When we hear about an older person mentoring a younger person, we usually think of the former helping, supporting, and teaching the latter. But as one Big Sister-Little Sister relationship demonstrates, mentor-mentee support and growth often flows both ways. Jaleesa and Jaime got matched through the Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) program in 2019, a time when they’d both experienced traumatic losses. Jaime’s dad had recently died, and Jaleesa had just lost her grandfather, the only father figure she’d ever known. They quickly formed a bond that held strong through the pandemic and has only deepened in the years since. Their relationship involves open communication about life’s challenges, anxiety over the future, trauma and grief, the reality of being Black women, and more. Jaleesa has been an invaluable resource for Jaime as she heads toward college. But mentoring Jaime has also had an enormous impact on Jaleesa’s life as they have grown together. Jaleesa and Jaime in 2024 (Photo credit: Big Brothers Big Sisters) ‘Being a Big broke me open…’ Choosing to serve as a Big Sister or Big Brother is a big responsibility, but one Jaleesa was eager to take on. “I wanted to become a Big because I remember how difficult and isolating it was growing up and trying to find my place in the world,” says Jaleesa. “I also remember how life-changing it was to find adults who made me feel seen, safe, and heard. I wanted to be that safe adult for another child.” However, her relationship with Little Sister Jaime has been one of mutual emotional safety and support. “Being a Big broke me open emotionally in ways that I didn’t think were possible,” Jaleesa shares. “The love that I have for Jaime makes me want to be more present, more attuned, more of whatever she needs to get her through that moment.” Jaime’s mother, Latona, shares that having Jaleesa as an extension of their family has helped her daughter grow in important ways: “Jaime often calls Jaleesa before reaching out to me for advice, and I love that because it gives her a fresh and different perspective. Their bond has provided Jaime with guidance, encouragement, and stability that has helped her grow in confidence and independence. Watching their relationship develop has shown me the power of mentorship, and I know the impactJaleesa has made will stay with Jaime for the rest of her life.” Jaleesa and Jaime have seen each other through a lot. (Photo credit: Big Brothers Big Sisters) The pair has been named one of the 2026 Bigs & Littles of the Year Jaleesa and Jaime have been chosen from among thousands of mentoring matches across the country to receive a 2026 Bigs & Littles of the Year award. The honor includes BBBS’s largest scholarship of $25,000 over four years. Jaime says Jaleesa is literally her big sister now. “She has always been there,” she shares. “She’s always been a constant.” In her speech at the BBBS Gala, Jaime sang the praises of both Jaleesa and the program that brought them together. “I know in the beginning you didn’t think it was possible for you to show up for me the way you wanted to,” she told Jaleesa. “But you did. And you still do. You show up for me more than most of my blood relatives, and that means more than I can ever explain. You’ve taught me to be kinder tomyself, to celebrate my progress, and to keep going even when things feel heavy. Thank you for being consistent, patient, and loving. Thank you for being my person.” “This program has given me so much more than a mentor,” she continued. “It gave me a person of my own, a family, a community, and opportunities I never imagined having. BBBS has expanded my horizons in every direction — socially, academically, emotionally — all because of the support they’ve poured into me and into our match.” View this post on Instagram A unique relationship that lasts a lifetime Jaleesa has helped Jaime make strides not just emotionally, but academically as well. So far, she has been accepted to Ball State University, Butler University with scholarship, University of Alabama, and College of Charleston with scholarship. She has set her sights on double-majoring in Accounting and Astronomy/Astrophysics and double minoring in Japanese and Aerospace Engineering. As Jaime prepares to make her way in the adult world, Jaleesa makes it clear she isn’t going anywhere. “Jaime possesses so much passion, creativity, and intellect that I don’t think she needed anyone to ignite her potential,” she shares. “She needed someone to protect it. There have been times when Jaime has been hit really hard by self- doubt. I’ve seen her struggle with boundaries and get caught up in cycles of low energy that made her want to give up on her goals. I’ve been there when she’s having trouble regulating her emotions and didn’t know where to turn. “My focus has always been showing her that it’s OK to let those emotions and thoughts out, that there is no shame in expressing herself. At the same time, I try to quietly caution against letting those emotions and thoughts consume her and cause her to lose sight of who she really is and what she really wants for herself. I remind her that she’s a survivor and there is nothing that she cannot overcome with enough time, patience, and self-compassion. I hope she holds on to that. And should she ever need a reminder, I’ll be there. Always.” Learn more about Big Brothers Big Sisters here. The post Big Sister Jaleesa and Little Sister Jaime exemplify how mentorship is a two-way street appeared first on Upworthy.

United Airlines 737 Captain Rob L. is one proud father. The pilot, who spent 19 years with United Airlines, was diagnosed with ALS two years ago, forcing an early retirement. During his final retirement flight with the airline, he had a very special co-pilot to send him off: his son Daniel L. The duo’s touching story has left the Internet in tears following an emotional video shared by the airline, with Daniel making an emotional speech on the plane’s intercom before the flight. View this post on Instagram Captain Rob L.’s final flight Before the flight, Daniel made a touching speech to his dad over the intercom. “Good evening, folks. Welcome aboard United. This is actually my father’s retirement flight today. Two and a half years ago, my dad, who was a United Airlines captain, was diagnosed with ALS [and] unfortunately cut his career short that he loved so much,” he said. “My dad’s actually the reason I got into aviation. I’m so proud to be able to do this for you. It’s a great honor for me. Just want to say thanks again and welcome aboard.” In an interview following the flight, Rob told the airline how much the moment meant to him. “To have my son fly my retirement flight, it’s another proud moment in my life. And sometimes there’s just not words to describe how cool it is that he followed in my footsteps,” Rob said in an emotional clip. “He worked hard to be here.” Daniel added, “He taught me everything about flying. It’s just very special to be able to continue the legacy with United.” His wife, Captain Erin J., also a 737 pilot, shared, “To walk off the airplane and see family, friends, coworkers, it’s really a true testament to who he is as a human being.” Following the flight, Rob, Daniel, and Erin all deplaned to a big crowd of supporters holding signs and cheering for them. Rob made a speech to his supporters, where he said, “This has just been a great career. Since I was 10 years old, this is what I wanted to do. And of course I wanted to end it a little bit differently, but this is amazing. Daniel did a great job flying us here, and I appreciate all of you for being here. Thank you so much.” Viewers respond People from all over the world were touched by Rob and Daniel’s bond, and shared their thoughts in the comment section: “This… warms my heart and brought tears…I just flew United home yesterday after visiting my sister who has ALS.. what a fabulous son and tribute to his dad. Thankyou Captain for your many years flying for United – what an amazing career. ” “Captain Rob is an amazing person! Congratulations on a beautiful career. Your mentorship inside and outside the aircraft means so much to many of us. Blessed to know you, your wife, and beautiful family ” “What an absolutely amazing way to honor your dad, his career and his impact that he had on you!!! Congratulations on your retirement Captain! ” “I need to stop crying every time I come here. What an immensely, beautiful tribute! ” “Beautiful story. Let’s not forget that his greatest legacy is that his son followed in his footsteps to be a @united pilot. God bless this man as he navigates these next steps.” “Congratulations Captain, may your days always have blue skies and tailwinds!!” “This is absolutely beautiful. Thank you for sharing. What a moment for the family, pilots and airline!” The post United pilot with ALS retires on final flight with his son in the pilot’s seat appeared first on Upworthy.

By his own count, Jeremy Padawer had moved eight times before he turned 13, bouncing around the Deep South, perpetually the new kid. That’s the kind of childhood that can leave a person either resigned or relentless, and Padawer chose relentless. As a teenager, he sat down and wrote 1,000 letters to what he called the most remarkable, well-known people of the 20th century and asked each of them the same thing: What has been your greatest accomplishment? The point wasn’t autographs. As he explained on Instagram, where he recently shared one of the replies, he wanted to understand what actually drove accomplished people and how they defined success when left to define it themselves. A kid who couldn’t count on staying anywhere was trying to reverse-engineer how to build a life that amounts to something. View this post on Instagram Around 150 people wrote back. Padawer says those responses motivated and guided him and that the simple fact of their accessibility—these iconic, wildly successful, real humans taking a minute to answer him—made anything seem possible. That’s the part worth sitting with. The lesson wasn’t in any single piece of advice. It was that the people he’d put on a pedestal turned out to be reachable, which is a different and more durable thing to learn at 17. One of the replies came from Fred Rogers—best known for creating and starring in the PBS series Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood—and it is about as on-brand as a piece of mail can be. View this post on Instagram The letter reads: “Dear Jeremy Padawer, Greatest accomplishment? Well, personally, to recognize that all good gifts come from God, even the gift of recognizing that that is our greatest accomplishment!” Rogers dated it August 8, 1992, and signed off with a postscript that did the characteristic Rogers move of turning the spotlight back on the kid who’d written him: “What an interesting project you’ve chosen for yourself! I wish you well in all that you do, Jeremy.” What makes the answer land is that Rogers quietly declined the question as asked. Padawer had invited a thousand high achievers to name their crowning achievement, the kind of prompt practically engineered to produce a humblebrag about a title, a prize, or a deal. Rogers wouldn’t do it. His proudest accomplishment, as he framed it, wasn’t anything he’d built or won; it was a posture of gratitude, plus the self-awareness to notice that even that wasn’t fully his own doing. For a man who spent his career telling children they mattered exactly as they were, refusing to measure himself by output was the only consistent answer he could have given. It also wasn’t a fluke of a generous afternoon. Rogers was a famously prolific correspondent who, as the Deseret News has documented, personally answered an enormous volume of mail across his life, treating letters as something close to a responsibility. The note to Padawer was just one teenager’s brush with a habit Rogers extended to hundreds of thousands of people. View this post on Instagram Padawer kept it. He grew up to run major toy companies, a long way from the kid who kept landing in new Southern towns, and of the 150 famous people who answered him, this is the letter he chose to show the world decades later. Given who wrote it and what it says, that’s not a hard choice to understand. You can follow Jeremy Padawer on Instagram for more entertainment and lifestyle content. The post He wrote 1,000 famous people one question as a teen. Mister Rogers’ answer refused the premise. appeared first on Upworthy.

There is exactly one rule that has never bent at House of Nanking, the cramped, beloved Shanghainese spot in San Francisco’s Chinatown: everyone waits. No one skips the line. Not Francis Ford Coppola, not anyone. So, in 1997, when a young actor in all black turned up hoping for a table, Peter Fang did what he did to everybody. His daughter Kathy, then a starstruck fan, recognized the man instantly and begged her father to let him skip the line. As Kathy told the SF Standard, her dad refused without budging, which is its own kind of immigrant-parent comedy. “Not only do they not give an inch, but they can embarrass you, all within five minutes,” she said. View this post on Instagram The embarrassment was just getting started. Peter, who didn’t watch many movies, walked over, took one look at the famous-seeming customer, and reached for the only relevant name filed in his head. “Kathy, come take a picture!” he called out. “It’s him! It’s Sean Connery!” It was not Sean Connery. It was Keanu Reeves. Mortified, Kathy apologized on her father’s behalf. Reeves, by every account the most gracious man in show business, took it perfectly. As the SF Standard reported, he thanked Peter and said he was deeply honored to be mistaken for an actor as talented as Sean Connery. Before he left, Kathy grabbed a disposable camera and snapped a photo with him. It went up by the front window and stayed there for decades. “Keanu Reeves was such a gentleman,” Kathy recalled. “You know how everybody talks about him being the nicest person in the industry.” Coming around again Here’s where it loops back on itself in a way no one could have scripted. In February 2020, Reeves came back to San Francisco to film The Matrix Resurrections. House of Nanking, the very restaurant where Neo, decades earlier in the first film, had famously praised the “really good noodles,” was chosen as a location. Kathy was now 36 weeks pregnant and fighting to keep the family business alive in the first brutal months of the pandemic. A producer reached out about a secret project, NDAs got signed, and only then did the Fangs learn their corner restaurant was going into The Matrix. Sweet surprises When the movie came out, fans spotted the Easter egg: as Neo slurps noodles on screen, the old photo of a younger Keanu hangs on the wall behind him, the same snapshot from the disposable camera. Per Kathy’s account by way of GamesRadar, the crew were longtime regulars, and they surprised her by making a cleaner, better copy of the photo so it could keep hanging by the window for years to come. The really fun part, though, is the baby. Kathy and her husband, Caleb Sima, had a name picked out for their son: Hawk. But Sima, as it happens, is a former hacker, the real kind, which makes him spiritual kin to a certain fictional hacker named Neo. Right around the filming, Sima floated the obvious idea. They were going to have to change the kid’s name. Their son is Neo now. The whole saga eventually became part of a House of Nanking cookbook, more than 100 recipes including the yang chun noodle soup that inspired Neo’s onscreen bowl. This particular recipes is built around Kathy’s relationship with her parents, Peter and Lily, who at 75 and 76 still work the restaurant every single day. It is, somehow, a true story: a father’s stubborn fairness, a celebrity misidentification worthy of a sitcom, and a movie star humble enough to wait for a table and gracious enough to come back two decades later and turn the whole thing into cinema. The post A chef made Keanu Reeves wait in line, then called him Sean Connery. He came back 23 years later. appeared first on Upworthy.

It’s been a very big year for Anne Hathaway. She starred in the long-awaited Devil Wears Prada 2, became People Magazine’s World’s Most Beautiful Cover Star, and now she’s having a baby. The mom of sons Johnathan, 10, and Jack, 6, shared the big news on Instagram on June 19, 2026. Anne Hathaway and husband, Adam Shulman, are pregnant with baby #3. She posted a sweet video caption, “x Baby, I’m yours x,” with music by Barbara Lewis playing in the background. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Anne Hathaway (@annehathaway) Anne Hathaway is the Most Beautiful Pregnant Woman The 43-year-old walked into the frame smiling the biggest smile and hugging her growing bump. It’s very clear Anne Hathaway feels so excited to be pregnant and ready to hold the baby in her arms. Fans went absolutely gaga over the baby news and congratulated Anne and Adam immediately. “Omgggggg , whatttt , whennn , howwww , whereeeee , with whoooo lol , congrats beautiful mom,” a message of congratulations reads. This person can’t get over how stunning Anne looked. “She’s truly a vampire like she never ages and it’s literally her third child,” a fan wrote. Others think this baby will be the luckiest child alive. “The Kid Gonna Be So Blessed To Be The Child Of The Most Elegant and Courageous Woman on Earth,” a fan wrote. This person loves seeing Anne Hathaway pregnant and hopes she enjoys every minute. “After working so hard for the next 10 years only in this year, I think this is the perfect time for you to take some time off and enjoy every single moment of your pregnancy and your baby’s first milestones. You truly deserve it! Congratulations on this amazing and wonderful news,” they wrote. This story’s featured image is by XNY/Star Max/GC Images