" Although she had very little food for herself, she always had a great deal to give to others. She looked like a grandmother from an old-fashioned movie, although I couldn't give Marie a fairytale ending, only a ramp and a mended, but still-broken shack. Marie would stay with us as we worked, anxious to be of help in any way that she could: she always offered us a handkerchief for our brows or a cold drink when we needed those things the most. I knew that living without air conditioning was normal for her, and so I tried to will myself not to care. She chatted with us, and she often told me how much I reminded her of her son, now grown, who lived far away.

Every day a few minutes before eleven, she would excuse herself. In the stillness of the heat, I would hear the phone ring -- daily. Except for one day.

That I could hear her, pacing back and forth across her worn living room carpet. I knew she was waiting for her son...

Finally, I heard her dial the phone: "Why didn't you call? You were about to? O.K., I'll hang up, and you can call me back."
A pause.

"Why did I hang up? Because if you didn't call, our phone wouldn't have rung today."

Her life was built around that moment -- that phone call from her son. More so than even the house, that daily phone call was a monument to her impact on someone's life. The ring was the sign that someone cared, Marie's connection to a better and larger world.

I called my own mother that night. And I wish I could have built more than a ramp for Marie -- I wish I could have built an entry way to a new way of life. I could not -- but I did the best I could, with the resources I had, and I still find myself thinking of her, every now and then, wondering if the phone still rings at eleven every morning, and if she is there to answer it.