My mother and father

poured out their lives caring for us.

Long after we did not see them anymore,

this caring became our own smiles

that we pass on to our children,

to our students, friends,

to strangers

My parents got their caring power

from distant people

whose names I never knew

in faded unsmiling photos.

My mother's kiss is from a thousand mothers

and the shade of my father's tree is a great forest.

A lady who serves my…