Remember the days of playing pretend with your brothers and sisters, or in my case, cousins for many hours under the hot summer sun until the clouds turned soft pink, and the sun disappeared behind the West Maui Mountains?

Maybe you don’t remember such a vivid image of your childhood, but I can see my childhood just as if it were yesterday…or maybe a month ago.

Those were the days that seemed endless as our imaginations ran wild about what game we would play next. It was just my three cousins and me on the journey to finding fun and happiness.

My cousins and I were lucky to grow up on two acres of land in Kula, complete with a huge front lawn, a fort made out of fallen trees that were canopied with vines and a wattle tree forest that had yellow, puffy blossoms that made our eyes water and our noses run in the springtime.

We had a picnic table that fit six people in our fort with the vine canopy. It was a magical place.

I remember how the chilly air would sting my eyes as we tumbled around in the grass and ran our fastest to race each other to a pretend finish line.

During the times of hide and seek, mud pies and playing house, we imagined scenarios that made the games even more exciting.

Whoever was ‘it’ and had to seek out the cousins was a monster on the hunt. We imagined that the mud pie was as a decedent chocolate cake that filled our tummies after a long game of tag.

Usually my oldest cousin would pretend to be the mother of the house and would order us around to do chores. Now that I remember it, my other cousin, who was the only boy, would always be the dog. Woof woof.

As the years went by, two of my cousins moved to Colorado, and my other cousin is moving to New York this summer.

Although we spent every minute, hour, day and month with each other when we all lived in Kula, I still miss our time together, using our little minds to imagine wondrous things.

I’m fortunate to say that my cousins helped shape me into an imaginative, creative and fun-loving person.

With oodles of giggles and tree climbing, my childhood was the foundation to my pursuit of living a life that will constantly make me happy.

So, readers, here’s a challenge from me, “Little Lee-way.” Dig deep and find the imagination you had when you were a small child. You never know, finding this creativity could possibly help you with some difficulties you or someone else is going through. Your imagination and creativity can be the resolution, or it can lead you down another road you didn’t see coming. Your mind just might surprise you!