Real

" 'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you...' '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...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.' "
Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

I found this quote in a book I had forgotten I loved so much. It made me realize just what it is, I admire in Ron. Ron is utterly Real.

We have been through a lot together. Life has given us blow after blow after blow to handle, and many times it was him who was the one to take the major part of the blow. He has been very ill several times and I have watched him fight his pain without ever loosing his patience once. He was laid off by an IT company he loved working for and has been struggling to get back where he belongs workwise since. And now, he has lost his son.

If it is true that we don't get more than we can handle, then someone up there must have an incredible lot of faith in him. Does that sound cynical and angry? Well it should, because that is exactly how I feel, apart of course from tremendously sad to see him hurt so badly. And if everything happens for a reason, then please, somebody, tell me what it is, because you have completely lost me here.

Yet... I see him fighting yet another terrible battle and doing so with dignity, integrity, honor and acceptance. I stood in awe when one of the first decisions he took after it became clear that there was no hope left for his son, was that the boy's organs were to be donated to help and save other people with. If a man, under those horrible circumstances, can think of a thing like that... that's when you know he is Real. Over the past days I have seen him cry or go silent many times, but I have also seen his determination to not go completely to pieces and go on. Or as he puts it himself: we will live on until we survive.

And we will. I know we will. The time will come when this too will have found its place to rest in our hearts, not forgotten, but integrated into all that we are made of. Into all, that makes us Real.