This is an Oneida silver baby cup with an engraving of "Timothy Eddie Rabbit 8-12-83." He was the son of country singer/song writer Eddie Rabbit and his wife Janine. Timmy, died at age 2 in 1985 from a rare congenital defect that required a liver transplant. Unfortunately, there were complications causing the death of this child.
Eddie Rabbit had this to say about his son's early death:
"As big people, we adults deal with pain the best we can. But little children not only have to deal with pain but have to understand the where and why of bad things that happen. For my wife and I, our main concern was helping our daughter, who was 3, understand what happened. We explained to her that some kids are born very sick, and it's not meant for them to spend as much time on Earth. We told her Timmy went right on up to heaven. We never ran from bringing up his name every time the subject came up, and we did not make it seem like this was a dark thing that happened.''
At least, now he is reunited with his child in heaven.
I came across this cup in a box of things I had put away years ago. However, I didn't know the story behind it until recently when I did a search for it on the internet. The story really got to me.
Does anyone know the value of this? I have pictures, but I can't put them on the web as my ISP is doing maintenance until the 16th.
