FanStory.com - The Green Shirtby Annmuma

Several years ago, I was visiting my daughter's home, sitting in the backyard watching my five-year-old grandson play with some T-ball friends.

One of the kids threw a ball and it went over the fence into a neighbor's yard. George came running over to me.

"Grandma, can you get the ball for us?"

"Yeah, sure. Whose ball is it?"

"It's Jerry's"

"Who's Jerry?"

"He's the boy in the green shirt."

George was playing with five other little boys, four of them were Caucasian and one was African-American. Jerry was African American and the only real difference George saw between Jerry and his other four friends was a green shirt.

It struck me then, and I still think about it. I have told that story hundreds of times.

That's what I want for my grandchildren: the realization that there is only one race, the human race, and it comes in many colors, with many religions, many customs and all with the same needs for love, forgiveness, compassion and honesty.

I wish for each of my grandchildren, great-grandchildren and those to come generations from now, the awareness that each of them is 'enough' in and of themselves. I wish for them the wisdom to look for that completeness in every other person, to search for the common ground. For it is only that common ground that can save our world, both collectively and individually.

Watching my children and my grandchildren exhibit this wisdom and instill this desire in their own children is among my greatest blessings.

There is hope, and I believe in it.