Growing up, I never really had a mentor. I never idolized a celebrity, a superhero, a legendary athlete, or cartoon character. While other kids had a role model, I never really had anything like that. Confident in my ways, I learned from my own mistakes and set my own path out for me. While it was a tumultuous expedition in life, it worked for a time. As I got older, I led myself into a pit that I couldn’t get out of. When I came out, I was really confused. I never really knew what my life was supposed to look like at that point. Based off of what I learned on the internet, I thought I knew everything, but inadvertently started alienating those around me.
My mentor came to me in the form of a program coordinator at the Abbotsford drop-in at the Fraser Valley Youth Society. Ray Covenant was shorter, somewhat stern, and maybe a little weirder than I’m used to, but in my eyes, he was my guardian angel. When I first met him, I realized that I had seen him before. A year prior, I did a program with the Abbotsford Police, and Ray was an actor that I had ended up arresting during an exercise. We seemed to both realize this moment at the same time, and it was an awkward start to a conversation. Once we brushed that off, Ray slowly became a father figure over the duration of my teen years, and he helped me become the person I am today. He guided me in the right direction to success; he kept me away from some seriously bad life choices, and let me experience some of the other bad choices in order for me to learn and grow from them. No matter what I was experiencing, he was there to help and ensure that I didn’t fall apart. I never felt awkward asking him any questions, and he never made any answer awkward for me.
While Ray doesn’t have as much of a hands-on role in my life, I still greatly value him as a person. I’m not able to talk to him as often, but when we do, I feel reassured that the path he helped set out for me is the right one. Seeing him be so selfless and approachable in the community is something that I aspire to be like. Despite having so many things on the go, his time management skills are legendary, and that’s why I am able to juggle so much while still taking care of myself. I never thought of him as a mentor until recently and I am ever so thankful for the role he played during my teens. While many of us may think mentors often show up as knights in shining armor, mine came in a short, balding man with a wacky sense of humour; but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
