I lay in bed late tonight and I want to cry. I want to cry for all that has been lost and all that will be lost. The future is unmerciful, dragging us kicking and screaming through the present. Showing us glimpses of what might be.

Some of us have rolled over on the bed of life, deferring to the greater power of progress. Others like me have fought. Fought for our way of life. Fought for years. Fought in vain.

Some are still fighting. I have lost. Lost all that I’ve worked so hard for. Lost all that my grandfather and father had worked for. Lost all that I had to pass on to my children. I have lost … everything.

The cattle that faithfully tested every inch of fence line on the place – gone.

Old Greta, who never failed to fill my pail with sweet, warm milk – the elixir of life – gone.

The pigs that would wallow in the mud on those warm summer days or burrow deep into the straw pile when the cold winter winds blew – gone.

The chickens that always seemed to find their way into my wife’s flowers, oh how I would laugh as she chased them around the yard with her broom – gone.

The turkeys and geese that would take turns chasing me across the farmyard as she laughed – gone.

Even the barn cats are gone. They are all gone.

All I have left to show for my forty years of farming is a line of machinery, to small and too old for the modern farmer it never even brought a bid at the auction today.

The auction – strangers, neighbors and friends gathered to gawk and bid against each other for a piece of my soul. I wanted to scream. To run after the departing vehicles and demand my lively hood be returned. But I just stood there. Silently. Defeated.

I wanted to cry when the auctioneer shook my hand and congratulated me on a good sale. Did he even have a heart? He gave me a check – the sum total of a lifetime of hard, backbreaking work. The numbers weren’t nearly high enough.

In the silvery glow of moonlight, I see my wife sleeping in the bed beside me. Tears have streaked a path across her weathered cheeks. Tears she would never have let me see by the light of day. Tears that tear at my heart.