Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway.

"Are you my mom?" she would ask to the passersby.

Some people would stop and inquire if she was lost, but she would just shake her head.

Some people would offer to take the girl with them to the police, but she would just run away down a narrow alley where they couldn't follow.

Most people would just ignore her and her perfect, shining red gown, taking her for some unlucky trickster.

But one day, a young woman came down the street, her eyes veiled in tears. The girl in the doorway asked her, "Are you my mom?"

The woman stopped and regarded the girl closely. She was clean and well-fed in her little red gown. She looked as though she'd been plucked from the pages of some western catalog. She noticed the other people walking, clearly avoiding the small girl and a nearby shopkeeper outside smoking a bit of pungent tobacco simply rolled his eyes. The woman kneeled down next to the girl and said, "Yes, little one. I am your mother."

The girls eyes lightened and a smile broke over her face and she hugged the woman around her neck. And in an instant, the pain in the woman's heart lessened and her soul felt lighter and she felt her mind slip.

When she opened her eyes, the girl was gone, but the love remained.