OUR DIFFERENCES ARE ACTUALLY OUR BEAUTIES

Gönül was gazing outside with a coffee cup in her hand. She opened the window handle to breathe in the scent of the quietly falling rain. The moment she opened it, the cold wind brushed her face, and she closed it again. As she sipped her coffee, she was already lost in thought.

The questions in her mind kept circling back. It was as if the answers lay hidden in her cup of coffee. To an outsider watching her, it might seem odd—what could be so fascinating in a simple coffee cup? But she wasn’t aware of anyone around her. All she could think about were the things said about her daughter Sude at yesterday’s parent-teacher meeting. The teacher had mentioned that Sude was often late to class and failed to turn in her assignments on time.

Gönül was shocked to hear this. After all, she saw herself as a very disciplined mother. She was the mother of two children and a manager at a company. After the meeting, she began to wonder: she had no difficulty managing a large firm, but when it came to understanding her children, she seemed to struggle.

Did she really know her daughter Sude? What kind of child was Sude, truly? Why did she have such a wide circle of friends? Gönül herself could count her close friends on the fingers of one hand.

She asked herself: “Where did I go wrong? Who was responsible for all this? How could my daughter and I be so different?” They were like the poles of a magnet, unable to meet in the middle.

Every morning, she woke her daughter up early for school. Yet, her teacher had said she was late.

Not long after, Gönül made a decision. She would work hard to change Sude’s behavior, to get her on track. As a solution, she began constantly interfering with Sude’s actions: “Daughter, tidy up your room, fold your clothes after school, do your homework,” she would say.

When Sude made plans with friends, her mother would refuse: “No, you can’t go.”

Gönül believed that by doing all this, her daughter would change and improve. But things did not go as she expected. The problems between mother and daughter only grew.

Sude thought her mother was acting this way because she didn’t love her. Meanwhile, Gönül began to realize her daughter was drifting further away.

“Trying to fix things, I’ve only made them worse,” she admitted to herself.

She thought about herself and her own sister: how different they were, despite being born and raised under the same roof. How could she expect her daughter to be the same as her? She needed to accept Sude as she was.

The change, she realized, wasn’t needed in Sude but in herself. “I must begin the change within me,” she said.

After all, every person is born with their own traits, temperament, and character. Everyone reacts differently to the same situation. So what was the real reason behind our differences? Who defines who we are?

As these thoughts filled her mind, the doorbell rang, startling her. She opened the door. Standing there was her daughter Sude.

“Welcome home, my dear,” she said, and hugged her daughter tightly.

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