've enjoyed seeing the pictures, but would love to hear more about it! 

   Gran left yesterday with Jocie and Janie, on their big road trip.  They didn't leave until mid afternoon, but made it to Rock Springs for the night. They plan to be gone about 2 weeks.

   Dad was home for about a day and a half...it was great!  He left early this morning for Ft. Myers, Florida, and will be home next Thursday.  We'll have a whole week alone!  

   I have been Sandy Wood's visiting teacher and friend for many years. She was a very sad person, living in depressing surroundings.  She had lost mobility a long time ago. I was really worried about what to say at her funeral, because although she had a testimony of the Gospel, she nor her family had been active, and few of their friends who would attend the funeral are active members, or members at all. I knelt to pray, hoping for guidance to just the right conference talk on which to base my talk. As I stood up from praying, the thought came to go to the book shelf by the chimney, where we keep the children's books. That's when the idea of using the story of the Velveteen Rabbit came to me...it wasn't something I could have thought of on my own. So, these emails being kind of my own journal, I'm going to include the edited version of the Velveteen Rabbit, that I used for Sandy's funeral.  It normally takes about 20 minutes to read, but after I cut it, it is only about 10 minutes. 

 The Velveteen Rabbit 

Or

How Toys Become Real

by Margery Williams

(edited version JH)

There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid. He was fat and bunchy, as a rabbit should be; his coat was spotted brown and white, he had real thread whiskers, and his ears were lined with pink sateen. On Christmas morning , when he sat wedged in the top of the Boy's stocking, with a sprig of holly between his paws, the effect was charming. 

There were other things in the stocking, nuts and oranges and a toy engine, and chocolate almonds, and a clockwork mouse, but the Rabbit was quite the best of all. 

He was naturally shy, and being only made of velveteen, some of the more expensive toys quite snubbed him. The mechanical toys were very superior, and looked down upon every one else: they were full of modern ideas, and pretended they were real. The Rabbit didn't know that real rabbits existed: he thought they were all stuffed with sawdust like himself.  Between them all the poor little Rabbit was made to feel himself very insignificant and commonplace. 

He had a friend, a horse. The Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away; he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Horse, understand all about it. 

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the 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 Horse. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt. It doesn't happen all at once; it takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges. 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." 

The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him he longed to become Real, and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him. 

For many nights, the Velveteen Rabbit slept in the Boy's bed. At first he found it rather uncomfortable, for the Boy hugged him very tight, and sometimes he rolled over on him, and sometimes he pushed him so far under the pillow that the Rabbit could scarcely breathe. But very soon he grew to like it, for the Boy used to talk to him, and made nice tunnels for him under the bedclothes, and they had splendid games together. And when the Boy dropped off to sleep, the Rabbit would snuggle down close under his little warm chin and dream, with the Boy's hands clasped close round him all night long. 

Time went on, and the little Rabbit was so happy that he never noticed how his beautiful velveteen fur was getting shabbier and shabbier, and his tail becoming un-sewn, and all the pink rubbed off his nose. 

The Boy would take him for rides in the wheelbarrow, and picnics on the grass. And once, the Rabbit was left out on the lawn until long after dark, and Nana had to come and look for him with the candle because the Boy couldn't go to sleep unless he was there. 

"You must have your old Bunny!" Nana said. "Fancy all that fuss for a toy!" The Boy sat up in bed and said, "You mustn't say that. He isn't a toy. He's Real!" 

When the little Rabbit heard that he was happy. The nursery magic had happened to him, and he was a toy no longer. He was Real. The Boy himself had said it. 

That night he was almost too happy to sleep, and so much love stirred in his little sawdust heart that it almost burst. 

Near the house where they lived there was a wood, and the Boy like to go there to play. He took the Velveteen Rabbit with him. He always made the Rabbit a little nest somewhere, where he would be quite cozy, for he like the Bunny to be comfortable. One evening, while the Rabbit was lying there alone, he saw two strange beings creep out of the tall grass near him. 

They were rabbits like himself, but quite furry and brand-new. They must have been very well made, for their seams didn't show at all, and they changed shape in a queer way when they moved. They crept quite close to him, twitching their noses, while the Rabbit stared hard to see which side the clockwork stuck out, for he knew that people who jump generally have something to wind them up. But he couldn't see it. They were evidently a new kind of rabbit altogether. 

"Why don't you get up and play with us?" one of them asked. 

"I don't feel like it, " said the Rabbit, for he didn't want to explain that he had no clockwork. 

"It's easy as anything," said a furry rabbit. "I don't believe you can!" 

"I can!" said the little Rabbit. "I can jump higher than anything!" He meant when the Boy threw him, but of course he didn't want to say so. 

"Can you hop on your hind legs?" asked the furry rabbit.

That was a dreadful question, for the Velveteen Rabbit had no hind legs at all!

The wild rabbits began to whirl round and dance, till the little Rabbit got quite dizzy.

"I don't like dancing," he said. "I'd rather sit still!"

But all the while a funny feeling ran through him, and he felt he would give anything in the world to be able to jump about like these rabbits did. 

One strange rabbit stopped dancing, and came quite close, his long whiskers brushed the Velveteen Rabbit's ear, and then he flattened his ears and jumped backwards, and exclaimed. "He isn't a rabbit at all! He isn't real!"

"I am Real!" said the little Rabbit. "I am Real! The Boy said so!" And he nearly began to cry.

Just then, the Boy ran past, and the two strange rabbits disappeared.

Weeks passed, and the little Rabbit grew very old and shabby, but the Boy loved him just as much. He loved him so hard that he loved all his whiskers off, and the pink lining to his ears turned grey, and his brown spots faded. He scarcely looked like a rabbit any more, except to the Boy. The nursery magic had made him Real, and when you are Real, shabbiness doesn't matter. 

And then, one day, the boy was ill.

He talked in his sleep, and his little body was so hot that it burned the Rabbit when he held him close.

It was a long weary time, for the Boy was too ill to play. But the Rabbit snuggled down patiently, and looked forward to the time when the Boy should be well again. Presently the fever turned, and the Boy got better. And one day, they let him get up and dress. 

The Boy was going to the seaside tomorrow. Everything was arranged. They talked about it all, while the little Rabbit lay under the bedclothes, with just his head peeping out, and listened. The room was to be disinfected, and all the books and toys that the Boy had played with in bed must be burnt. 

"Hurrah!" thought the little Rabbit. "Tomorrow we shall got to the seaside!" 

"How about his old Bunny?" asked Nana.

"That?" said the doctor. "Why, it's a mass of scarlet fever germs! Burn it at once. He mustn't have that anymore!"

And so the little Rabbit was put into a sack with the old picture-books, and carried out to the end of the garden. That was a fine place to make a bonfire, only the gardener was too busy just then to attend to it.

The sack had been left untied, and so by wriggling a bit, the Rabbit was able to get his head through the opening and look out. He was shivering a little, for he had always been used to sleeping in a proper bed, and by this time his coat had worn so thin and threadbare from hugging that it was no longer any protection to him. A great sadness came over him. He thought of the Horse, so wise and gentle, and all that he had told him. Of what use was it to be loved and lose one's beauty and become Real, it it all ended like this?  And a tear, a real tear, trickled down his little shabby velvet nose and fell to the ground. 

And then a strange thing happened. For where the tear had fallen a flower grew out to the ground, and out of it there stepped a fairy. 

"Little Rabbit," she said, "don't you know who I am?  I am the nursery magic fairy; I take care of all the playthings that the children have loved. When they are old and worn out and the children don't need them any more, then I come and take them away with me and turn them into Real." 

"Wasn't I Real before?" asked the little Rabbit.

"You were Real to the Boy, because he love you. Now you shall be Real to every one." 

She held the little Rabbit close in her arms and flew with him into the wood. In the open glade between the tree-trunks the wild rabbits danced, but when they saw the Fairy they stopped dancing and stood round in a ring to start at her. 

"I've brought you a new playfellow," the Fairy said. "You must teach him all he needs to know in Rabbit-land, for he is going to live with you for ever and ever!" 

And she kissed the little Rabbit and put him down on the grass. 

"Run and play, little Rabbit! she said.

But the little Rabbit sat quite still, for when he saw all the wild rabbits dancing around him he suddenly remembered about his hind legs. He did not know that when the Fairy kissed him, she had changed him altogether. He might have sat there a long time, too shy to move, if just then something hadn't tickled his nose, and before he thought what he was doing he lifted his hind toe to scratch it. 

He found that he actually had hind legs! Instead of dingy velveteen, he had brown fur, soft and shiny; his ears twitched by themselves, and his whiskers were so long that they brushed the grass. He gave one leap, and the joy of using those hind legs was so great that he went springing about, jumping sideways and whirling round as the others did, and when at last he did stop to look for the Fairy, she has gone. 

He was a Real Rabbit at last, at home with the other rabbits.

Autumn passed and Winter, and in the Spring, when the days grew warm and sunny, the Boy went out to play in the wood behind the house. While he was playing, two rabbits crept out from the tall grass and peeped at him. One of them was brown all over, but the other had strange markings under his fur, as though long ago he had been spotted, and the spots still showed through. And about his little soft nose and his round black eyes, there was something familiar, so that the Boy thought to himself: "Why, he looks just like my old Bunny that was lost when I had scarlet fever!" 

But he never new that it really was his own Bunny, come back to look at the child who had first helped him to be Real."

I know, it seems like a strange story to share at a funeral, but somehow, it was just right.  I had begun my remarks by saying how grateful I was for visiting teaching, which had brought Sandy into my life.  I closed with Mosiah 16: 6-9, which happened to be in my scripture reading, the morning after I had heard Sandy had passed away.  I was able to bear testimony of Christ's Atonement and Resurrection, and that I believe that now, Sandy is more Real than ever before. 

I love you, each one, and hope you are happy. Please be good to yourselves and each other. 

Much love,

Mom/Johanna/Nana

P.S.  I'm enjoying Conference so much!!!

P.P.S.  Dad called and is in Ft. Myers safely. :)