When I was about three I got this incredibly fluffy white bunny for Easter. I LOVED that bunny and carried it around everywhere and slept with it each night. I even told my parents that when I grew up and got married Bunny was going to sleep with my husband and I. Every so often Mom would wash it and hang it up by the ears on the clothesline to dry. It went missing somewhere in my early teen years, my discovering science and cars and coffee and other semi-adult things.
But recently, Dad found it where my Mom had carefully wrapped it up and put it in a sealed container deep in the recesses of my childhood closet before she died while I was still in school. Dad mailed it to me. It has almost no hair, no eyes, no whiskers. I didn't even notice. I just removed the wrapping paper, holding it close and breathing in the scent of my Mom's Chanel No. 5 and I cried.
It's still my favorite bunny and I never stopped loving it as much as I did that first day I got it. I'm lucky to have a spouse that feels about me the same way. Although I don't have the thick hair of my youth, and my stuffing has shifted with age, he still holds me that close.
The bunny sits up high on a shelf where Abby the Lab can't get to him, but every time I look at it I just smile.
Now I am reminded of The Velveteen Rabbit and the question asked, "What is real?"
ReplyDeleteThe new fan's "ionization" setting was supposed to remove the dust from the air. It works most of the time.
ReplyDeleteAgh! Earworm alert! Now you've got me humming "Velveteen", by Kathy Mar.
ReplyDelete(Supposedly available on last.fm, but that site Just Isn't Working For Me.)
Very sweet.
ReplyDeleteThe first time my ex-wife washed our son's Teddy Bear, she too hung it, by the ears, on the line to dry.
Son sat underneath howling. Between the tears and the dripping bear he was soon soaked.
♥
ReplyDeleteI never had a bunny. I had a small stuffed horse named Humphrey. I played with it so much that my Granny had to recover him for me. I don't know what happened to him after I joined the Air Force. I know my Granny got sick and passed away while I was in Basic training. I wanted to go to her funeral, but I knew if I left basic, I would not want to start over again. My older brother talked me into staying. I made my Granny proud, I'm sure.
My stuffing has definitely changed since hubby and I met in Technical School all those years ago, and he still holds me that tight, too.
God bless, Brigid.