My parents tower above me. Although they and I are now the same height I still look up to them. I still often carry this feeling ...the feeling of the silly joy of a little girl who knows that if she gets swept down one of life’s slides her daddy will be there to cradle her before she hits the cold, hard earth; the feeling of confident certainty of a little girl who knows that if she gets a few bumps and bruises on the play-ground of life mommy will know exactly how to help her transform her tears into triumph, and her pain into perspective. My childhood play-ground, Jamaica is a scorchingly bright, inexplicably complex, often strangely divided society. In the sometimes harsh sunlight of island life I have been lucky to have had more than two shadows shielding me from the heat. In addition to my parents I can remember the Uncles, the Aunts, the Teachers, the Coaches who passed through my world, whether for a marathon stretch or a short-sprint, and who provided a spot of shade long enough for me to learn how to protect myself from the environment’s most damaging rays while encouraging me to step-out into the light.
With the benefit of hind-sight I look back now on the years that have passed since I exchanged the play-ground swing for the corporate ladder and – as my adult vision adjusts to the realities of a grown-up world – I am beginning to see how much I owe to these people; it is beginning to come into focus just how much of who I am has been shaped by these people who left a little piece of themselves with me. I imagine Hillary Clinton would call them “the Villagers” given her belief that “It takes a Village to Raise a Child”. I call them “The Angels Among Us”. You will probably be most comfortable with the name “Mentors”.
Terri gave a great talk a few weeks ago on mentorship and it’s been on my mind since. For me the word mentor is rich and broad and varied. The word is like a big, red, happy umbrella under which you can fit healthy parents, and empathetic friends, caring strangers, and passionate teachers. Mentors are the iron-smiths whose hands visibly and invisibly have helped forge us from formless liquid metal into solid iron. Mentors are the wine-makers who consciously or unconsciously helped us to age with grace and purpose and who helped us determine if we wanted to be robust and bold, fresh and fruity, or subtle and sweet.
If you think about it, you will probably be humbled to realize that you are less of a self-made person than you thought you were; but hopefully you are also honoured that all around you there are opportunities to do for others what your mentors did for you. Where would you be without the hands-that have sown together your character, that have stitched your flaws closed? For me ...my life might have been very different. My first year of high-school was tremendously dislocating for me. I was a precocious tomboy who needed activity as well as academics, trying to fit into a co-ed school with no sports program. As soon as school started I immediately felt like a fish out of water. But my parents insisted that I was simply a swan who needed to find the right lake.
So for my second year of high-school I dived into the girls’ school my sister attended which also happened to be my mother’s alma mater. There in the classroom I found teachers like Mrs. Bryan, who, when was about to sit the toughest exams of my life, quietly and consistently let me and my good friend Cecile know that she knew her best students were capable of smoothly gliding across the water no matter how rough the ripples got. And teachers like Mr. Boothe, who as the only male teacher in an all girls school and the home-room teacher for over twenty teenage girls, was a sterling example of gentlemanly yet approachable composure under extreme circumstances.
Outside of the classroom I met examples that kept me clear on what my path should be. The women (past-students of my high school, St. Andrew High) who led the field hockey coaching program were all professionals; independent, interesting, educated. Dr. Gale Kerr could be a stern and exacting person. If you made a play that was not up to Gale’s standard, Gale was going to let you know about it. But when she said “well played” you walked around like you had won the lottery! Dr. Michelle Holt - one of the best hockey players Jamaica has produced – coached me from high-school through to the medal winning national team years. She is a mentor with whom my interactions have ranged from the highest highs to the lowest lows; always the experiences have stretched me to stand a little taller.
Pablo Picasso said “Action is the foundational key to all success”. Have you noticed that the best mentors don’t just talk, they walk? Have you noticed that the best mentors walk much more than they talk? I learnt social studies driving with my mother as she went out to conduct voluntary literacy classes in parts of the country that were so remote they hadn’t been detailed on any map. I was taught finance by watching my father live simply, and invest patiently in real estate. I was taught religion by observing Miss Ruby (a grandmother figure in my life) who never gave birth but was surrounded by the love of the innumerable children she took the time to care for, including myself.
Who will trace the delicate strands that weave together their life direction, to you? Who will see your colours in the threads of embroidery on the coat of confidence that they wear through their life? When you are no longer physically here, who will feel that a part of their spirit expanded because you existed and that a part of their heart has contracted because you no longer breathe? If you walk the talk, and laugh and smile, and reinforce the best and offer encouragement through the worse, you can give someone an example to look up to, something to look forward to becoming, somewhere to look ahead to. Be open to the opportunities to leave a positive footprint when you step, however briefly, into another person’s life. Call it mentoring, or call it whatever suits you, becoming a winemaker who helps ferment vintages of the human kind will help you become wonderfully intoxicated with life!
(October 2008)
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