Guide, Follow, Join

I believe that every child should have a mentor.   I believe this mentor should be someone chosen specially to be this child’s role model.  I believe that the minimum age for a child to receive a mentor is birth and I believe the maximum age a child should maintain a mentor is forever. I also believe that every person should have someone to mentor.  I believe that the privilege of mentoring another, whether young or old, male or female, gay or straight, wealthy or struggling, intelligent or mentally challenged, disabled or physically ordinary, of any race, religion, or no religion, American or non-American, is a privilege one should not deny if lucky enough to be asked.   I believe that lives will be enhanced for every person who mentors, is mentored, or is blessed enough to experience both.

The opportunity to be invited to mentor, to be given the chance to guide, to have the honor to inform and influence another is really a tribute to the vast trust one has in you; the trust to lead their child in directions they may never have occasion to walk towards otherwise.  This becomes your opening to share with this person in your care, all the support and guidance you were lucky enough to have with your mentor or, if you weren’t in that special club, then everything the two of you experience, marvel in and explore during your journey together will be the first time for each of you, which will be just as wonderful in its own right.

I did not have a mentor in my youth; although I’ve been fortunate to have many as an adult.  But by the time I was 28 years old, I’d had no encounter comparable to being introduced to an eight-year-old girl,  who lived in relative poverty, whose mother had died of AIDS, whose father was unknown, and who was being raised by a single guardian who was also attempting to raise a teenage girl who was already a statistic: a pregnant runaway who would go on to have three more children, and a three year old boy, who would never be lucky enough to have his own mentor or role model.

 The eight year old girl’s name is Darlene. It was February 14, 1990, Valentine’s Day, a day we acknowledge and celebrate every year. We were introduced by our coordinator through Big Brothers/Big Sisters, the route I took in becoming a mentor.  We sat down on Darlene’s bed that day and she produced the most amazing, delighted smile I’d ever envisioned, a smile so expressive that it was immediately stamped onto my heart as though it would remain there until my heart’s final beat.

Our initial affection for one another evolved over the years, over our predictable life changes as we aged and matured.  The affection turned to deep friendship, then to love as if to a beloved friend or family member, and during our years together, we experienced a genuine understanding of each other, a respect only gained by sharing part of life’s journey together, and a connectedness that held that first smile to my heart firmly in place to this day, twenty-one years later.

Who mentored who?  There is no right answer to that question.  As Darlene watched me get married; as I watched her become homecoming queen; as she watched my husband and me build our house; as I watched her graduate from college; as she watched me struggle to take night classes in college while working in the same job for 25 years; as I watched her get her master’s degree; as she watched me have my first, second and third baby, which really felt like my second, third and fourth, truth be told;  as I watched her live on her own in NYC, learning the hard way that life is hard; as she watched me learn the hard way that no one is indispensible in their career; and now, today, I watched her get her acceptance letter from UNC-G, where she will  begin classes towards earning a doctorate degree.  And she watches me continue with my undergraduate courses, because I won’t give up, and she watches me with wonderment raise three kids, and we look at each other, hug each other, take pride in each other and respect and honor each other’s lives just as we know that we feel the same about our own.

I believe that everyone should have a mentor.  I believe that everyone should be a mentor.  I believe everyone’s life can be filled with a joy only felt when giving and receiving the type of relationship that is built in this way.   I believe everyone deserves to have a story to share, and a chance to influence those who have yet to make their way towards this path.