Did you have an imaginary friend when you were a kid?
I didn’t.
To be honest, I also didn’t pay enough attention to my sister and brother during those years (oops, bad big sister) to tell you whether they did or not. I’m guessing they didn’t. Probably would have heard about it. And my brother’s imagination was so far off the charts, that an imaginary friend would probably have been mundane to him. Poor Carol. We aren’t really sure where she was during our childhood. She’s forgotten most all of it.
When I was old enough to think about it, I was actually kind of disappointed that I’d never met my imaginary friend. She, he, or it just plain didn’t show up and so I missed out. I’m pretty sure we could have had a lot of fun. There were days I’d have given just about anything to have someone else to blame my bad behavior on.
Speaking of blaming bad behavior, I have to tell you one of our favorite family stories.
Now as imaginative and creative as Jamie was, the poor kid was the third kid and not only that, he was a younger brother of not just one, but two sisters. It was so easy to blame him for things. Especially back when he was just a little boy and a pretty nice little boy, to boot. He would much rather haven taken the blame than be ostracized by his sisters.
Then he grew up.
Anyway … Mom discovered that someone had drawn all over the wall going up the steps. Her initial response was to ask who had done that heinous thing.
I was innocent. I swear.
But Carol blithely pointed at Jamie. It was so obvious. His name was all over the wall, scrawled in childish letters.
The only problem was, Jamie was only just learning his letters. He couldn’t write, much less write his name. Poor Mom was caught between wanting to howl with laughter (as most parents with creative children do) and the need to punish her little monster.
Yep. This story tells me that Jamie was Carol’s non-imaginary friend. He was only about twenty months younger than she was, so those two never knew whether they were best friends or worst enemies. When she needed someone to blame it was him. Fortunately, we’ve all grown up to be friends.
So what about you? I’m really interested. How many of you had imaginary friends? Or maybe your own kids. Did they? Do they?
