'This Beautiful Fantastic'

The picture is of a camelia in dad's garden that I took to show him in hospital ten days before he died.  If only we had known.  He was delighted.  He loved gardens and flowers and nothing gave him greater pleasure than to take you around his garden, to share his delight and ideally have you admire his plants, many of which had come from me, my neighbour or other people. He seemed thrilled by the idea that you could transplant something from elsewhere and it might still do so well. 

Nothing like the experience of death, the sudden, incontrovertible and permanent absence of someone or perhaps having a near-death experience yourself, teaches you the preciousness of the present moment, of joy, love, compassion and giving pleasure.

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The mentor's job is similar to the parent's in the sense of developing metaphorical wings.  They bring autonomy and with that, usually insight. 

Experience teaches the rest.  Experience will teach you anyway.  The mentor just makes that experience better. 

The mentor challenges the learner's statements, knows when to push and when to stop. It is one of the great joys of the relationship because of the complexities involved, because of the dynamics, because of the immanent growth.  This and more is explored in the delightful film 'This Beautiful Fantastic'. 

They mentor has to know the subject.  In this case, he is, fittingly for a film about growth, in oneself, in relationships, a horticulturalist.  If the subject is life, the mentor must have wisdom.  The best mentors know a subject and have wisdom too.  It is sometimes assumed that only professionals can be mentors. A professional may have knowledge and experience.  But that isn't wisdom.  

The mentor will know the mentee, and how they will respond, better yet, know how to respond well when unexpected things happen. It is a relationship that has been practised for millennia.  It predates modern professionalism, which can be faked without too much trouble.  

In the film an oddball woman with fears of the unpredictability of nature has to establish a garden by a deadline or face eviction.  It turns out this was a setup by her curmudgeonly neighbour, the horticulturalist, who, unbeknown to her is also the landlord.  He wants her to sort out the disarray of the garden that goes with her flat next door to his house.  

He is stern and demanding: "Don't think, just do" 

He keeps pushing and prodding her:

- Miss Brown!
- Yes?
- Just dig.

Or,

- Are you kicking me, Mr. Stephenson?
- No. I'm encouraging you to get up. If you ignore my encouragement, then I'll start kicking you.

They gradually form a relationship in which he sees in her the vigour and promise of the young wife he lost young.  Through their odd friendship he is able share the gardening knowledge and wisdom of his life while she finds security and confidence in his firm direction and support.  In the film, he is mistakenly called her 'grandfather'. A mentor is indeed somewhere between parent and teacher and friend.   

By the end of the film Bella, of course, has found her confidence and her way and achieved her dream. 

After her friend's death, she opens the letter he left for her:

You were a wonderful pupil and a dearly treasured friend. 

Because they choose each other, real mentors and mentees are friends, which isn't something you get with members hired or allocated through an organisation.

He adds,

You helped me remember the good things.

He had become ill and crotchety.  She reminds him of the joy in life that he still gets from the garden that helped him heal after the death of his wife.

He had told Bella, 

When I was younger, I did a lot of travelling. I collected seeds from the most spectacular plants.Each one is from a different country. A different color, a different smell and most importantly, different memory.

A few weeks before dad died.  I brought him the photo albums and asked him about some of the trips he did with friends.  After a while he said, with his eyes fixed on the past, in a tone of wonder, All those memories.  They just come flooding back. 

Music, for him apart from the inherent pleasure of it, did the same.