February 6, 2010

Many years ago, 2003 to be exact, I met an amazing young man while working with Big Brothers Big Sisters. Just to show how small the world is, he was the son of someone I graduated high school with (but knew only by name). In my search for a Big Brother for him, matching him with a Big and through various BBBS events, I built a relationship with his family. Several years later, I left BBBS and he attended McNair Magnet School. During all this time, Robbie developed a great relationship with him. Although we don't see him often, Robbie thinks of him as a Big Brother. He came to watch Robbie play in his basketball on Saturday. He hung out with us for several hours later and we went that evening to watch him play in his last basketball game for this season. His team is one of the top teams in their division within the state. He's such a cool kid - funny and hardworking. He's the only freshman on the team and is already a top recruit for his graduating class. One reason I said that he is amazing is because he's hearing impaired and in spite of that, he hasn't let the fact that he's completely deaf in one ear and has an implant/aide in the other stop him or slow him down. Even more, I'm so glad that my son has such a good role model to look up to in his life - literally and figuratively (he's 6'6" already at 16 years of age!).