Back in the day, when my daughters were growing up, they along with their cousins had the good fortune to spend time with my parents. Sometimes it was just the grandkids from one set of parents there, other times the whole gang. The little ones had a lot in common, especially given the fact that they were all very close in age. It would have been easy to simply treat them as one big troop of grandkids gathered under one roof. Such was not the case.

In the morning as another set of footsteps descended the stairs and a new little sleepyhead wandered into the kitchen, our mom would call out, “Another country heard from.”

The dictionary defines a country as a nation with its own government, occupying a particular territory. And that is exactly how she saw each of her grandchildren—little people with growing degrees of agency over their own little lives, and occupying their own unique space in our shared familial territory. Each one their own unique force to be reckoned with, their inner workings understood, and all worthy of being seen, heard, loved, and accepted.

What if we could learn to see the world that way?

What if we began to recognize others, regardless of where they are from, who they love, what they believe, and how they look, as a unique part of the whole, and each worthy of being seen, heard, loved, and accepted.

Another country heard from.

Together, we make up the whole world.