LAST LOVE

Love changes as we age; hopefully our last love is the Velveteen Rabbit kind of love when we are loved for our true selves...when we know our beauty, male or female, radiates outward from within: "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 your 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. "The Velveteen Rabbit" I am no longer young nor do I possess the beauty I once had. Extra pounds hide my once enviable figure. I am beginning to exhibit some of the outward signs of the Parkinson's Disease I was diagnosed with ten years ago, but I consider myself one of the luckiest of women. I am loved for myself. All I have to do to be loved, cared for, and adored is wake up in the morning. This is for Max.

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