A week later my father took me to the park in town. It was the middle of summer, and the scent of freshly mowed grass was carried on the lazy wind. Together we rode down the rocket-shaped slide, and after, he pushed me on one of the many swings. I urged him to push me higher and higher, and he did. I went so high that when I reached the top of the arc, the swing’s chain would lose tension before I torpedoed back down. But I wanted to go higher, and he kept pushing harder. I couldn’t stop laughing, butterflies in my stomach, the wind in my hair. And then I went backward so fast that I lost my grip on the chain and went flying through the air, seeing only the empty swing forefront to the blue summer sky. Terror swept through me. My arms instinctively reached out for something to grab. They found nothing but the wind. The certainty of injury flashed through my head. And it was then, anticipating the forthcoming pain, that my father caught me in the comfort of his arms.
“I got ya, buddy,” he said, and we both laughed about it all the way home.