A Moment

We have not had pictures developed since we got our digital camera. Part of that is my lack of motivation in decorating this house, knowing that we will be moving soon. I fully realize that this blog is our memory book (and I have heard that you can get your blog printed out into a nice little bound book), so there are things I may post here that are probably more for our memory's sake than anything else. This morning Olivia and I shared a little moment that, even though I don't know quite what to make of it, I never want to forget it.

I checked out The Velveteen Rabbit last week from the library. (The library on Grand, by the way. For 3 1/2 years I have been going to the Buder one because it is close to Target - you have to multipurpose your trips, right? The one on Kingshighway is closer, but it is all one big room - not great for children. The Grand library is incredible! First of all it is beautiful. If you are a city dweller and love the city - it is a city library. The employees are so friendly and the children's room...well, we stayed a good hour past the story time last week. And the lady who did story time...she is the best you could ever imagine. You just need to visit it.) Clearly this is going to be along post - I am not even to my point yet.

So we were reading The Velveteen Rabbit this morning - and this is a book with a lot of words - and Olivia was paying great attention. We got to the part where all the Boy's toys and bedding and most of the things in his room were going to have to be burned because of his Scarlet Fever and Olivia looked up at me with her bottom lip purposely pouted out. She wasn't crying - but clearly communicating that she understood this was sad.

I read on and the little rabbit was disgarded in the great pile in the farmer's field until the farmer could burn it the next day. There was a page with a profile illustration of the bunny - you could see one ear and one eye and his nose. Olivia began to ask if he had a face. I kept pointing out the eye and nose, but she kept asking. Then she asked if he could talk and then I remembered that I had heard these questions from her before. My Great Aunt Gena died a few months ago. This was Olivia's first funeral and we let her look at the body. She went to the grave side and everything and saw Aunt Gena's "castle" get lowered into the ground. Incidentally, on Easter Sunday we asked her who was raised from the dead and she replied with gusto, "Aunt Gena!" Not correct, but she gets that one day her body will be raised - we'll keep working on Jesus' resurrection with her.

When we were at Aunt Gena's funeral, Mike was holding Olivia by the casket, explaining what had happened and what would happen. Olivia was very serious. She asked if Gena had a face and if she could talk. She was wondering, essentially, what happend to her once the casket was closed - would her face still be there? Where would her mouth be? Could she talk? She was trying to figure out what death was. (She also asked if she had underwear on and how Jesus was going to break her out of the "castle" when he came back for her body.) As we read The Velveteen Rabbit Olivia was recognizing death. For Olivia, life is in the face - and this makes so much sense if you know her. She is so social.

We turned the page and there was a single illustration of the bunny with a tear rolling down his cheek. He was lonely and scared and said - he had been loved, but he was alone now and she was so said. She looked up at me and it broke my heart - I wanted so bad to say that the Boy came and rescued him and he didn't die. Even though you know your child needs to know the ugliness of sin and death so that she can long for real life, you can't help but want to shield them from it.

I finally asked her if she was asking "was he going to die?" and she nodded her head yes and this time her lip quivered and her eyes filled with tears. Real, tears of sorrow - not tears of anger or frustration over not getting her way or feelings being hurt or being over tired or over hungry - she saw death and cried - and so did I.

The story ends with a strange little fairy wisking the bunny away to become really real, not just loved real. It is more like reincarnation than resurrection, but it gives perfect opportunity to tell of the resurrection - of Aunt Gena's new, healthy body one day and of Jesus' - and believe me, we will be telling of it!