You have been my best teacher, even to awaken me. 

You have taken me to the lowest places, 
But you remained there with me. 
You have steeled yourself for my good, 
Born discipline and pain that I too might know it. 

You have always been dependable, 
When you said you would do something, I could rest in its fulfillment. 
Your willingness to give and let go without resistance,
Is the example I wish to follow. 

Your generosity in sharing what you have with the one who has less, 
Or to reciprocate to those who have first given to you. 
Your magnanimous heart in doing it, all with joy, 
Even if it was to your own undoing. 

You believed in me when I had lost faith,
Your patient kindness, when the student is a slow learner…