Kindness of Strangers

For the past nine months I’ve volunteered with the Big Brothers Big Sisters program.  Being a Big Sister to an eleven-year-old girl has been a great experience, but for the past few months I’ve dreaded telling her about my trip.  The Program requires a year-long committment from its volunteers and participants because studies have shown that it takes about that length of time to make a lasting impression and form any sort of a genuine relationship.  Now that we’re nearing that point, I’m leaving her.  And that makes me feel terrible.

I was advised by my Support Specialist to not tell her too soon, lest our time left together be colored, but to not wait so long that she feels like the rug has been pulled out from under her.  On Saturday I determined that the time was right.  I waited until her grandparents and sister were all in the room.  I started off my saying that Maikael and I would be leaving Albuquerque for awhile, and that we’d have to stop meeting.  “Where are you going?” her grandpa asked.  “We’re taking a trip around the world.”  My Little Sister’s eyes grew big.  “You mean like on a vacation?” her grandpa asked.  “Well, yeah, basically.”  I had never thought of this trip as a vacation, per se, but if you define a vacation as the absence of work, then, yeah, I guess I’m going on a really long vacation.  “Are you going around the whole world?” my Little Sister asked.    “Well, we’re not going to visit every country, but we are going to go around the whole globe,” I said.  “Are you going to go to Laughlin?” her sister asked.  I laughed.  “No, we’re going a little further than Laughlin.

It occured to me that, for her, Laughlin is the end of the world.  It’s where their family goes on vacation every summer, and, when you’re an eight-year-old, it probably feels like the ends of the earth.  It was then that I realized this trip could be a real learning opportunity; a way to expand my Little Sister’s concept of The World.  I plan on sending her postcards from each country I visit.  We also discussed doing a scrapbooking project together.  Rather than “what I did on my summer vacation,” we’re each going to put together a book that addresses “what I did during the last eight months.”  My Little Sister is starting middle school in the fall, and I’m disappointed about missing the beginning of her big journey.  When I return she’ll be older, taller, smarter, and, as an almost-teenager, probably a little more jaded.  I wonder how I’ll seem different to her?