Chasing Windmills

“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (Proverbs 29:18)

My ‘vision’ began under a scorching sun while my family and I worked up and down rows of sugar beet fields in the Texas panhandle. Calloused hands wrapped around a hoe, I looked up ahead of me and saw my mother and sister chopping away at weeds, seemingly oblivious to the drudgery of their labor.

I have that image seared in my mind, as vivid as if it had happened yesterday. That moment struck with such force that I had a sudden epiphany – an aspiration of sorts. I remember thinking, “This cannot and will not be my life. Nor will I be defined by it.” And thus my chasing after impossible dreams began.

My first step was realizing that education was going to be the key to overcoming my circumstances. But I must admit this idea did not originate with me. My parents knew early on that education was the common denominator that would lift all of their children out of poverty. It was something that was reinforced in my family on a regular basis. “You want to work the rest of your life working in the fields?” was all the encouragement we needed.

So school became a strict requirement and not something we took for granted. This focus on education, however, meant we all had to make some sacrifices as a family. With their children in school and unable to work in the fields, my parents had to carry most of the load. It was only after I became a parent that I understood why they never saw it as a sacrifice.

During that time I would daydream of graduating from high school, being the first in my family to graduate from college, marrying the girl of my dreams and having a family, working in a white-collar job and leaving the migrant fields in the past. I dreamed of being the first in my family to break the cycle of generational poverty.

Now, as I reflect on that season in my life, I am thankful that my pursuit of a ‘better’ life did not dull my appreciation for the things that truly mattered, my family, for one. I recall one moment in particular: in the wee hours of the night, with everyone in my family long ago asleep, that my mind found the quiet space to say to me, “You will be graduating from high school soon, and this moment, with all your family together under one roof, will be gone forever.” And that thought left me crying, alone, in the dark.

Today, I relish that memory, and even though we are no longer living under one roof, my parents were fortunate to have lived long enough to see all of their children graduate, one by one, leaving the migrant fields a distant past. Their focus on education yielded a bountiful harvest.

And even though I once stood under that hot panhandle sun with a vision of my own, it was my father’s vision—planted in faith, watered through sacrifice, and tended in fields far from home—that became the true harvest of our family’s future, the quiet fulfillment of A Migrant Worker’s Vision.

An essay from the journey called Chasing Windmills