Big Brother Arin Strom and Little Brother James

The best part about being with James is that even our mistakes turn out OK. Like one day we were hiking up at Denny Creek. The path was sloppy with rain, but James' mom asked me to take him on active, outdoors types of outings, so we were hiking.

We came along a particularly washed out spot-a place where the path was muddy unless you balanced carefully on a log and walked your way across. When James went, his foot slipped and he slid off, sinking his shoe into the water. His foot came up wet, but he told me he felt ok. Just the same, I asked to see his foot.

There was a two inch cut. Not awful, but enough to make me worry. "We gotta go back," I told him.

"It's no big deal," he said. "It doesn't hurt."

We went back. James didn't want to, but we wrapped his foot in a clean t-shirt and headed to the car. We called his mom and met her at the hospital. James got nine stitches.

I don't know if you can get fired from being a Big Brother, but if you could, I thought it would happen to me. On one of our earlier outings, we'd shot a model rocket that landed somewhere near I-5. Now on this outing, I'm coming back with a Little Brother who needs 9 stitches.

"I'm glad you were with him," James' mother told me later. "He trusts you. He didn't freak out." It was true.

In fact, after that day, James seemed to confide in me more. I think he realized that I wasn't going to flake out. I was going to stick through it with him, as his Big Brother, no matter what types of things were happening in his life.

When I first signed up to be a Big Brother, I worried that I was taking on more than I could handle. It just hasn't been the case. James is a great kid and it's fun to see him opening up more, stepping out of his box, and becoming more outgoing. And it's a great feeling for me to know that all the little things I do, even the mistakes, can make such a difference to him.

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