I must have been 10 years old. My mother and father had gotten in an argument. It was a pretty bad one, one of the few arguments I ever saw them having, but I could tell my mother was very upset. It was in the desparate air around her. She gathered all of her children, all five of us, and we left the house. We walked down to a neighborhood park and we stayed there for hours.
I remembered her crying quietly as we walked through the neighborhood, and I remembered thinking that we must look like a mother duck with her five ducklings in tow. It seemed odd to me and I wondered what everyone who was driving by thought. It was the first time I remember thinking about the moments of love in practice. I saw it in the way my mother walked away from the argument. I saw it in the way she gathered her children. I saw it in the we walked through the neighborhood. I saw it in my mother’s tears.
When we returned home hours later the house was quiet. My father and mother went about their way around each other in their familiar way. The air was free and the emotions were even.