ArcaMax

I'm the one who ends up getting the emails when no one else answers. This time, it was suckering me into taking a board role because the original email request was responded to by crickets. Of course I'd help.

The woman who had filled the role was winding down, not out of desire, but just from the weight of days that turned into decades. She's like someone you may know, too: If you'd give them another 30 years, they'd adapt to the world around them and do even more with the gifts they've been given.

She reminded me of my grandmother.

After a board dinner, I walked with her slowly as her cane tapped on the cobblestones. She had lived in town long enough and had a bit of chutzpah to know the safe places to park, which that evening ended up being near a dumpster at the back door of a restaurant where a tired chef leaned against the door, smoking and eying us. She talked about the years of wrangling donors, taking her life experiences from small-town girl to being the director -- a vital role for the growth of the community. One of the buildings she fought to fundraise for, I stopped by later in the week for a meeting at. It was a bright neighborhood library that made me think about the city for the first time with true livable affection, and not as a tourist town.

My grandmother was German, and I think of her a lot, especially when I'm trying to recall a missing German word as I switch languages mentally. In my head, I'm always talking to her in German and her responses lead me to the words. She came up again in a flash when I was reminded of the director. My Oma might have been her, if she had had the opportunity and the education.

I envisioned explaining to her my admission to a PhD program for the fall. I'm not sure I'd have the right words to tell her why I was considering more education. No one in my immediate family had ever gone to college and I can't help wondering who they might have been if they had.

In my recent lineup of meetings, I sat down with the Dean of the local university's education college. We talked about how many in our state are first-generation college students and I admitted I was as well. I told him that not only did I feel I was making decisions randomly for years, but realized a strange schism when I knew I was moving in different circles than my family. My aunt recently said to me, "No one in our family even considered politics."

Speaking with the Dean, we talked about how it was earning the trust of the families, especially from those living on reservations hundreds of miles away, to send their loved ones away.

"Part of student engagement is selling the idea to the extended family that sending their next generation to us will enable opportunities for generations to come," he said.

I felt the hands of some of my ancestors grip my shoulders, some pushing, some pulling. But I still don't know what road they're suggesting and who I might want to be once I've walked down the road I choose.

But perhaps there is another hand.

In both vulnerable moments, and a fair bit of anger from the physical pain from his time as an F-16 mechanic, my father told me he worked with his hands so that I wouldn't need to. He assumed college for me, as I did for myself, but never really understood why I sporadically had an afternoon free. When I started working in a library, he knew all the Dad jokes about spending my time reading. We both knew that education was something that kept us apart sometimes, but there was a moment that reminded me that some roles never change.

After giving me a good bit of grief for my decision to keep going, my father would grab the arm of his hospice nurse and say, "That's my daughter. She's getting a master's degree."

========

Cassie McClure is a writer, millennial, and unapologetic fan of the Oxford comma. She can be contacted at cassie@mcclurepublications.com. To learn more about Cassie McClure and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Copyright 2026 Creators Syndicate Inc.