The meeting with the school psychologist began without drama or alarm. There were no tense expressions, no clipped voices, no sense that something was wrong. My mother sat across from a small, tidy desk while the psychologist calmly arranged a few picture cards between them. The images were simple and familiar: potatoes, carrots, beets. The kind of vegetables you’d see piled in a market crate or simmering at the bottom of a pot on the stove.
The psychologist asked a straightforward question.
“What would you call these things together?”
Without pausing, my mother answered, “Vegetables.”
It was the obvious response. Clean, precise, and correct. The kind of answer that neatly closes a question. For a moment, it seemed like that would be the end of it.
But the psychologist smiled—not the polite smile of someone checking a box, but the thoughtful smile of someone opening a door.
She explained that the exercise wasn’t meant to test knowledge. Earlier that same day, I had been shown the exact same pictures and asked the same question. My answer, however, had gone in a different direction.
I hadn’t thought in terms of categories or definitions. I didn’t reach for a label. Instead, I talked about meals. About gardens. About family dinners and pots of soup slowly cooking on the stove. I described how those foods belonged together because they appeared together—chopped on the same cutting board, grown in the same soil, shared at the same table. To me, they weren’t items in a set. They were part of a lived memory, woven together by routine, warmth, and experience.
The psychologist didn’t call this a mistake. She didn’t frame it as a problem to be corrected. What followed wasn’t a warning or a diagnosis, but a conversation.
She explained that people organize the world in different ways. Some minds naturally sort information into clear categories and labels. Others build meaning through stories, emotions, images, and associations. One way isn’t better than the other—they’re simply different paths to understanding. Often, those narrative ways of thinking are tied to creativity, empathy, and an ability to notice relationships that don’t always fit into neat boxes.
My mother listened closely. I could see something shift in her—not worry, but recognition. The quiet realization that intelligence isn’t uniform, that there isn’t a single correct shape for a thoughtful mind. That what looks unconventional in one setting can be a strength in another.
By the time the meeting ended, the room felt lighter than when we’d entered. Reassured. Grounded. What began as a simple question about vegetables had unfolded into something gentler and more meaningful. A reminder that understanding matters more than correction. That difference doesn’t automatically mean deficiency.
That day stayed with us. It showed us that answers don’t always need to fit a single mold to be valuable. Sometimes the truest insight doesn’t come from naming things correctly—but from seeing the world through a different lens, and recognizing the quiet richness in how someone else makes sense of it.