Miss Emily

My youngest sister is ten years younger than me, there are four siblings between us, two boys, and two girls. So she always had someone to play with, or keep her company, there was no reason for her to have an imaginary friend, and yet, she did. Her imaginary friend's name was Emily.

Emily and our dog a full sized standard french poodle named Scamper were my sisters constant companions in everything she did until about the fourth grade. then my parents sold thier house, and were packing up, to go to a new house across town. My Mom is blind and every time a box was filled it had to be stacked along the walls in the hall so Mom wouldn't bump into them, or trip over them. But, every morning when Mom woke up she would trip over boxes scattered all along the hall and in the kitchen. She blamed it on us kids but we weren't moving them.

My sister told her that Emily didn't want us to leave and that's why the boxes kept getting in her way. My Mom exasperated, finally told her "Well Emily will just have to come with us then won't she." After that the boxes quit being scattered all over the place.

A few years later when my oldest daughter was a toddler she to had an imaginary friend whom she called Emily. When I asked her what Emily looked like she described her in the exact same way my sister had described her imaginary friend Emily. Emily is a girl about nine years old with brown curly hair. She always wears a red velvet dress, with a white collar on it, little ribbons in her hair and white stockings, with shiney black shoes. My daughter grew out of Emily at about the third, or fourth, grade too.

Now unlike alot of people I had been widowed at a young age and remained unmarried for some time. I eventually remarried and had two more children in my forties, both are boys, but one has a teddy bear that to this day he treats like a real child. Her name is.... you guessed it! Miss Emily.

Is this an imaginary friend that just reappears time after time? Or is she something else?