When I first became a Big Brother, something in me was missing. I couldn’t name it then. I’m not sure I can name it now.

Looking back from where I stand today, I can see how badly the timing seemed to fit. I had just moved back to the United States. My wife had just given birth to our son. And, if I’m honest, I was trying to figure out how I would pay for my oldest son, Aurelius Dunbar, to attend Penn State, and later Duke. I prayed. I searched for answers. Meanwhile, something deep in me kept tugging toward the same question: What do I owe the people around me?

The world then was changing. It is still changing. I remain, perhaps stubbornly, hopeful about what people can do when they stay connected to one another, to their neighborhoods, their towns, their states, their regions. I believe that connection can be the beginning of change.

There is an African proverb almost everybody knows: “It takes a village.”

Four words, simple enough to travel across languages, strong enough to carry a whole way of living. We are architects of our surroundings. With our words and actions, we can choose to burn something down or help build it.

Meeting Blessing and his family felt like déjà vu. I felt, strangely, as if I had known him before. Sometimes I see a younger version of myself in him. We have walked different roads, but there is something familiar in the shape of our stories.

Life is hard for this generation, even if we don’t always want to say so. And I think those of us who are adults, parents, grandparents, people who should know better, have to ask what responsibility we carry. Still, I have hope.

I wonder sometimes whether I’m making any difference in Blessing’s life. My days get hectic. I forget to take care of myself, in the ordinary sense and the deeper one. This summer, working at the World Cup, I ran myself into the ground. It was a blessing for my career and financially, but somewhere in the work, I lost track of myself.

I have to give Blessing credit.

He is trying. He is fighting. This weekend brought one of those small breakthroughs that can change the feeling of a whole season. He told me he wants to study and improve his grades. In that moment, I saw the boy I used to be.

He earned two A’s, a B, and one C. He’s working on a mark in music class that I hope can be adjusted. But success is not always neat or pretty. Sometimes it arrives messy, unfinished, and still worth celebrating. Sometimes the choice to try is itself a beautiful thing.

I keep asking myself: Am I making an impact? I’m not fishing for compliments. It’s a question that follows me through my life. Am I making a difference in my older son’s life, in my wife’s life, at my job, in my art, in the place where I live?

Maybe this is the burden of the broken little Black child who traveled from Hartford, Connecticut, to Greencastle, Pennsylvania: wanting to make a difference, and never quite knowing whether he has.

I hope my words help. I hope my presence helps. I hope that, in Blessing’s life, I am making some difference, not by being perfect, but by staying here, paying attention, and believing that trying still matters.