In the summer of 1998, a 23-year-old nurse named Emma sat down at an 11-year-old girl’s house and played a game of Life. Neither of them knew it at the time, but they were about to start playing a much longer one together.
An Unlikely Beginning
Emma had just moved to Maine for a nursing job at Maine Medical Center. Between working three days a week and figuring out her twenties, she signed up to volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southern Maine. Then, if she’s honest, mostly forgot about it. It took a persistent Program Manager named Steve to bring her back. “He said, ‘I have the perfect match for you. She’s another little redhead, and mom’s a nurse,'” Emma remembers.
That “little redhead” was Eliza, who had previously been matched with a high school Big in the Site-Based program. Eliza’s mother was raising two daughters alone, while caring for Eliza’s younger sister Maggie through a terminal illness. She wanted Eliza to have someone extra in her corner. The week before sixth grade started, Steve showed up with Emma.
Eliza was 11. Emma was 23. “At that time, I thought she was some big old adult,” Eliza laughs now. She doesn’t remember it feeling like meeting a stranger. “I never remember having that new-friend scary anxiety. It just kind of transitioned so quickly into a comfortable, safe space for me.”
Cookies, Christmas Trees, and Everyday Magic
What followed wasn’t a relationship built on big gestures, at least not at first. It was root beer floats and cookies with too much frosting. Movie nights that ended when Eliza banned them because Emma kept falling asleep. Trips to Emma’s parents’ house in New Hampshire, ski lessons, an annual Christmas tree tradition.
Both women remember those small moments as the real foundation. “It wasn’t about doing a thing,” Emma reflects. “It was just about being together.”
The Hospital Was Eliza’s Second Home
Because Eliza’s sister, Maggie, was frequently in the hospital, much of Eliza’s childhood happened in the halls where Emma worked.
“I would literally walk to school and then walk back to the hospital,” Eliza remembers. Emma, by then a floor manager, would work around her shifts to make room for Eliza, setting her up in the office to play computer games and saving her cake from staff parties. “Everyone knew her,” Emma says. “She would call the floor and say, ‘It’s Eliza, can I talk to Emma?'”
Looking back, Eliza sees something Emma may not have said aloud at the time. Emma had grown up in a two-parent household on a farm with five siblings, about as different a childhood as you could imagine. “She recognized that wasn’t the life I should be living,” Eliza says. “But she never told me that outright. She just accepted it, and loved me, and supported me.”
The Day Everything Changed
They were together in Boston when the call came about Maggie: it was time to say goodbye. Eliza didn’t want to go straight back, needing some control over something, on a day when there was none to be had. So, they stopped first, on her terms, before making the drive home.
What both women remember, without ever having compared notes, is the same quality in how Emma showed up that day. “She just let me be who I needed to be in that time,” Eliza says. Emma describes it from her side as one of the most defining moments of her life: “It really was an honor to be with a kid, processing all of that.”
It’s a memory neither woman revisits lightly, but both point to that day as the moment their relationship stopped being about a program and became something else entirely.
What Happened Next
High school. Tests. Proms.
Then came time to consider college. One day during her senior year, Eliza declared that she wanted to go to college in Florida without ever visiting or doing research. Emma stepped in: ‘Uh, you know that’s on the other end of the country?’ So, she took Eliza to Florida, rented a convertible, and turned it into a real college search, touring ten schools and making pros-and-cons lists together after every visit.
Eliza ended up enrolling at University of Maine, and Emma helped her move in.
“All the big really impactful things in my life, she has been there for,” says Eliza. “There are three women in my life that raised me, and Emma is one of them.”
Following in Emma’s Footsteps
Emma spent years as Director of Oncology at Maine Medical Center. Eliza, without ever being pushed in that direction, followed. She started her career as a unit secretary, then a CNA on Emma’s old floor (where doctors would say, “Oh, you’re Emma’s little sister”), and eventually as an oncology nurse navigator, now based out of the VA system.
“I’m a nurse because of Emma,” Eliza says simply.
“We’re just two redheaded oncology nurses,” Emma says, “that met almost 30 years ago.”
Family, By Every Definition That Matters
Ask either of them what their relationship looks like now, and the word that comes up isn’t mentor or mentee. It’s family.
Eliza’s three kids know Emma, love her, and ask for her. When Eliza moved to Charleston, Emma was there within a month, helping to tour daycares and being introduced to the staff as “Auntie Emma”.
“There’s no Eliza without Emma,” Eliza says. “Every friend I have knows her. She’s woven into everything.”
Reverse Mentorship
These days, Eliza is the one pulling Emma out of her comfort zone, insisting she come to the beach and build sandcastles instead of hiding under a cabana with a book. Emma calls it “reverse mentoring.”
Eliza sees it too, and reflects on it with real generosity: Emma never married and doesn’t have children of her own, both by her own choice, but Eliza believes their relationship gave her something of that experience anyway. “I think she gets a lot of the love and the support and the proud feelings from our relationship,” Eliza says. “Her world expanded because of us — my family, my friends, all these people who love her.”
Their Advice for Anyone Considering the Program
Emma’s advice leans on the program itself: “Use the resources that Big Brothers Big Sisters gives you. It works because of that structure.” She’s candid that even a match like hers and Eliza’s had bumps, and what mattered was communicating through them, not being perfect from day one.
Eliza’s advice is simpler, and maybe just as important: “There’s no negative side of it. Maybe for some kids it’s just an extracurricular activity. But for some kids, it’s a safe space.”
An Unexpected Fairy Tale
Neither woman set out to build a 28-year relationship. “I can’t even imagine a point where I decided that Emma was someone that was going to be my life forever,” Eliza says. “I think it’s just how it is at this point, and has been for a long time.” Ask Emma what Eliza gave her, and the answer comes without hesitation: “A lifelong friend. I don’t even know how to say it any differently.”
What started as small moments turned into something life-changing for both of them. They’ve gone on to become two successful women supporting each other through every endeavor. A six-year formal mentoring relationship, honored as Match of the Year prior to Eliza’s graduation, has had ripple effects that nobody expected. Eliza went from being a Site-Based Little to a Community-Based Little to a High School Big. “We were Bigs at the same time, and I think that was really special for the program,” remembers Emma.
As a healthcare professional, Emma also participated in Boston’s Mentor 2.0 school-based program, supporting another Little who went on to become a nurse as well. Most recently, Emma has re-engaged with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southern Maine as a donor and participant in our 2026 Fore the Kids Golf Classic, where she brought along the original Polaroid picture of her and Eliza.
Beyond all of it, their commitment to one another remains second to none. They text like best friends and love each other like family. In fact, Emma just returned from a trip to Charleston to celebrate Eliza’s 40th birthday.
Thank you to these remarkable women for sharing their incredible story with us for Big Brothers Big Sisters Month. In Eliza’s words:
“Where I came from, and where she came from, and then we came together — it’s kind of like a fairy tale. It doesn’t get to be a better story than what it’s turned out to be.”
