written by Big Sister Amber

As soon as I turned the big 1-8, I knew that it was time to give back to the community.  I had just moved to Edmonton and began my career of a professional university student! I was going to become an elementary teacher and wanted to volunteer my time with children. I saw an advertisement for BBBS on a school bulletin board, wrote down the number, and that began my journey of being a Big Sister. 

When I met my Little for the first time it was not an instant click.  She was very young, shy, and not trusting of new people being in her life.  It took a good month of weekly 2-3 hour outings before she really began to open up. But my oh my... when she did begin to trust that I was in her life for the long haul she opened up to become a wonderful, witty, and talkative child. 

Over the almost 4 years that I have been with my Little, my favorite memory remains the same.  For a whole year, all my Little wanted to do was go swimming at the Grant MacEwan pool.  Through rain, shine, and snow, I made the 30 minute weekly walk to her apartment to pick her up. She was always waiting in the front yard with a smile on her face.  She would then grab my hand and make the 30 minute walk back to the college.  On these long walks she truly opened up to me. Chatting to me about her life helped me to learn her likes and dislikes as well as what made her happy or sad or mad.  I feel that those long walks helped us to really connect to one another and it seemed to me that she was always much more excited during the walks than the actual swimming! 

I will never forget the look on her face as every week we passed a short brick wall along the sidewalk. Week after week she would ask if she could hold my hand and walk along the bricks, balancing as she walked one foot in front of the other. At the end of the wall, with a huge smile, she would ask me to catch her as she made the short jump down.  As the year progressed, so did her confidence of walking along the wall.  It began slowly, as she would only hold my hand for a short time, then progressed to walking by herself, and then finally she was able to jump off the end of the tiny wall and land with perfection.  She never seemed to become old of this ritual and I never became bored of the look of success and pride when she walked on the wall. 

Since that initial year we have created many more memories and I hope to create many more, yet I will never forget our long walks and the journey of our friendship.

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