Clouds on the horizon

 

This is the way my grandma told it. 

“It was during the Depression. We were making it through, keeping the farm going. One day I looked up and saw a strange black cloud. I ran out to the field to warn Charlie, it was moving so fast. It got there and it was grasshoppers. They came down on our whole crop, ate everything to the ground. We didn’t have anything left to sell to live on the next year and buy seed.” 

They had built the farm together. Their five children had been born there. My grandma had been able to see her kids went to school, the two oldest a year or two from finishing high school. In one day it was all gone. 

I think about this. All the financial reforms that have been put into place, all the social nets, because of the economic devastation of those years. 

I look at how many of those safety nets and protections are currently being dismantled. I’m not going to lie, these are scary times, especially if you know history. 

My grandparents lost everything, moved west, and rebuilt in California.  But the trauma of those years never really healed. I was raised by children of those times. 

I see the black clouds on the horizon. The choices we make today, they aren’t just for us. They are for our children. And their children. We must stand together.