Choose Kind!

Today, for me, is Choose Kind Day. It's a saying, from a great book I read, called Wonder.

When I was pregnant with Destiny I felt like she was a gentle little girl. I still feel strongly that she was very kind. After she was born, I felt a strong desire to be a little kinder, especially to children. I have decided that today is my own official Choose Kind day, in remembrance of her.

I'm so blessed to have people who remember her birthday every year. She would have been six years old this year. Maybe she would have been coming to school with me and been in kindergarten or grade one this year. Imagine how different life would be if we had a six year old in our family!




I also got flowers from my cousin. I was doing fine until she showed up to tell me she loves me!! Lots of tears. They're grateful tears though.



I remember, when she was first born, how hard it was to talk about her. I couldn't do it without crying. People said it would get easier with time. I couldn't imagine it ever getting easier - but it really does. I can even accept now that maybe it all happened for a good reason. She brought something into our fmaily that couldn't have happened any other way.  I do feel blessed for having gone through the experience.

We love you Destiny. You will always be real to me.

“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.
“The Boy’s Uncle made me Real,” he said. “That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”
The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.

  The Velveteen Rabbit (emphasis my own)

 

This passage really touches me because some people are really uncomfortable talking about the whole Destiny story. They aren't sure what to say when it comes to a baby that is dead. I'm okay talking about it, but I try not to make other people feel uncomfortable. As ugly as the whole situation is, it is beautiful to me.