Eric and Alex Cursetobless Mentoring

Our story isn't extraordinary or unique. In fact, it's probably the same story that thousands of other Big Brothers/Big Sisters would share with you about their experience getting to know a total stranger. I'm a 48-year-old career military officer in the US Coast Guard and my mentee is a ten-year-old boy whose father lives 350 miles away. Matched when he was eight years old, we have spent the last two and a half years getting to know each other and learning how to be friends. This is our story.

I moved to Sault Ste Marie, MI after receiving military transfer orders from the CGC POLAR STAR in Seattle, WA. Back in Seattle, I have three children from a fourteen-year marriage that ended in 1997, who weren't even sure if the Upper Peninsula of Michigan was part of the United States or not. It is.

From the moment I arrived, I felt isolated from my own family and searched for a way to fill my time in a productive manner. About nine months later, I saw a BBBS ad in the Coast Guard monthly information flyer called the "Group Scoop". I called and made an appointment.

At the time, Alex was an eight-year old boy who had already been on the BBBS waiting list for two years before I discovered the program. He lived alone with his mother in a comfortable home just outside the city limits. Alex has a sister who is twelve years older than him and a brother who is two years older. Neither his brother nor his sister lived close enough to provide the friendship and leadership that Alex's mother wanted him to have. Alex visits his father a couple of times a year.

Both Alex and I are shy with strangers. We were a little bit embarrassed to be ourselves at first, but this wasn't a relationship that either one of us wanted to back away from just because it required some effort on our parts. During one of our first visits, we talked about all the things we like to do, made a list, and presented it to his mother for approval. We have been very successful at balancing our activities between things that require money such as movies, bowling, skating, skydiving (just kidding) and with community volunteer work like Habitat for Humanity, shoveling snow (my house) and working various booths at local festivals. We also set aside time for just sitting down together playing chess, checkers, cards or backgammon. We frequently find ourselves at the library looking up things like which Roman numeral means 50 or getting on the Internet. We go out an average of two times a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. Even very simple things like washing the car or going for a ride on the motorbike provides satisfaction for both of us.

Because I'm older than the average Big Brother, when we're out in public, people frequently assume that I’m Alex's dad. He and I have talked about this several times. Alex misses having his father close by and I was filling that void for him. Likewise, I missed my children and he was filling that void for me. Two years later, we have come to respect one another as good friends, brothers, if you will. We're now as comfortable with each other as we are with people we've known our whole lives. He is one of my favorite people, and I believe that my influence has had a positive effect on him. Alex's social skills have grown tremendously over the course of our friendship, and I'd like to think that I helped him with that. I know that his friendship has had a profound influence on my life.

I'm being transferred back to Seattle this summer. Now Alex and I have to learn how to say goodbye after two and a half wonderful years together, which is something I'm not looking forward to. I know we've developed feelings for one another, but we haven't talked about that yet. I hope the last thing we get to teach each other is how to say goodbye while keeping the joy of each other's memories in our hearts.