If you live with Maria for any length of time, or go out to dinner with her, you will notice right away that she always orders bread, but rarely, if ever, eats any. I understand this odd habit now, I see her collect the bread carefully at the end of the meal, wrap it in a paper napkin, but put it in one of her coat or jacket pockets, or sometimes, the purse she carries.

The bread, I now know, is for the animals. When she gets back to the farm, she goes outside and unwraps the bread and gives it out in little pieces to the sheep and the donkeys, who gather around her and wait – usually patiently – for their turn. If they get too boisterous, Red will move in and organize things.

He does not permit sheep to crowd me or Maria, ever.

Sometimes – often actually – Maria, whose mind is always sparkling with her art, will forget the bread, and it is a rare week she doesn’t pull some rock hard old and very stale bread out of her pocket, usually adding, “oh, this is the bread from the Round House, I got it in December.”

This is no longer and unusual or surprising event in our loves. Maria has a great huge heart, and she is always thinking of the animals. Even if the bread is stale or months old – the record is about two years, fossilized wheat bread in a winter jacket – she will not throw it out, but break it up and find a way to give it to the chickens. No food is wasted or tossed out in our home.

I came across a bread gathering yesterday and I was almost overcome with love for this person, whose generosity and empathy are truly boundless, for all of the living things on the earth, including me.