mirror ball 31: imaginary friends

Do you have, or have you ever had, an imaginary friend?

Tell us about it.

Jay: My father died in the spring I was five, and I grew a new set of family.  We were forced to move to a different apartment in the same complex, and I announced to the new neighbors that I had another mother and father who were living far away.  I also became convinced that I had grandparents that lived in a lavender house around the corner.  I have a vague memory of an imagined old woman with cookies (I had only one living grandparent, my maternal grandmother, and she drank beer and kept monkeys in her Newark, NJ, apartment - there were no cookies).  The neighbors were all very nice to me in my nearly orphaned state and let me prattle on about these far superior beings.  One boy challenged the part about my grandparents' lavender house, but his mother quickly shut him up.  My mother seemed amused - though I imagine it would have been startling to have me so quickly create a replacement for her as well as my father when she was still around - and encouraged me when we were on the back porch with friends that summer. 

We moved across town by the start of school.  My father had been employed by the housing complex and died in one of the buildings.  I heard it said the owners were uncomfortable with our presence as a reminder of his death.  I rarely saw the little lavender house, but, for a while, when I did, I remembered the homemade cookies and my other family and how much sturdier they seemed than the ones who loved me.

Valerie: My imaginary friend was an amazing amalgam of young heroines (mostly). She was plucky and strong-- a great mix of Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden, Tonto and one of the Happy Hollisters, I'm pretty sure... Through countless games of cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, a sidekick always saved the day, morphing as needed to fill the story I was living.

Tanya: I am told I had an imaginary friend as a child...my mother used to tell me that I would sit on the swing talking to my husband. I do not remember this, but maybe I was summoning him into my life. Could I see the future? Well, I think I can see the past so to speak, or I should say the other side. At least I feel it and believe it.  

For years I have been talking to my "ancestors". Yes, out loud, but usually when nobody is around. Of course, often I do this on my early morning dog walks, and am surprised to see fellow dog walkers looking at me curiously. I mostly talk to my dad, and now that my mom is gone I talk to her as well. Sometimes grandparents and my mother in law feel present, so I chat with them. I really feel my parents with me, and in a reiki treatment last spring that notion was confirmed by the reiki master...she saw them too! Some of my family members think I am nutty, but what else is new? They love me none-the-less. Often times I ask for guidance or for problems to be solved (my dad is particularly good at this). I will ask my dad how to accomplish something perplexing, and then the answer comes. Sometimes the solution appears in my mind, and sometimes it will come magically from somebody else, but it comes!  

I believe we really don't go anywhere, we are just energy and are all connected. So, I will keep talking to my not-so-imaginary friends on the "other side" because it is comforting and I know they hear me.  

So now you all think I am pretty nutty as well....c'est la' vie!!

John: Not exactly an imaginary friend, but similar. When I was 11 Jim Croce died in a plane crash. I was very into Jim Croce, and his was the first celebrity death that really had an impact on me.

In my imagination, if I picked up an imaginary phone (I didn't mime this, just thought it) and "dialed" seven zeroes, I would get an imaginary connection to the afterlife, and I could talk to Jim. I don't think I ultimately did this very much, but for a while there I really nourished this mental connection to the hereafter.

Jacklyn: Barney! He was with me for awhile and the older people, those who didn't REALLY know, see or hear, had a good laugh about Barney. But he was there. A pal. Helped me to feel less lonely. He was tall and gangly and dressed in plaid. He came into my life, I think, when my dad was very ill, when I knew something was up but wasn't sure what and didn't know I was going to lose him for real and forever. I don't know when Barney faded away but I think about him and figure he's out there helping some other child feel less alone.

Dave D: Imaginary friends? There are people out there that would say all my friends are imaginary! I never had one of those but my daughter did. Her name was Jodie…they went everywhere together for a few years so it was doubly expensive….then she, Jodie, disappeared.

Chris: No. All my friends were real. Though I did have a deep connection to my walkman... and Brian Adams.... and Corey Hart. Heh heh. Those fellas got me through an emotional time or two. 

Ellen: I was the last child to older parents.  My father was a citrus grower, so we lived in rural Florida amongst acres and acres of groves.  My closest sibling in age was 15 years older, and I have very few memories of us living together.  What I can remember is Thomas, my imaginary friend.  Rural Florida is a wild place, it's a sub-tropical jungle.  At night, the sounds of katydids, screech owls and frogs can be downright overwhelming.  When I couldn't sleep, I made up stories and Thomas was a good listener.

At meals, I demanded that a plate be made for Thomas as well.  If my mom prepared something I didn't like to eat, it wasn't a problem.  I just explained, "Well, I don't like split pea soup, but Thomas loves it.  He says he wants seconds.  He can just have mine."

Eventually, I went to school and made actual friends, but for a while it was just me and Thomas living in the wild.

Linda: When I was about six I had a short, but intense friendship with an imaginary friend named China who, yes, big sister Cindy, probably did live in Chinatown where her family sold china at their china shop; but when she came to visit me always arrived unannounced in the space between my bed and the wall.  I can remember how I would walk into the room and know she was there. I can remember she was very pretty with thick, straight across bangs. She would be sitting in the corner of the space waiting for me, and I would slide into the other end, and we would talk about stuff.  I don’t remember what we talked about, or when she stopped coming.

John M: My cousin Nancy had an invisible friend named Libby, of indeterminate gender.  We were not allowed to sit in Libby's place and when we spoke to Nancy we had to also address Libby when speaking to Nancy.  Nancy was rather tyrannical about this.

Paula:

Imaginary Friends

Perhaps now they are the people

who have passed from my life

the ones I still adore,

for does not absence require

a re-conjuring of affection?

A face will come, sometimes a voice,

the conversation never ending

and here is how love

is link to eternity.

For no one is lost to you-

for what you can imagine

will never disappear.