Once there was a woman who had very little. She had so little that sometimes there was nothing but popcorn for dinner.

Once there was a woman who had very much. She had two children and a little home to live in and a car and popcorn for dinner!

Once there was a woman who had very little, and often when she went to the grocery store, her bank card didn’t work, so she’d put back one item and then another and then another after that.

She kept her eyes down and called the children to her in a tight voice.

Once there was a woman who had so little the Lion’s Club gifted her and her children a food basket for Christmas. She went to the grocery store to get it. She thought it would be a basket, but it was a shopping cart loaded with food.

Once there was a woman who had so much she was given a shopping cart loaded with food for Christmas: turkey and ham and eggs and bread and pancake mix and syrup and potatoes and milk and juice and stuffing and cranberry sauce.

She had so much she phoned a teacher she knew and said, “Do you know someone who needs anything?” and the teacher said, “Yes, I know a family,” so the woman drove to their house and gave away half of what she had.

Once there was a woman who had so little she didn’t have $20 to put gas in her car. When her children needed to be places for activities or school, she would ask other parents to drive them, but she didn’t say why her children needed a ride.

Once there was a woman who had so much she had $100 in her wallet. Five $20 bills. She couldn’t remember the last time she had so much money.

As she and the children drove down the highway, they passed a man on a bicycle looking for cans to return. Empties swung on a shopping bag off his handlebars. The woman pulled over and ran back to the man. She handed him one of her $20 bills.

“Are you sure?” the man said. “This is so much!” The woman looked down the road to the car where her children and her wallet sat, and her wallet was full of $80, and she said, “Yes, I have so much!” and the man said, “May I kiss you?” and the woman said “yes,” and the man kissed her on the forehead.

Then life changed. Life is a giant wagon wheel. Sometimes it is your time in the mud, and sometimes it is your time in the sun.

Once there was a woman who had very much. She had a bank account and a retirement account and a home and a spouse and a car for her and a car for her spouse and money to help pay for her children to go to university.

Once there was a woman who had very little. When she had a shopping cart full of food, she took it all to her house and put in the cupboard and the fridge and some in the freezer for later.

Once there was a woman who had very little. When she had $100, she worried it wasn’t enough.

Once there was a woman who had so little she put her money in the bank.

Once there was a woman who had so little she didn’t give away even a fifth of what she had.

Once there was a woman who had so little that sometimes she thought about the prayer she’d grown up saying, “Give us today our daily bread,” and thought to herself, “OK, but that’s like, metaphorical.”

Once there was a woman who had so little that she had her daily bread and tomorrow’s bread and the bread for all of next week and the week after that.

She wondered if she needed to go shopping.

Once there was a woman who had so little that when she read Robin Wall Kimmerer’s The Serviceberry and got to the part that read, “You can store meat in your own pantry or in the belly of your brother,” she thought, Yeah, but then how would I get it out?

Once there was a woman who had so much she had a cat and a spouse and grown children and a little home and a television set and more books than bookshelves and clothes she didn’t even wear.

One day the woman in the sun on the wagon wheel looked back over the landscape of her life to the woman on the wagon wheel in the mud. The woman in the sun saw how much the woman in the mud had — so much that she gave it away.

The woman in the sun saw that she had turned into the kind of person who had so much she hoarded it. Like a small, flameless dragon with a small, flameless hoard.

Once there was a woman who had so much that she could have pretty much anything. She couldn’t have everything, but she could have lots of things, like books and art and holidays and meals in restaurants.

But somehow, after a while, this felt like not really having that much after all. So the woman who had so much she could have pretty much anything decided what she really wanted was less than anything. So she lived with less so she could give away more.

The woman who had so much she had little looked across the landscape to the woman who had so little she had much, and the woman who had so little she had much looked back.

Kyla Hanington is the woman with very much and the woman with very little. She is a member of Hyattsville Mennonite Church in Maryland.