Grandma's Gone--Stream of Thought

I recently found out that my grandmother passed on in March of this year. My brother and I weren't notified because of cut family ties, which we're both quite upset over. My grandma was more like my mother than my own mother was. She was loving to us both. We lived with her until I was 7 and my brother, around 10. This is a stream-of-thought piece I wrote after thinking back on how good our life was with her--until we moved out. Things changed drastically then--it seemed our childhood ended after grandma's house. But that's covered in other posts here.

My brother and I became best friends in my grandma's backyard. We had a sandbox and a swing set, but we tended to gravitate toward the trees instead. He in the crab tree and I in the shorter cherry tree. He would pelt me with fallen crabapples. I never retaliated with cherries; instead, I'd return confiscated crabapples--our form of dodgeball. Flowers, trees and croquet. Sticks, squirrels and a pet dog. We'd return from school, watch Spiderman and then out to the backyard! We spent hours out there. I dare say for us both that it was the highlight of our childhood. The eight-foot tall wood fence was our barricade from the neighbors--keeping our imagination safe between the two of us. Squirrels ran along top the fence line clicking and gawking--stuffing bits of nuts into their suitcase-cheeks, jealous of our play. I eagerly helped grandma weed while she taught me the names of all the different perennials that were bedded in the bordering garden around the grassed-in square. We'd help grandma collect fallen branches and twigs, and tidy the yew hedges that framed the flagstone walk and steps into our hidden retreat. It was heaven to me. Accompanied by my two favorite people--Scott and grandma. Uncle Dennis would visit every weekend, and Scott and I had the grand pleasure of preparing the family game of croquet--setting up the little wire brackets made of bent hangers. Ivy, Wild Ginger and hundreds of Lilly of the Valley clumped tight against the wood fence. Grandma would call us to dinner and we'd reluctantly file into the kitchen through the back door. After our prayer, we dug in, shocked at how hungry we were. Gingersnaps or Oreos for dessert. Sometimes cobblers. The dog sleeping under the extended, 50s-style counter with a red and green ameba-looking pattern, the smells of homecooking, the jar of Easter-colored eggshells above the sink--all of it always an added comfort to our meal. After our bath with GI Joe and his scuba gear, we'd play with our wooden Noah's Ark set, our wodden train set or our Tinker Toys. Grandma would shuffle us off after a while, into our bed--the same bed. Too bad for Scott that I still sometimes wet it. But we were still best friends. And we always looked forward to the next day's adventures in Grandma's backyard.