The Skin Horse

Maximilian Beagle has had strange and mysterious signs of ailments for 373 days.  But the only times he has indeed acted as though he had an ailment were on days 1 and 2 of this ordeal.  He was trembly and didn't eat.  I took him to the vet.  Little did I know...

There have been tests and consultations and Google searches and pills and vitamins and urine-catching cups and needles and blood pressure cuffs and bloody urine charts.  And no answers.  And fears and hopes.

I hope that he has known very little of my worry.  I hope that my neighbors do not take me for an imbecile for the way I closely examine what comes out every time he cocks his leg.  I hope that the Beagle will be around to finish the bag of food that I bought for him tonight.  I hope that the Beagle will be here to finish the next 50 bags of food I will buy him.  I hope.

I was sitting on the couch with the Beagle a few nights ago (read: the Beagle sat on his couch and allowed me to join him there) and thought about how long this had been going on.  And I could barely remember what it was like before 373 days ago.

I scratched his nose and thought of the Skin Horse (or as Joey might say - rabbits and cheese).  I wondered whether I could love the Beagle's hair all off.  I wondered whether he had any idea.

"What is Real?" asked the Velveteen 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 Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When someone 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 would 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 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... once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always." 

- Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

The Beagle and I, we are both apparently enduring the purgatory of becoming Real, bit by bit.  And like the rabbit, I wish it could be so without all of these uncomfortable things happening.  But the Beagle does not break easily.  And I, I do not mind being hurt.