The Greatest Gift Read Online Free PDF

walked off jauntily, with a wave of his hand.
    “And I used to think policemen were scary,” Bob commented. “He’s really nice.”
    “He is, isn’t he?” Mary murmured, and she watched him as he got into his squad car and pulled out of the parking lot. She found herself thinking that she had a very odd sort of guardian angel in that police uniform.
    Mary went to her jobs with increasing lack of strength and vigor. She knew that some of the problem had to be stress and worry. Despite the safe haven she’d found, she knew that all her children had only her to depend on. Her parents were deadand there were no siblings. She had to stay healthy and keep working just to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. In the middle of the night, she lay awake, worrying about what would happen if she should fail. The children would be split up and placed into foster homes. She knew that, and it terrified her. She’d always been healthy, but she’d never had quite so much responsibility placed on her, with so few resources to depend on. Somehow, she knew, God would find a way to keep her and the children safe. She had to believe that, to have faith, to keep going.
    Somehow, she promised herself, she would. After all, there were so many people who needed even more assistance than she did. She remembered the elderly gentleman at the homeless shelter, the mother with her new baby. The shelter had a small budget and trouble getting food.
    Food . Restaurants couldn’t save food. They had to throw it out. If the restaurant near Mary’s motel room had to throw theirs out, it was logical to assume that all the other restaurants had to throw theirs out, too.
    What a shame, she thought, that there were so many hungry people with no food, where there were also restaurants with enough leftover food to feed them. All people had to do was ask for it. But she knew that they never would. She never would have, in her worst circumstances. People were too proud to ask for charity.
    She put the thought into the back of her mind, but it refused to stay there. Over the next few days, she was haunted by the idea. Surely there were other people who knew about the restaurant leftovers, but when she began checking around, she couldn’t find any single charity that was taking advantage of the fact. She called Bev at the homeless shelter and asked her about it.
    “Well, I did know,” Bev confessed, “but it would entail a lot of work, coordinating an effort like that. I’ve sort of got my hands full with the shelter. And everybody I know is overworked and understaffed. There’s just nobody to do it, Mary. It’s a shame, too.”
    “Yes, it is,” Mary agreed.
    But it was an idea Mary couldn’t shake. Maybe nobody else was doing it because it was her job to do it, she thought suddenly. She’d always believed that people had purposes in life, things that they were put here on earth to do. But she’d thought hers was to be a wife and mother—and it was, for a time. But she had more to give than that. So perhaps here was her new purpose, looking her in the face.
    When she got off from work, she went to the restaurant where the assistant manager had given her the leftovers, and she spoke to him in private.
    “It’s just an idea,” she said quickly. “But with all the restaurants in the city, and all the hungry people who need it, there should be some way to distribute it.”
    “It’s a wonderful idea,” Cecil replied with a smile. “But there’s just no way to distribute it, you see. There’s no program in place to administrate it.”
    “Perhaps it could start with just one person,” she said. “If you’d be willing to give me your leftovers, I’ll find people to give them to, and I’ll distribute them myself. It would be a beginning.”
    He found her enthusiasm contagious. “You know, it would be a beginning. I’ll speak with the manager, and the owner, and you can check back with me on Monday. How would that