The farms in this area have flooded before.

The last time they flooded, was when Daddy was a child. Momma says that the floods had wiped out the farm before, our family livelihood. Grandpa Kent had seen his father become a broken man from the floods: he wouldn't let the floods.

Daddy and his brother Harry were woken up in the middle of the night, working until dawn, putting down sandbag after sandbag, water coming up to their chest. After a few hours, the rain stopped, and the farm was saved.

But it came at a great price. Daddy had misdirected the path, causing the water to flood the Lang's family farm next door.

Smallville Lore states that the Lang's and the Kent's came to Kansas nearly a hundred years earlier after the Civil War tore our country apart. The horrors of the war made them want to start over, leaving their old lives to start anew in Kansas. They figured if the country could start over, so could they.

Momma said as far as she could figure, the Lang's recovered nicely, but she didn't learn the truth until after she and Daddy were married: the Lang's horses had drowned, slowly and painfully, crying as water filled their lungs. Grandpa Kent tried to help the Lang's get to them, but it was too late by the time they were able to.

Their cries haunted Daddy's dreams for years, sometimes causing him to wake in a panic, yelling that he had to save the horses, he had to get to them. Momma would sit with him, coo at him, telling him everything was going to be okay until he could go back to sleep.

Momma would tell me these stories at night, whispering them to me across the sheets. it was almost therapeutic for her, to tell me these stories. It made her feel less lonely, to keep these secrets so close to her chest.

Sometimes I wonder how she did it, raising me all on her own, managing a family farm, and somehow maintaining a seemingly okay life.

then I remember that her blood is made of steel. Blood given to her by her ancestors, that worked hard to give her life. Blood that she passed onto me, allowing me to connect with my small yet perfect family.

Blood I will shed to protect the ones I love.