I grew up in an old farm house in the country - off the highway and kind of in the middle of nowhere. It was the house my grandmother grew up in, and it stayed in the family since. I even had the same room she did. The house was surrounded by a big grassy yard, which was bordered by a wood - or small forest if you will - behind the house. The rest of the yard was surrounded by acres upon acres of fields which we didn't farm, so we rented them to the neighbors who grew crops in them. But to understand this story you're going to need a little background info about my Dad.
When my Dad was young he had an older brother named Danny. When Danny was young he had bright blonde hair - in fact he looked a lot like my brother did when he was younger. One day when Danny was 14 he went on a fishing trip to the Mississippi River with his dad (my Grandpa). My Dad didn't get to go with them so he was left at home with my Grandma. He was playing outside in front of the house when my Grandpa got home: shaken and crying and yelling for my Grandma. While on the river, Danny had fallen out of the boat, and when he didn't resurface my Grandpa had jumped in and tried to find him, but couldn't. Danny had gotten caught in a current and drowned. Since then no one talked about him much. As in: I didn't know my Dad had had a brother.
Flash forward to when I was around 4 or 5 - young enough to be considered a young child but old enough to be left alone to play outside - I would occupy my time by playing in the woods. I would spend hours and hours off in the wilderness, and come home when I heard one of my parents calling me back. After one such adventure my Mom asked me what I do in the woods for all that time. And I responded:
"I'm playing with the little blonde haired boy."
While she may have been a little suspicious, she let it go thinking it's completely normal for a child to have imaginary friends.
Then one day my Dad got out the film reel projector because my Grandma had brought over some photos of my Dad's childhood to show us. Photos of when he and Danny were both young. We started flipping through the slide show, and all of a sudden I ran up to the wall pointing to the photo and said:
"That's him! That's my friend from the woods!"
To the astonishment of both my parents, I was pointing to a young Danny. My parents tried to correct me - this is when I found out about Danny - saying that was just my Dad's older brother Danny. But I was adamant that the person in the photo was the same person I had come to know in the woods.
I don't know if I pointed at Danny simply because he looked like my "imaginary friend" or if it truly was him I was playing with in the woods. I don't remember playing in the woods - I suppose I may have been too young. But I do remember the slide show. All I know for sure is I used to have a lot of weird stuff happen at that house, and in my opinion, anything is possible.
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