If I Am Your Mentor, You Are Mine

Editor’s Note: This is a series of letters between Claire Diaz-Ortiz and her foster son Samuel Gachagua about mentorship, the value of college and how to make big life decisions.

Hey Samuel,

Yep, we’ve had quite a decade together, haven’t we? Since the day I first met you in Kenya at the orphanage 10 years ago, we’ve been around the world and back, so to speak.

Am I your mentor?

Frankly, I’m not sure.

I never thought of myself as a mentor to you. Instead, I thought of all those other things you mention: Foster Mom, Guardian, Older Sister, Aunt. But then I started writing a book with a mentor of mine, Ken Blanchard. The book is about — wait for it — mentoring, and I realized in the course of the writing process that the way I thought about mentorship was all wrong.

I used to think of mentoring mostly in terms of individuals in my professional life: People who had helped me in my work as a social entrepreneur, say, or those who had guided me during my time working in Silicon Valley with Twitter, or those who had helped me as an author.

Eventually, what I realized was this: If I am your mentor, you are also mine.

Yes, there may be other words to describe the relationship that you and I have, but “mentor” is one more. And it’s a good one.

You and I are in a mentoring partnership.

When people think of mentors, they think of mentees. They believe a mentor guides a mentee. End of story.

But this just isn’t right. Because for every big and little thing I’ve taught you, you’ve taught me just as much.

On my first day at the orphanage, when I went thinking I’d stay for a night on the way to climb a mountain, I met you. You immediately impressed me. You were smart, I could tell, and blew me away by asking me about Obama (who was a senator at the time).

Over the months I lived in Kenya, you taught me again and again. You taught me about why kids at the orphanage didn’t always love it when the missionaries came to visit. You taught me what it meant to have huge dreams. You taught me about development, and sustainability, and social entrepreneurship — many times without even realizing it.

When we brought you to the United States to go to high school, you blew my world open even wider. This time, you taught me about what it meant to be a parent (of sorts, given our highly untraditional relationship!). Long before my baby @lucia came along, I learned about what it meant to balance discipline with love.

And then, when we wrote our book together, Hope Runs: An American Tourist, a Kenyan Boy, a Journey of Redemption, I learned from you in all the ways I thought I couldn’t learn anymore.

So, all this to say:

Yes, I am your mentor.

And yes, you are mine.

Claire

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