Ma Joad

You don’t get to survive the dust if you don’t learn to hold on. Not just pots and pans and children’s hands—no, you hold on to hope, to pride, to the idea that tomorrow might still be worth walking toward. I’ve buried more than I carry now, but I still carry enough. I cook over campfires in the ditch by the road, I trade what I must, I give to strangers when I got nothing left to give. The men rage, the kids cry, but Ma? Ma keeps going.