I have never done this, but I have been so touched by so many people I have lost touch with, I feel I must.
I feel obligated, and touched, and honored,
to say thank you.
You see,
some years ago (many, many) I graduated from a Catholic school.
They were very clicky, and not so welcoming to an outsider, any outsider.
I was unlucky, and lucky, to be that girl.
“That ” girl.
I was the one who didn’t quite get the rules, or all the many prayers,
or the kneeling,
or the yardstick.
I did get it
though,
over time.
I left that school,
mostly unnoticed, and un-noted.
Until now that is.
Some years later,
I was contacted by them,
to come to a reunion of sorts, because the school was closing.
I initially said no, and for many months, I stood fast to my NO!
After time though, they became more than strangers.
These unknown names and faces from another period in my life
became….friendly
in a time when I was not so welcome, not so popular
these people reached out, across the decades, to say hello, for no good reason at all.
Over time, they asked about my day, my life and me,
they became,
somehow friends.
And I add this PS, as I have never done so before because,
like all great souls,
sometimes people become….
just because.
And for that I will always,
eternally,
be, grateful.
And because it is my favorite of all quotes, and because it fits, I leave you with this…just because…
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “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 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.”
~Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit
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