One night last week, my daughter Molly and I were on a mission as we walked up to a stranger’s door. We had pizza and breadsticks. And a wish to grant.
When Izabel and her family answered the knock on the door and I saw that 5-year-old’s precious little face, a long week of work and travel, cold weather and all the other distractions of a busy life melted away.
Izabel and her special wish box and wand. Izabel's mom, Holly, said Izabel played with it all weekend!
I told Izabel I was there to grant her a magical wish adventure. The payoff for me was a smile on Izabel’s face that few things can top!
You can say that all of us at the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Michigan grant wishes. But much of that work happens behind the scenes – kind of like that adage of knowing how the sausage is made. It’s not all glamorous, but in the end, it’s oh so wonderful.
Granting wishes is like that. The details handled by many go unseen — from seeking the crucial funding from Michigan donors to the complicated logistics of travel. Then, only a few get that true experience of seeing the wish child and family up close and waving the wand over the wish box to make the wish come true! And what you may not know is that volunteers, not staff, are the lucky ones to meet the families first – interviewing the family and talking with the wish child about what their one true wish might be.
Izabel waves her wand and makes her special wish with her family watching!
That’s why so many of our staffers go through the training to become wish granting volunteers – a joyous job we do after our “other” jobs are done for the day.
By the time Molly and I arrived at her home, Izabel, her two sisters and her mom and dad had already watched a DVD about wishes and what it means to come up with your one true wish. So Izabel had been thinking about her wish and “brainstorming” with her sisters.
But deciding wasn’t too hard for Izabel, who has had a recent heart transplant. As she proudly but shyly showed us the scar on her chest, she told us how much she loves princesses. She told us how she wants to go to Walt Disney World® Resort with her family and meet Jasmine! Her second wish choice? She’d love to meet Dora the Explorer.
So now the brainstorming is up to me and Molly and the Make-A-Wish wish manager who will be assigned to Izabel and her family. We’ll make sure that this experience for Izabel is carefree and magical. We will try to help her family enjoy a time very different from the day they learned that instead of the suspected cold or virus, their 5 year old was in congestive heart failure. We’ll try to make a distant memory, the two weeks when doctors tried to save Izabel’s heart. Or the waiting during the transplant.
Izabel and her family! Sister Kayla, dad, John, Izabel, Mom, Holly and sister, Shannon.
We’ll make sure the anticipation of Izabel’s wish is a time of joy for the whole family.
That’s the thing with wish granting – for families who are sometimes in the darkest of times anyone can imagine, for just a moment, they can escape and again see joy and wonder in their child’s eyes.
I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be the Tooth Fairy or a Fairy Godmother. And now I know.
Joy and wishes…
Laura, Director of Communications and Public Relations
