Aunt Madeline’s Snowball Hedge

Photo by Craig Brandt

My neighbor wasn't my aunt, but told us to call her Aunt Madeline. From my second-floor, north bedroom window—at my desk—I looked onto her yard at her standing, established birdfeeder. I was a seventh-grade beginner with my first wood and glass one attached to the window sill. When the yellow and black evening grosbeaks migrated, they’d surround hers in an island of constant up-and-down flights—then zoomed straight to mine—landing or perching below in the deep-pink rhododendrons—giving me a thrill!

When we were sick, she'd appear with snow pudding that looked like a bowl of snow under a yellow topping—it was custard—and felt cool and smooth sliding down my throat.

I went to Walter S. Parker Junior High School, which I could see from the flagstone patio in my back yard, but had to walk two blocks to get to. Aunt Madeline's was the first and last house I passed going and coming. She had a hedge across the front that had "snowballs" of soft, white berries that I'd pick to squish open—making them pop.

What I didn't know was a memory was being made that would return fifty-six years later—to include her gardener, who my mother said was more than a gardener, and her chow dog, Tang. From her back screened-porch that led to the enclosed glass room, I could look at the wide-view of her yard—flower beds, big trees, and a slope down to a tall fireplace backed to a stonewall where I walked—as if in secret—beginning in my yard.

My realization is, "Of the hundreds of people we meet in our lives, some become an indelible memory—reappearing years later, as an unsuspected, enjoyable surprise—unknown until this moment."