The Connections We Make

Connections. We make them everyday. Talking to people at work, your family, people in the grocery store (east coast readers – this is normal if you live in the mid-west). All of these are connections that we make. Often times these connections do not lead anywhere, but every now and then, you get to follow and nurture those links over the course of many months and years, and it is amazing where they can lead.

When I was in college, I worked at a camp in northern Michigan during the summers. It was a religious camp where kids would come as a part of their requirements for confirmation. The way that the camp was set up, groups of campers would be randomly assigned to cabins. What this means is, even though some groups return many years in a row, it is highly unlikely that those campers will have the same counselor more than once.

There was one group from Ann Arbor that I got in my cabin for all three summers that I was working at this camp. I would think, there is no way that I will get them again, and sure enough, there are their names on my list of campers. By the second year, I had started referring to them as “my boys.” (Thank you Chuck Klosterman). A bit possessive, I understand, but also necessary (if you cannot see how this was necessary, please read any of the one-million volumes of Chicken soup for the soul).

The third summer, when I got “my boys” again, I was excited. We went through the week and were able to build on themes that we had started when theses guys were in sixth grade. It was great. I got to watch them grow over the course of three years and now they were ready for high school. I almost felt like a parent. I never expected to see them again after that summer.

I had graduated from college and had begun my internship in Massachusetts. I was not going to be working at the camp that summer so I assumed that ‘my boys” were destined to become a fond memory. About a week after having this thought, I got a call from their youth director. She told me that they were planning a trip to Belize to do some mission work, and one of the chaperones had already paid, but was unable to go. She asked if I would like to go with them. I, of course, quickly agreed.

I got to know “my boys” even better during that two weeks working side by side with them. They were in high school now and were able to talk on a level that was more like talking to friends than campers. We began discussing the things in their lives on a more “real” level than we had done before. I got to connect with them in a different way than we had ever been able to in the past.

About a year later, after keeping in contact with “my boys” through my space and other such technological marvels, I heard that one of them, who was now a junior in high school, was having some problems. He felt out of control of his life and had started to turn to drugs in order to deal with that lack of control. Once I found out about this, I called him and asked if he wanted to go get some coffee. He reluctantly agreed, because he knew what the coffee talk was going to be about.

Over the course of many cups of almost straight caffeine, we were able to talk about his life, his feeling of having no control, and some positive ways of dealing with that that did not involve drugs. We agreed that the next step was to sit down with his parents and have a very similar conversation to the one that he and I had. This student is still struggling, but he has now opened up lines with his parents and is starting to get some clarity on his path in life.

Try not to underestimate the connections that you make in your life. You never know where that path is going to lead many years down the road. True, there is a chance that noting will come of it, but there is an equal chance that you will end up being a friend, a safety net, a role model, or a life ring. Make a connection today and see where if goes tomorrow.