My grandma was an amazing storyteller. Whenever my sister and I would visit as children, one of the highlights of our stay would be waking up early and running to my grandparents' room so we could cuddle in their bed and hear the stories my grandma told from her own childhood. One of my all-time favorites was the story of Pimple the Duck.

Pimple was an ugly duckling. Unlike his brother and sisters, who were beautiful Mallards, Pimple was an ugly shade of nothing, according to my Grandma. Not white, not brown, but some dirty color that no one could name and no one found attractive. He had a squeaky little quack and was smaller than the other ducks, the runt of the crew. Whenever the ducks lined up to go walking, Pimple would try to force his way to the front, but all the other ducks would peck cruelly at him until he gave up and assumed his spot as last in the pecking order.

Because he was so mistreated, Pimple decided to take his frustrations out on someone else. Several neighbors who came to visit my grandmother's family became the object of Pimple's wrath. One of them was Johnny Ripley who lived down the street in the Evan's garage. He was very poor and tried to piece together a small living by fixing the neighbors' shoes. Whenever he would stop by my grandma's family's farm, he would receive a pail of homemade soup to take home with him as payment for his services. But somehow, Pimple always knew when Johnny Ripley was leaving and he would rush out and charge him. He was just a little duck, but he pecked viciously at Johnny Ripley's thin ankles. Johnny Ripley never learned to anticipate Pimple's attacks and my grandma and her siblings would laugh as Johnny threw his bucket in the air and left running down the road.

Pimple also developed a desire to chase the church minister who often walked up the hill past my grandma's home on his way to visit his parishioners. My grandma and her siblings thought it was very funny to see the tall man running from the tiny ankle-pecking duck and they wondered how Pimple always seemed to know when the minister was going to pass by.

Unfortunately the story of Pimple the Duck has a sad ending. One day, as my grandma's family was preparing to go on a picnic, Pimple decided, as he often did, to go and sit in the middle of the road in front of their country home. He did this, my grandma hypothesized, as a way of proclaiming to the world that he really was somebody. Most of the time, passing cars, horses and carriages would go around him. This made him feel regal and important. But this day, a car came zooming over the hill and did not notice Pimple, despite the loud shouts and wild gesturing of the children. Everyone in the family cried as they buried Pimple on the side of the road and put up a cross of sticks in his memory. Even if he was a feisty little fellow, he was a type of mascot to the family, an underdog pet of sorts and they would miss him.

Despite its tragic ending, the story of Pimple the Duck was always popular among the children in our family. “Tell it again!” we clamored over and over. Pimple was a funny, likeable character, even if he was feisty and mischievous. And maybe there was something vindicating in the fact that Pimple got to take his frustrations out on silly adults, who spilled soup on themselves and ran away frightened by such a small, unfortunate creature. As children, maybe this made us feel justified when we occasionally pulled a prank on someone who didn't deserve it when we were feeling down and out ourselves.

The deepest lesson in the Pimple the Duck story, however, is a lesson about love. Pimple felt unworthy and unloved. Because of his painful feelings of inferiority, he made a tragic mistake in trying to prove to the world that he was somebody. And he was penalized for his error by being run over by a car.

As a parent, I spend so much of my existence worrying about my children. Are they getting enough attention? Enough stimulation? Enough education? And most importantly, enough love? How do we know that our children are getting everything they need to succeed in life?

A fried of mine recently adopted a two-and-a-half year old boy from overseas. He had been in an orphanage for the past two years, abandoned by his family at the age of six months because of a cleft palate.

When I met my friend's new son several weeks after they brought him home, I was surprised at how vacant his eyes seemed. We were at a play area in a local mall and her new son toddled around somewhat aimlessly, like an infant who was just learning to walk and was experiencing the world for the very first time. But he also avoided eye contact and shied away from anyone who tried to engage him.

My friend told me that the children in the orphanage he came from receive no love or tenderness from the workers. There are too many children for them to pay special attention to any of them individually. “This is the birthplace of love,” she said. “We are trying to teach him what love is, for the very first time.”

It's painfully hard to think about children living without love. Stories about ugly ducklings without love are sad, but palatable. But children waking up each day into a world that shows them no warmth or affection is practically unthinkable.

I watched as her new son threw several temper tantrums and tried to hit her when he couldn't get his way. He wanted to leave the play area and explore the mall on his own. “He's very aggressive,” she explained. “He's not used to being disciplined and he shows his anger by hitting all of us.”

Even two-year-olds, who are raised in the most loving homes from birth, experiment with hitting. But I could understand her point. He was angry about being restricted, and probably didn't even fully understand why he was being forced to play within the confines of the play area, when there was a whole new world to explore and discover.

What I found incredibly amazing about their story is that several weeks and a couple visits later, her son seemed like a different person. He was emotionally warm and available. Not only was he jumping into his mother's arms for hugs and kisses, but he ran to me, a relative stranger, smiling with his arms open wide as I embraced him. He engaged in play with other children and made happy noises as he ran around the house. He was still somewhat quieter and less interactive than the average two-year-old, but he had grown leaps and bounds in just a few short weeks.

This is the birthplace of love. My friend's words rang over and over in my mind. The story of her son's adoption and the story of Pimple the Duck are two sides of a single coin. Without love, we fail to thrive. We become disenchanted, ornery, difficult—and ultimately, we perish. With love, even when it arrives a few years late, we are capable of rebirth. We are the ugly duckling who realized he was really a beautiful swan. We are loveable. We are loved. We are resurrected.