Dreams

Webster's Dictionary defines the word "wish" as an object of desire. For the Make-A-Wish Foundation® a wish is a whole lot more. It's new bedroom furniture for a girl who has spent most of her young life confined to a bed. It's a trip to Japan for a girl who has never met her grandparents. It's sending a boy and his family to watch the space shuttle launch at Cape Kennedy. It's trips to Disney World or Disneyland, so the family can enjoy precious moments together and have a scrapbook full of memories. It's making a six-year-old boy a member of the Air National Guard and a fighter pilot! It's a computer adding a new dimension to a child's world. All these and more have been wishes granted to the special children of Hawaii.

But, beyond the gifts, there is the event of "wishing for something impossible and finding that it came true." We know that a child's first wish is to be healthy. We can't provide that, but often the magic of having a wish fulfilled has had a profound, positive impact on a child with a life-threatening illness.

One of the miracles of granting wishes is a new, special bond for a family under stress. Since the entire family is included in a wish, the memories can suspend the pain that touches each family member. To make a single wish come true takes a lot of time, commitment, luck and many donations, both of cash and of goods and services. The results are more than worth the effort: wonder and excitement in the eyes of a little girl on a shopping spree, endless smiles from a little boy meeting his favorite wrestler a grin, from a teenage boy who has his ears wired to the ultimate new sound or video system, words spoken by a child, once in too much pain to speak, upon returning from a visit with Mickey Mouse.