hey mikey, i'm 60!

this is milestone birthday week for me. the big six-oh.

i never imagined myself as a 60-year-old man, but i think i did most of my grieving at 59. the idea of turning 60 was far worse than the actual odometer tripping over.

my family and my teammates celebrated me well with cake, balloons, Butterfingers, Diet Coke, bread pudding, gift cards, popcorn, chips, Starlight Mints, pumpkins, lunch and dinner out and a heap of emails and social media posts.

i appreciated every kind word, every bite of cake and every taste of every meal, but perhaps the best gift of all came the day before my birthday when i had a visit from mikey.

i met mikey when he was six years old. he was a first grader at the elementary school i attended when i was his age. i was a community in schools mentor, and mikey was my mentee. once a week, he and i spent an hour or so together. we sometimes talked, sometimes read, sometimes worked on math – whatever he and his teachers thought he needed.

i enjoyed every minute of it.

but time marches on. families move. kids grow. people lose track of one another.

twenty years later, I received a message through the messenger app. it was mikey.

i clarified that it was that mikey. it was. i asked him questions about his life and his family, and i told him we needed to connect in person.

a few months later, i got a message from mikey asking if i'd like to buy cookie dough for his daughter's school. would i? absolutely!

so, on monday, mikey brought me my cookie dough. when he walked in the door of my office, i immediately recognized him. his eyes and smile are the same eyes and smile that i remember from 20 years ago.

he told me about his job, showed me pictures of his daughters and smiled throughout it. he was proud. he's proud of his family, proud of his job, and, i like to think, he is proud to be able to tell the old guy who mentored him that he turned out alright.

i am absolutely proud of mikey, but it was his question back to me that made our mini-reunion so meaningful to me.

"are you still mentoring?"

i don't know why that struck me so deeply, but it did.

i told mikey that i am still mentoring. for the past six years or so, i've mentored college students in an integrity in leadership program. over these 20 years i've talked regularly to middle school students, mentored my own kids, worked with young men and couples at church, mentored young co-workers and spent many a breakfast with a young man to talk about life and spiritual matters.

i mentor because i was mentored. terrell shaw, lester brookshire, ralph ingram, cliff burnham, david jackson, kevin mckean, bill crumbley, david harper...there's a consistent line of men who have mentored me, teaching me important lessons about life and living for jesus, and i am grateful.

i mentor because of mikey. investing in someone else's life makes a difference. mikey influenced me, and maybe, just maybe, i influenced him.