Born in the late 1940s, my grandfather, Alton “Pan” Franklin, lived in severe poverty in rural Alabama. To this day, he tells stories about stealing live chickens so his mother could have something to put on the table for dinner. His mom and dad’s entire family moved to Mississippi–all the aunts and uncles moved together as a big group. They stayed together, worked together, supported each other, and raised their families together. Pan’s generation did the same. Pan never graduated from high school. He married young and was a father at eighteen. He ran moonshine for years as a young man to support his family, then he and many of his family began shrimping for a living. Family was the most important aspect; his parents, aunts, uncles, siblings, and cousins were all together on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, but most were still living in poverty.

Pan made a choice that others in his family had not. He had the courage to let his children go when they graduated high school, and that choice changed the trajectory of many lives, including mine. It broke the pattern of generational poverty. Four of his five children joined the Coast Guard right after graduating from high school, which allowed them to see more of the world and achieve financial stability that he had never known. Within his lifetime, he has seen his children succeed in the military, and now his grandchildren are becoming college graduates. The opportunities I have come directly from one humble, loving man whose choice to let his children live freely changed everything. In a family where staying together was everything, he had the courage to let go.