When Theresa saw the shop she covered her face and sobbed that she couldn’t accept it, that she hadn’t done enough to deserve it.

My mother put her arms around her friend.

“You shared your only bread with me when you barely had enough for yourself,” she said.

“Now let me share my blessings with you.” We started a foundation, the three of us, to help people who have lost their names find their way back to their families and their papers and their lives.

And my mother — who could have had anything now — wanted almost none of it.