Mentoring: Sing the Song

We pull into the parking lot by the deserted ball fields. “Park closes at dusk,” the sign says, but a tinge of rose still highlights the horizon. Sundown time. Time for babies to fuss, Alzheimer’s patients to wander, animals to seek shelter or leave it, depending on crepuscularity. Time to mentor.

“What do you want to talk about?” I ask cheerily. I start some topics. How was school, how was your week, how was family visit last week… One word answers. Monosyllables. A hint of eye-rolling.

“OK, your turn to pick a topic,” I declare with a hint of frustration. I put the driver’s seat all the way back. “Or, we can just rest,” I add as I lay back with a sigh. She puts her seat back and lays back, too.

A moment. Then, timidly, “Would you sing me that one song, the roads song?”

I’m glad to comply, put my seat back up. Out comes the 1970s melody that seems timeless, like it was born with the birthing of our country, sincere Americana… " Almost heaven, West Virginia. Blue Ridge Mountain, Shenandoah River.”

She sings along a bit, but mostly listens intently. She is trying to learn this song. I told her that you can please almost any American audience with this song—people will always sing along.

“I hear her voice, in the morning hours she calls me…” I finish with an extended ending and she asks me to go through it again, so I do and she sings along with more courage.

When we finish, I try to tell her the song like it is a story…truck driver out on the road thinking about home, about memories and anticipation. It helps me to memorize when I feel the story. Sometimes I pantomime songs. Wait till I teach her the hand motions to the Dead’s “Ripple.”

Next up we sing Christmas songs…she knows “Silent Night” pretty well, and “Jingle Bells,” and “Rudolph,” but has never sung my nameday carol, “Joy to the World.” I switch over then to the “Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog” version of “Joy to the World,” thinking maybe she knows that one. Nope. She likes the liveliness of it, though.

We close with the one song we both reliably know—the national anthem. It’s time to drop her off at home.

As we pull out, uh-oh, here comes a police car. It’s dark now and we have caught the attention of the po-po. She tenses up, but I have the middle class assurance that sees law officers as allies rather than enemies.

“Sorry officer, we were just leaving.”

“Park closes at dark,” he grumbles. I apologize again and head on out of there.

This is a detailed description of about one-half hour of mentoring. It’s not events and outings. It’s not gifts and glitz. It’s about sitting with a kid and going with her flow for awhile, respecting the flow. I think most kids want that more than they want planned activities and conscious enrichment.

This girl most often wants to spend time at my house and direct her own self. She plays on the piano, tidies up, we read Silverstein poems to each other. Sometimes I know she is off in an imaginary world out of my sight, and that’s OK. As long as she keeps coming back from it. One time she said, “Can I take the dog outside and run around with her?” Yep. It made me run, too.

People I talk to seem to think mentoring is something far beyond their capabilities, something that is a bit dangerous, that might be risky. I think most of them are most afraid that they might not be liked by the child, and they put all sorts of layers over that fear to keep themselves out of the mentoring soup. They don’t understand the boundaries the parent organization (Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America, in this case) puts around the relationship. We have individual check-ins with social workers and a structure in which to work. BB/BS gives both of us a variety of fall-back positions.

Mentoring supports my deeply held belief that real change can only happen in a one-on-one relationship, or maybe in an intimate small group. Letting a child know you is so special. Letting them glimpse your world and enter it for a bit of time. That’s all it takes.