I remember when they would come outside to play. They seemed so blissful, so innocent as they danced down the street from the schoolyard to their home. Their feelings were so easy to read, their joy illustrated with grins and dimples you could no doubt sight from across town, and disappointment with a heavy sulk that seemed enough to weigh down the neighborhood. It was as if the world they came to blindly accept was at peace, a kind of peace that would stir inside me so much hope that I could hardly sit still. A kind of peace that would almost have me jump from my windowsill and storm out my front door to embrace.
And how the sun would beam with pride upon their faces, muddied from the hours of football and horseplay they reveled in each day of summer. In all my life, I had never seen such passion and curiosity devoted into one's actions and thoughts. They were truly a sight I would and could never tire of.
But there were also the days I remember where they had no motivation in their eyes. There were days I could weep for them, and how their bliss had been stolen so abruptly from them in such an unruly manner. I remember the days they would not so much pass my home as to simply bolt along the pavement, past the sad travesty of my home. I remember how much fear they bore into their eyes as they squinted into the windows so they could see the ghost and killer once and for all. It was humorous, how they behaved as though I was a madman, a killer, a ghost even! Yes, it seemed they heard the fairytales and myths of Maycomb's Boo Radley, and of his attempted murders and strange behavior that kept him prisoner of his own home.
Yet while more often than not they tried to lure me from my windowsill with their pleading eyes, or simply gazed blindly for me from the streetlamp in the distance, I always looked back to them with warmth. Despite the fear and almost loathing they sometimes depicted, I loved them.
How could I not? They were my children.