The "Real" Thing

Remember that Coca Cola commercial where the people all sang that song… “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company, It’s the real thing…”?? (Yes – Joe, and several others, you were too busy not being born back when it first aired.)

Well, I’ve been singing that song since about 3 p.m. today when I fell off the proverbial wagon and had a Coke after 27 days of “sobriety”/no caffeine. Wow! I haven’t been this happy for about five years or something and definitely haven’t felt this great for the last 27 dumb days. Silly, I know, but true. I decided after four days of a terrible stomach ache, that it was time to end the fast, and after half of a large McDonalds Diet Coke– back to normal. Just like magic.

And, speaking of Real and magic – I read The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams, with a couple of my nieces and a nephew last week. This book has been a favorite of mine since high school (yes, Joe….) and my choir teacher, Mrs. Hewlett, read to us about what makes “things” and people Real. Have a read:

"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 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."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive.

But the Skin Horse only smiled.

So – tonight, what I have to say is this: thank goodness for Coca Cola, Mrs. Hewlett, and my sweet nieces and nephews who are the Real Thing and the joy of life.