The Genesis of Friendship

My grandmother lives in a small ranch house on a large corner lot in suburbia. The yard is always balding and scattered with dandelions. There is a black spray painted eagle that hangs above the one car garage, buttercup yellow siding and a overgrown magnolia tree in the front that obscures the majority of the house.

This house has is really the only constant I've ever had in my life. Just before I was born my parents moved in with my grandmother. My grandfather died in June, I was born in July and the Magnolia tree was planted in August.

My parents both worked and my grandmother would care for me. When I was a year old we moved into our own home but I still went to Grandmother's house M-F for her to "watch me" until my freshman year of high school.

My grandmother took on the baby sitting duties of a little boy named Timmy who lived a few doors down. We potty trained together and I remember wanting to pee and stand too. I wanted to grow up to be a boy. Timmy and I went to preschool together and one Halloween when I was a butterfly and my wings couldn't fit through the bathroom door and I panicked; he helped squish my wings together so I could get inside. He was Tender heart bear that Halloween his mom made him a costume out of footie pajamas and sewed a little heart on the tummy.

I remember I got blisters all over my fingertips from playing the guitar and had to have my hands wrapped in comedic-ly large gauze mittens so they didn't get infected. We were playing and I wasn't able to pick up the little kitchen items in the play house; Timmy pretend-cooked the dinner for us since I couldnt.

He disappeared from my memory then. I went to Lutheran school for kindergarten and I suspect my grandmother stopped baby sitting him at that time. I wonder what happened to him; this Birth-4 year old brother of mine. I wonder where he went to school, if hes married, or if he grew up to be as sweet as he was in my memory.

During the boom Timmy's house was demolished; the little ranch house replaced with a sprawling brick mini-mansion towering over the lot, as has been the case with so many of the houses in that neighborhood. When I went back the last time I couldn't remember which was the lot that used to be Timmy's house. I sat in my parked car in the driveway looking over, expecting it to jump out at me, but it didn't. All I had was the recognition of a lost history; and wondering what else I may have forgotten.