Childhood Remembered — velveteen rabbit

I felt so silly, a grown woman sitting on the floor of a shed, sobbing over a stuffed cat.  But there I was.  My mother had given me a box of my childhood keepsakes, report cards, award certificates, programs from school plays, and, patiently waiting at the bottom, Contessa Kitty Cat.  She was my best friend, keeper of all my darkest secrets, my guardian angel, my therapist, my constant through all the changes and growing pains of youth.  She was ratty, her pretty white fluff now a matted mange more closely resembling a sheep in a rainstorm.  Her blue eyes...