
We were on a flight several years ago when my 4-year-old daughter turned
to me and asked if I had met her friend Stewie. I told her I had not and
wondered if she would share more about him. She told me he was very nice, loved
to pick flowers and give them to people who were feeling sad, drove a purple
car and was invisible.
She turned back to look out the plane window, then looked back at me. “Oh, and
he smokes cigarettes,” she sighed. “I don’t like it, but he does. He’s still my
friend, though. Maybe he will quit someday.”
I think of this all the time – the mind of a 4-year-old who created an
imaginary friend who was very nice and did wonderful, loving things, like give
flowers to people who were having bad days – and who also made some not-so-good
choices.
She had created a real person.
It’s a lifelong struggle to learn acceptance. People we love are flawed,
as we all are. People we admire have blind spots, as we all do. People benefit
from us appreciating them exactly as they are. Even people who are imaginary.