Year of mentor activities for 50 vulnerable youth

Sometimes as a Friend when you are first introduced to your new kindergartner buddy, it is magical. You can feel the relationship starting to bloom and what you hope will be a very long term friendship forming. It didn't exactly go this way for Audrey and me. We hit a lot of road bumps early in our journey together. Audrey is and was mature beyond her years, with knowledge and understanding of the world around her like I would never anticipate from a child her age. Audrey and my first outing together felt a little bit more like I was working with a teenager than a 6 year-old. She was funny, she gave me very specific directions to a restaurant she wanted to go to, and she shared insight into what she perceives of the world around her. Audrey and I had to work hard to build trust in our relationship. It quickly became clear to me that she had been let down by adults in the past and was unsure why I would be any different. Audrey's methods of pushing boundaries and testing my reactions were unmatched. As we went about our weekly trials, I started to slowly but surely learn Audrey's story and in a way I also became a part of it. Audrey and I have found the Zoo to be one of our special places together. We took our first trip to the Oregon Zoo together to learn about different ways adults can work with animals, and it turned into one of the best afternoons of my life. We talked about our families and our passions in the world, we had fifteen minute conversations about what each of us would do with our lives if we were birds or monkeys, and in the end we wrote a list of other things we wanted and needed to do together by the end of the summer. Other, more experienced mentors had told me of these outings; the ones where the kids finally let you in and it forever changes your relationship together. It was nice to finally feel it for us. Unfortunately, a lot of youth we get to work with at Friends of the Children are pushed in one way or another to leave their childhood early; I have seen a lot of that in Audrey. I am confident that she trusts she does not have to be a grown up with me yet. Thanks to patience, time and some resources, Audrey and I have slowly moved away from the testing phase of our friendship and have found a space with each other to relax, play, learn and be ourselves. I am grateful to have gotten to know this smart, funny and truly special little girl. I can't wait for the adventures we will continue to embark upon in our time together, and of course to check off the events on that list.

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Every December, about this time, I swear to myself that next Christmas will be different – that the frantic pace of the pre-Christmas count-down won’t be part of MY holiday cheer.  But, here we are just a few days before the big day, and I have a to-do list that is completely unrealistic, have yet to send out Christmas cards, and my belly aches from too much eggnog.

And yet, between the deadlines and should-haves, there have been a few magical moments this December.

One such moment was lunch the other day with two of the young men I mentored in the 90’s – Brian* and Stephen*.  I spent hundreds of hours with each of them from age eight until eighteen, and now that they are both in their mid-twenties, the conversation has shifted from are-you-sure-you-don’t-have-homework to adult topics, like child rearing and paying bills.  It has become a semi-annual tradition to sit at Fire on the Mountain, dipping greasy chicken wings in various sauces and talking about everything – jobs, memories, college.  Whatever comes up is fair game, as long as there is enough butter and parmesan.

Both of these guys were as troubled as you can get and still be alive.  Brian went through a suicidal streak at least three times as a youth and then at least once as an adult.  Stephen’s father has been addicted to methamphetamines the past twenty years, and his mother and father, after years of struggling, just divorced last month.

Today’s topic was the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Stephen spoke about how he would have run the opposite direction from the gunfire, if he were in that situation, and Brian spoke of heroically intervening if HE had been in the situation.  The conversation turned to the same as I imagine it did at your dinner table — better security in schools, tougher gun laws, etc.

But now, after a week has passed, I am wondering if we have missed the lesson.  What if the young man had a person, just ONE person who gave him hope and perspective in a world gone completely mad?  The events spoken of around that lunch table, if anything, strengthened my resolve to continue mentoring the disenfranchised and the hopeless.

It’s hard to say whether an active mentor in the life of the young man responsible for the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary would have changed history.  But, this much is true – our disenfranchised youth and young adults are acting out in increasingly more violent ways unfathomable even a generation ago.

The way I can make sense of the tragedy is to take stock of my own life.  Am I going the extra mile for the people I impact on a daily basis?  The young men who look to me for the essential tools they will need in this world – am I delivering?  My family, my neighbors, my friends – am I a person they can lean on in times of tribulation?

As policy makers scramble to enact laws that will ensure that “nothing like this will happen again,” I am creating my own resolve to stand wider in the gap.

The gap is significant, my friends, but our love and resolve is stronger still. 

It’s a resolve I made when I was first employed as a mentor with Friends of the Children.  It is often thankless, tiring work and it is repeatedly misunderstood, but it is so important.

In 1939, anticipating a German invasion shortly after the beginning of World War II, the English government issued a series of slogans on posters which were intended to increase the morale of the people.  The posters were intended for public display, but – in fact – were only distributed to a few locations.  Very few British people ever saw the posters.  One such slogan has been rediscovered the past few years, and has found its way on email signatures and webpages.  Its words I will take with me this next two days, as I deliver Christmas gifts to the youth and the families I have known for many years, and whose stories we will discuss over lunch in a decade or so.  Perhaps the slogan that was penned so many years ago was really meant for us in this time, now.

Keep calm, and carry on.

- A Friend