Nobody knows when the worst day of their lives will happen, but I remember mine like it was yesterday.
On May 28th, 2019, my younger sisters and I were attending a good friend’s dispersal sale 10 hours away from our home in Linwood, Kan. We were excited to spend some quality ‘girl time’ together that week in Wisconsin, and we were looking forward to catching up with my boyfriend’s family who took us in during our stay.
The morning of the sale, my youngest sister, Sophie, and I, along with my boyfriend, Brett, woke up early to drive to the sale location. Sophie was leading cattle in the dispersal that day and I was on deck to run buyer slips. But before the sale started, the farm owners took their place in the center of the sale ring and prepared to say a few words.
I’ll let you in on a little secret – I cry at every dispersal sale I go to. It doesn’t matter if I know the family or not, I will always tear up. That morning I remember thinking to myself, “I can’t imagine having to go through this…having to say goodbye to the things you worked so hard to build.” But little did I know that I would be saying those same goodbyes to my family’s farm just a few hours later.
At the conclusion of the sale, I made a phone call to my mother to let her know how the day had gone. She couldn’t talk for very long as she and my dad were preparing to milk early that night. She had mentioned there were some severe storms not far away and they were headed in their direction. As I hung up the phone, I remember saying to her, “Alright, well stay safe. Love you.”
Erin, my middle sister, was interning in Wisconsin at the time, so she and Sophie had made the decision to stay at her place that evening. Brett and I started to drive back to his farm, which was just a few hours away from the sale. We were three miles from home when I got the call that would change my life forever.
“The Farm is Gone”
When I saw that my father was calling, I had Brett put the phone on speaker. As Brett fumbled with the buttons, I remember thinking my dad sounded out of breath as he started to talk.
“The farm is gone,” he said. I looked at Brett, shocked and confused, before saying to my dad, “Say that again.”
“The farm is gone,” he said. “We were hit by a tornado and it’s gone. We’re alive, but it’s all gone.”
I don’t remember much of the conversation after that, but we only talked for a few seconds before he had to hang up. Somehow, I was able to drive those last three miles home without crying, but as soon as I put the car in park, I lost it.
Things just started to blur together after that.
> I remember shaking uncontrollably at Brett’s kitchen table as I started to process what had happened and make the phone calls I didn’t want to make.
> I remember being on the phone with my mom when they found a favorite cow of mine and hearing her tell my dad to put her down.
> I remember hearing my sisters scream as they turned on the national news and saw our farm off in the background.
I remember so many things about that night that I have no desire to remember at all.
That night, a mile wide EF4 tornado completely destroyed all of the hard work my family and the generations before us had put into our farm. I was heartbroken, angry and grateful all at the same time. Heartbroken for the loss of our buildings and animals, angry about why it happened to us, and grateful that my sisters and I weren’t going home to plan funerals.
The emotions we experienced that night and the months to follow were traumatic. I still have nightmares and hate thinking about what our animals went through. I think we all experienced some form of depression that year, something I had never struggled with before. A random thought or action would trigger a flood of emotions, and I was scared for what was to come of our family farm and if we would ever return to a sense of normal.
While nothing will ever be the same, my family has returned to our “new normal.” The animals have returned to our farm and my parents are milking a small, registered herd of Holsteins and Jerseys again. It took a whole lot of grit accompanied by some grace for us to get to this point, but we’re thankful to be here. While our emotions still may get the best of us at times, we know that we’re stronger than the storm. And we’ll stick together, as family always does, through thick and thin.
For more on my family’s story, read:
Leach Family Proves They are “Stronger Than the Storm”
Grit with Grace
Grit with Grace highlights farmers’ and producers’ resilience. From survivors of breast cancer and farming accidents to stories of families who were stronger than the storms that ravaged their farms, get inspired here.
