It didn’t take long before he showed up at our door followed by two cops demanding to see Grandma May’s fragment of the map. It was pitiful to watch her give it up under tearful eyes and trembling hands and it was especially infuriating to see how Little damn Earl didn’t show a single drop of respect as he coldly dealt with the situation.

           We told Grandma May she could stay for as long as she felt she needed, but as we woke up the next day we found her all packed and ready to go. She promised to keep in touch and call us if she ever needed anything, though.

          Quite a few days went past without us hearing about the evil cousin and his unscrupulous plan. But one particularly ugly morning, those really cloudy ones with very strong wind and little hope for either sun or rain, as we were praying for good news to take our minds off that depressing weather, we got the best call we had had for months.

          It was Cousin Fiona, who had been one of the few people not to call and insist on Grandma May giving in back then, although she did hand her piece of paper to Little Earl. She asked Maggie if she had already heard what happened when the man and his lawyers finally got to the place marked on the map. She sounded so excited Maggie decided to share the handset with me.

          It turns out once Little Earl got there, all sweaty and covered in mud, as by “there” I mean some random place he had to dig from in the middle of the farm, he put his hands in a huge metal box. He opened it as fast as he could, hoping to spot thousands of bills piled one over the other to the top. To his greatest surprise, however, the only thing inside the box was a little package containing a bunch of photos tied together with a thin string and a note on top of them. The note said:

        “Here’s the route to success: you don’t wait for your old man to give all he’s made effortless to you, nor do you save all you make to give it effortless to your children. You work. You work very hard. Hopefully, it will inspire them to want to do the same. If not, let them do it anyway. This is much more important than money. The money? You spend it, you deserve. If God takes you before you have the time to do it, then give it away, but don’t go around spoiling your children. Do a favour to the children of the children of your children. Bless you. Earl.”   

          The photos showed the progress of the farm, since Grandpa Earl was a little boy, shaking hands with his wealthy godfather the day he got the land. The last one was a picture of the whole family together, back when Maggie was just a kid, probably during one of the regular gatherings Grandma May had talked about.

       Little Earl’s parents had already made the damage Grandpa Earl was referring to, so the lesson was hardly absorbed there. But as the story spread across the family it brought back old customs and a deep desire to fix what had been broken. The picnic weekends were restored and Grandpa Earl became a great inspiration for everyone once again.

         As for the money, Grandma May found it by chance eventually. She was taking a walk along the fields and stopped for a moment to contemplate the Love Tree, the tree that had witnessed the beginning of her love story with her dearly missed husband. They used to come there and sit by a dead log that lay beside the tree. There was even one of those carved hearts in the tree with their initials inside. After they got married, there was so much work to do in the farm they never got back to that place. Or at least that was what she thought. She ended up finding a huge fortune hidden under the dead log and an old letter explaining things directly to her, as only she could have ever found it.
          She never told anyone that story, except for us. She decided to donate half the money to a rehabilitation clinic and now she’s spending the other half travelling around the world. As for us, we have the most important mission of the universe in our hands now, we need to pass Grandpa Earl’s lesson ahead.

           June is coming and so is Jane.