Our Beautiful Differences

Our Beautiful Differences

Part One: The Question

Chapter One: The Girl Who Asked a Question

Once upon a time, in a town not very different from the towns we know today, there lived a little girl named Lily.

Lily was a curious child.

She was curious about the stars, the clouds, the tiny ants that marched across her garden, and why her mother insisted that vegetables were delicious when they were very clearly not.

But more than anything, Lily was curious about people.

She wanted to know why the moon followed her home at night, why birds could fly while people had to stay on the ground, and why grown-ups sometimes said one thing but did another.

Her mother often told her that curiosity was a wonderful gift.

“Questions help us learn, Lily,” she would say. “Never be afraid to ask them.”

Lily took those words very seriously.

Perhaps a little too seriously.

She once asked the baker whether he had ever considered making a cake as tall as their house. She asked the mail carrier whether letters got tired of traveling. And she asked her father if fish ever got thirsty.

Her father had stared at her for a very long time.

“That's actually a rather difficult question,” he had finally admitted.

Lily had been delighted.

A difficult question! Even better!

But there was one question that had been growing inside her for quite some time.

It was a question about people.

You see, Lily lived in a town filled with all kinds of them.

There were people with skin as pale as winter snow and people with skin as deep and beautiful as polished mahogany. There were people with straight hair, curly hair, short hair, long hair, and no hair at all.

Some wore colorful traditional clothing. Others wore jeans and T-shirts. Some covered their heads for religious or cultural reasons, while others did not.

Some people prayed in churches, some in mosques, some in temples, and some in places Lily had never even heard of. Others didn't follow a religion at all.

People spoke different languages, cooked different foods, celebrated different holidays, and had different ideas about what made a good life.

At school, Lily had classmates who used wheelchairs, classmates who wore hearing aids, and classmates who communicated in ways that were different from her own.

Everyone seemed to have something that made them unique.

And Lily thought that was wonderful.

But she also noticed something that troubled her.

Sometimes, people treated those differences as reasons to stay apart.

Children occasionally refused to play with someone because they looked unfamiliar. Adults sometimes made assumptions about strangers before learning their names. And every now and then, Lily heard someone say that a person who believed differently from them must be wrong about everything.

Lily couldn't understand it.

How could someone decide what another person was like without even getting to know them?

One sunny afternoon, Lily was walking through the town square when she spotted two boys arguing beside a fountain.

One boy wore a bright blue shirt. The other wore a green one.

“Your family does things differently from mine!” the boy in blue exclaimed.

“Well, yours does things differently from mine!” the boy in green shot back.

“My family celebrates different holidays!”

“So does mine!”

“We eat different food!”

“Good! More food for everyone!”

Lily blinked.

That last part seemed like an excellent argument.

But the boys were still frowning at each other.

She stepped closer.

“Can I ask you something?” she said.

Both boys turned toward her.

“What?” asked the boy in blue.

Lily looked at one boy, then the other.

“If your families do things differently, does that mean you have different feelings, too?”

The boys exchanged puzzled glances.

“What do you mean?” asked the boy in green.

“Well,” Lily explained, “if you fall and scrape your knee, does it hurt less because your family does things differently?”

“No,” he answered.

“If someone says something unkind to you, does it hurt less because you celebrate different holidays?”

The boy in blue shook his head.

“No.”

“And if someone makes you laugh so hard that milk comes out of your nose”—Lily paused thoughtfully—“does that work differently for different families?”

Both boys burst out laughing.

“I don't think so!” the boy in blue managed to say.

“Then what about being happy?” Lily continued. “Or being scared? Or missing someone you love?”

The boys grew quiet.

They had never thought about it that way before.

Lily looked around the square.

An elderly woman was helping a little child tie a shoelace. A shopkeeper was carrying groceries for a customer. Two friends sat on a bench, sharing a joke that made them laugh until their eyes watered.

They all looked different.

They all lived different lives.

But Lily wondered whether, deep down, they were more alike than anyone realized.

She tilted her head.

Then she asked the question that would change the way her entire town saw the world.

“If we all look different, speak differently, and believe different things, does that mean our hearts are different, too?”

Neither boy answered.

For once, Lily had managed to ask a question that even the grown-ups might struggle to answer.

She went home that evening thinking about it.

At dinner, she asked her mother.

Her mother set down her fork.

At bedtime, she asked her father.

He sat on the edge of her bed and thought carefully before replying.

“That's a very important question, sweetheart,” he said. “And I think the best way to answer it is to learn about the people around us.”

Lily smiled.

Learn about people?

That sounded like an adventure.

The next morning, she made a decision.

She would talk to people she didn't know very well. She would listen to their stories. She would ask questions, learn about their lives, and discover what made each of them special.

And perhaps, along the way, she would discover what they all shared.

Lily had no idea what she would find.

She didn't know that some of her discoveries would make her laugh, that others would make her cry, or that she would sometimes have to admit she had been wrong.

She only knew that she wanted to understand.

So she put on her shoes, stepped outside, and walked toward the town square.

The sun was shining.

The birds were singing.

And somewhere in the distance, someone was burning breakfast.

It was going to be an interesting day.

And Lily was only just getting started.

A Little Thought to Carry With You

What we see on the outside tells us only part of someone's story. To discover who a person truly is, we must be willing to listen, learn, and look beyond appearances.

End of Chapter One