St. Benedict Catholic Church is my church, and also where my daughter Marly was buried last fall. I can see it from my front steps and almost any angle from the farm I currently live on.
It is beyond infuriating (to me) that the F-M diversion project is still in the works (for those who are not local...this project has been ongoing, changing, and has been in various legal and political battles for about a decade). The initial price tag, the yearly cost to upkeep, and the amount of homes, businesses and livelihoods it will uproot and likely ruin, are all a much higher number than many people want to admit.
Its also infuriating that if you live in the “right” area (Oxbow for one example), you got a really, really good deal...I mean really good. If you’d like to see where a big chunk of tax dollars went, take a drive out to Oxbow & check out that community sometime. The farmers around here surely won’t have an “Oxbow-like” reimbursement for their (and their children’s) livelihoods most likely being uprooted and completely changed.
For those who farm and ranch in this area, it isn’t just pick up your house and move it down the road. These are situations where these families will have nowhere to relocate their farms (at least not anywhere nearby). An 1880s farmhouse (along with a newly built “forever home,”) will be torn down so that 100 or maybe 500 years from now, a bunch of water can sit in its place. All so that along the Red River in south Fargo (the lowest point in ND is near Davies High School), new houses and businesses can be safe (without the need of sandbagging or other temporary flood protection). In other words: Fargo homes and business matter more than anyone else’s. Fargo’s future development matters more than the farmland around. There has been little to no empathy by elected government officials who continue to support and push this, because they will protect Fargo at all costs. Literally. $2.75 BILLION and counting.
I am currently living on a farmstead that a local family has been living on & farming since the 1880's. I happen to live in the original farmhouse. (#farmlife) This is not my history and livelihood, but it is their’s. It is extremely personal and heartbreaking for their family (among many others). They do not know what the future holds for them. They are at the will of our government and also, our local community to fight for them. Imagine the helplessness that they (and many others) feel or have felt. Whether they continue to farm and ranch does not financially have an effect on my family.
What will greatly effect me, however, is that if the current diversion plans go through as planned, I will no longer be able to look over and see where Marly is every morning when I leave and every evening when I come home. I will no longer be able to make a quick stop to visit her on the way to and from home. As her mother, I find immense comfort in knowing I am so close to her.
When she first passed away, and we were having to make the unthinkable plans of whether to cremate or bury her, and then where to bury her...I was having panic attacks thinking of her alone somewhere. I had to be close to her. If you have never buried your child, you simply won’t understand. Also, that church (the one whose future is in jeopardy), is that last place I got to see my daughter’s sweet face. Where I closed her casket and told her story to family and friends. And where someday, I will be laid to rest next to her in the cemetery behind. So for me, you could say, this diversion project is very personal as well.
6.7.19
Written in response to the following article:
https://www.wahpetondailynews.com/opinion/columnists/will-diversion-authority-help-st-benedict/article_53d1392a-87be-11e9-90d6-0fb9c27e415b.html