Really

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My beautiful daughter stands on the stage in a pool of light.  Her head is turned slightly to the left, her eyes tilt to the right.  She is smiling, and singing, surrounded by other young people, and a few older.  One is in a wheel chair.  All of them are smiling, just like my daughter. 

This is so fitting.  This is so circular, this moment.  If I look back down the years to her birth, I can see that this moment was waiting out here for her.  It arrived in a package from my sister just after she was born, my first child. 

The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams. My sister sent a copy of the book just after her birth, knowing how we'd both loved the story from our own childhoods. I read it to my daughter from before she could focus her eyes. I treasured its message.  But I didn’t know then how much more I would come to understand and appreciate it over time.

 
The play I am watching moves on, familiar, bittersweet, comforting.  The best stories are like that.  My daughter began rehearsals in November.  Now it’s March, and VSA Arts of Loudoun County is presenting the final performance of The Velveteen Rabbit  at the Franklin Park Arts Center in Purcellville, Virginia.

 
 It’s brilliant. Slightly imperfect, but perfectly Real.  

“What is Real?” the Velveteen Rabbit asks the Skin Horse, “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you’re made. It’s a thing that happens to you,” the Skin Horse answers.

“Does it hurt?” the Rabbit asks.

“Sometimes,” the Skin Horse tells him. “But when you are Real, you don’t mind being hurt.”

"Does it happen all at once, or bit by bit?" asks Rabbit. 

 “It doesn’t happen all at once,"  the Skin Horse answers.  "You become.  It takes a long time.  That’s why it doesn’t often happen 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 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. And once you are Real, you can’t become unreal again.  It lasts for always.”

Over the years of  raising my own children and working with others, it has become my belief that, as well as pride in their accomplishments, every parent has at least one private fear for each of his or her children-- some concern for a personality trait or weakness or perceived shortcoming or flaw. 

With children like my oldest daughter, these fears aren’t hidden.  They are in full view for all the world to see.  There is no covering up autism and its attendant learning difficulty, language deficit, and behavioral issues.  There is no pretending to the world outside your door that your child is as perfect in every way as you'd always dreamed.

And so you become Real, real quick. Sometimes, it is painful.

The music swells, the cast returns to the stage for the final bow. For too many of the  people on the stage, there are not as many of these moments in their lives as they deserve.  But there is this one, now.  I clap until my hands sting. I stand.  I sing with them. I clap some more. 

All those years ago my sister wrote on the flyleaf of the book she sent my baby daughter:

“I know you’ll be smart and pretty, but I hope you will also be kind.  Not everyone has advantages or opportunities to become their best.  Even as you excel, think of those who have not or cannot.  How they must feel.” 

So many years ago. So much has happened since then.  Still such a long road ahead.  And I know that I won’t be able to walk beside her that whole, long way.  If only everyone in the world tried every day to be just a little more Real, I wouldn’t have to wonder so much how she’ll find her way when I’m gone. 

The night sky is a marvel as we leave the small theater.  We drive home under the stars and my daughter points out all the constellations she can remember.  Her favorite is the drinking gourd, because it helped guide runaway slaves to freedom long before she was even thought of in this world.  My oldest daughter strongly identifies with the underdog.

 As we drive along, she hums a little piece of a song from the play. I smile.  Sometimes a song in the dark is all you have. Sometimes it can see you home.  That is what, every day, I hope and pray.

Will grow up to be Realer than she ever planned.

     Happy Easter.                                                                       

     Leann 

. . . you are my sunshine . . .