A new family has moved into my neighborhood. She’s a single mom with 15 children. She’s not related to the Duggar family on TV, but she has captivated the rapt attention of my community. Most mornings when I walk outside to get my newspaper, a neighbor will yell, “Have you seen Mama lately?”
Mama, you see, is a duck. Her 15 kids are her baby ducks or, as my educated children correct me, are called ducklings and they are too cute for words. So cute, in fact, they consume precious moments in my day when I should be doing something… anything… but watching Mama and her ducklings. It’s really beyond my control. I can’t help the fact that I live next to a pond that would rival a major aquarium. Writer Pat Conroy wrote in The Prince of Tides that geography was his wound. Well, geography has become my distraction.
I blame my husband. He started it. When the ducks first arrived, Mike was enthralled. I mean consumed. He’d say he was going to “take out the trash” (note the quotation marks) and I’d look out the window to find my husband standing on the edge of the pond staring straight ahead, Zombie like, with a drooping garbage bag in hand. His morning ritual (make a pot of coffee, fix breakfast, sip coffee, read the paper) is now prolonged by half an hour to give allowance for duck-watching out the kitchen window. Even our dog stands on her hind legs by the window’s ledge to get a glimpse of the ducks.
While I must admit there’s nothing particularly extraordinary about our ducks’ daily routine, there’s something seductively compelling about them. Maybe it’s the way Mama keeps a tight reign on all of her babies, paddling at a quick pace in front to form a duck flotilla across the pond, yet always looking behind to make sure everyone is accounted for. Or it could be her fierce protection of her brood when a menacing bird circles around. Mama instinctively heads for the shore to nestle beneath a thicket of branches.
One day, my kids rushed through the front door yelling that Mama had gone missing. Rushing out to the pond, I found no sign of Mama. The ducklings were all together on the shore. Upon closer look, I found Mama a few feet away sitting on a hill. Mama just needed a little “me time.” She’s entitled.
The ducklings are getting big now, almost as big as Mama. They’ve started to test their boundaries, swimming ahead of her while trying to outrace each other. I wonder what will become of them and of her. I understand Mama’s protective instincts. My oldest child now has a restricted driver’s permit. My youngest just became a teenager this year. Both are redefining their roles, stretching to figure out who they are, who they will become. Still, I miss the early flotilla years where I was in control of my respective pond, not winded by trying to keep up with a teenage son who drives and 13-year-old daughter who dreams. But, that’s part of our story. Part of Mama’s story, too. So we keep paddling, hopeful as we reach the shoreline.
