loved

I don't know when it happened, but it dates with my earliest memories. The cat, the old gray cat I barely remember, scratched me, and my mother and I both remonstrated in our way. I shook a pudgy finger at him and scolded. "Bad cat!"

Gently my mother corrected me. "He's not a bad cat. He's a good cat and we love him, even though he did a bad thing."

Even at the time, I took a larger message away from that moment. I knew that even when I was bad --- even when I squealed and whined, even when I jumped on the bed, even when my sister and I invaded my father's study (most forbidden in itself) and used his permanent markers to draw all over each other's limbs and torsos --- that my parents would love me.

Not every child knows that. If you hate getting teary-eyed in public, don't read this in public.

I am participating in NaBloPoMo.