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Yesterday my husband and I met with our daughter’s teachers and support staff in the familiar space of the quiet conference room. Our company was familiar. Years of similar meetings for first our son and later our daughter have created an intimate relationship with individuals whose lessons extend beyond the tiny chairs our children occupy.

Gathered around the table under the formality of evaluating growth and assessing needs for the coming school year I was humbled that our measurements began with character. Despite a year of steadfast academic growth, we acknowledged the standard of kindness, compassion, and resilience that are hallmarks of my daughter’s identity as an individual.

Stories of thoughtful acts and an eagerness to learn overshadowed the confetti of graphs that documented performance. Integrity a greater marker for success than measurements of intelligence; effort greater than ability.

This little girl, who so desperately wants to sit among her peers without her invisible differences, has yet to realize that the most beautiful pieces of her are the differences she does not see.

There was a line from yesterday’s post that followed me till day’s end and woke with me this morning, shadowing my thoughts and begging attention:

The ugliest pieces of our harm were merely reflections of emotions seeking compassion, inviting us to see one another’s needs.

Often unheralded the individual who most often holds the mirror gifting each of us clarity of sight is my daughter. Smallest in body and with an immeasurable gift of compassion, she shows us the most beautiful pieces of our spirit alongside the darkest corners of our faults.

Sometimes she stands silently, bearing witness to unrest and other times she sounds alarms with tears, challenges behavior with questions, or interrupts discord with absence. She loves unconditionally while holding us each to the promise of our best.

To my daughter, for this gift of sight, thank you.

I watch my daughter, fascinated in equal measure by her natural understanding of her world alongside her sensitivity. Unconscious of a natural gift of comedic timing she litters my day with humor, only to curl defensively against sparks of laughter. Eager to avoid the center of a joke she dances in the margin of her limelight. I am a captive audience to her performance, a tragedy of comedy, laughter and reassurance chasing after the same performance.

Neither my daughter nor I enjoy shopping, so when my daughter needs clothes to accommodate the change in seasons or a special occasion I compromise by sharing catalogues whose choices give my little girl an opportunity for self-expression while honoring my boundaries. Today I opened a catalogue and found her signature circles looped around elements not for sale: a miniature horse on a shelf, an elegant Indian headdress, silk butterflies, toy birds, and pastel paper flowers.

This filter with which my little girl embraces something as mundane as selecting clothing was an act of magic. Turning the pages was like watching tiny pen marks pull together an intricately organized blur of movement, my daughter’s daydreams strung together on the colorful pages of a catalogue. A flipbook of fantasy.

What began as a way for us to communicate choice has become a time capsule of self, a little girl who seeks out beauty in the margins and draws pieces of art into the fabric of her days.

This tiny word has peppered my days as a mother, each question mark carving out space for conversations. Some days the questions are easy and I relish the security that the answer is within reach. At times the absence of an answer creates a quest for information. On rare occasions, a question will haunt me with truths that weigh on my heart and mind.

This weekend there were no answers. My daughter wanted to know why children are unkind and why adults allow unkindness. School girl giggles and playground misbehavior have made my daughter acutely aware of unkindness. She watches strong children manipulate weaker children under adult supervision and her unease with the injustice sat between us, palpable.

I could no more label children bad than I could dismiss their behavior as acceptable. I could not point fingers without first accepting my responsibility alongside my daughter as witness to harm. Unkindness is an experience we share collectively.

Rather than provide false reassurance with dismissive answers, I asked a new question. How can I help?

For now I am doing my best to give my daughter a vocabulary that will empower her to extend belonging to those who cannot be left uncared for while reminding her of her own self-worth. I am interrupting moments of unkindness with information and inviting children and adults to remap expectations of acceptable behavior. I am carving out room for conversations that begin with questions in search of answers.