Imagine
Thoughts from Josefina
The school year is almost over; Josefina is going to be in fifth grade…rulers of the school. To steal a cliché, the time has flown. I have been riding the bus with Josefina now since she was in third grade. She has grown up since then…she was once a little kid wowed by things like History Day when she got to go to the high school side and learn about history from high school kids; this year, she told me she didn’t want to go to History Day because it was, and she said this, ‘lame,’ so I can see the cracks of adolescent cynicism creep in. However, there is one quality that Josefina still possesses and which has actually flourished over this past year her ability to imagine.
This quality of hers struck me in my first few bus rides with me. She would get on the bus, and tell me crazy tales of things like her bunny getting caught under the hood of the family car…only to be found after Josefina’s family had driven the rabbit around for an hour or two. She would tell me stories like this, take both of her hands to express a question, and then she would say it,
“Imagine.”
“Imagine what?”
“Imagine if you were the rabbit.”
“I would be really scared.”
“You would be,” she would say excitedly, “You might even have a heart attack because you were so…
