I'm sorry to hear children wasn't something that happened for you, but I wouldn't give up on wanting to achieve something similar to what I described.
Family isn't always blood. There are plenty of youth out there who don't have a good male role model in their life and desperately need it.
I have a friend who's quite a bit older than me, and we met when I was working my way through college. We became such good friends, through thick and thin, we just consider each other brothers. He's invited to every family event, was the best man at my wedding, and my sons call him "uncle" and have no clue there's no blood relation. True family are the people who are there through it all and love you through the good and the bad. 🙂
I've not got much to add to this comment and agree with the gist of it. I think I'm a pretty good uncle although I'm a long way from my nice and nephew so it's difficult to do as much as I'd like to - I think I'm a good influence on them though. I also do a lot of mentoring, training around various things like firearms and outdoor skills and also have a thing going that I, and a few others, started around support for those with PTS. The link below will explain a little.
https://peakd.com/hive-160243/@galenkp/the-group-thingin-the-mountains
I'm sure you're a great uncle, and that's awesome to hear about the mentoring. I've got your article saved so I can read it later tonight. 🙂
!BBH
Ah ok, thanks...let me know what you think if you manage to read it.