With the sun high overhead and the streets quiet, Mary and Evelyn would set out on their bicycles, riding slowly through the neighborhood with a purpose in mind.

 

They were looking for empty soda bottles—left behind along sidewalks, tucked near fences, or resting in the grass at the edge of someone’s yard.

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Each one they found meant a few cents earned. Enough, perhaps, for a treat… or something new to add to Mary’s growing collections.

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But as they rode, the work never felt like work.

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They talked as they pedaled, their voices rising and falling with the rhythm of the road. Sometimes they laughed, sometimes they simply rode side by side, listening to the soft hum of their tires and the distant sounds of summer.

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The baskets on their bicycles would slowly begin

to fill.

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But so would something else.

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These were the kinds of days that didn’t seem important at first—just simple hours spent under wide skies. And yet, without quite realizing it, Mary was gathering more than bottles.

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She was collecting moments.