For a moment, I couldn’t find an answer.
All those years, I had thought Ray was simply keeping himself busy. I had seen him working in the garden, but I had never considered that he was building something far more deliberate.
He wasn’t growing vegetables merely because he enjoyed gardening.
He was preparing.
Not for one particular disaster, but for the difficult seasons that eventually visit almost every family.
He had learned that a person didn’t need to be wealthy to create a little security. Sometimes, security came from storing what you could, repairing what you owned, saving what you could spare, and refusing to waste what might be useful later.
Then Ray pointed toward a wooden box beside the shed.
“Open it.”
Inside were more than twenty envelopes, each marked with a name.
“What are these?”
“Seed shares.”
I frowned.
He explained that he had been saving seeds for neighbors who wanted to start gardens of their own. Some people had helped him when he was struggling to rebuild his life. Others were simply hardworking families who could use a little assistance.
