ith the job title Vice President of Wishes at Make-A-Wish Alaska and Washington, it is easy to think that I sit at my desk all day waving a magic wand and creating joy and happiness for children and families. Indeed, when you grant wishes to children with critical illnesses, there is a lot of that, but there is also the flip side of your work which involves challenge and hard conversations.
This past year, there have been a lot of difficult circumstances. It’s been one of the hardest years yet due to COVID-19. I have had to tell a lot of families that their wishes must be put on hold until wish travel resumes. I have heard a few too many stories about families who experienced job loss and braved frontline work in addition to all the challenges that come along with having a child with a critical illness.
What has astounded me over and over again is the resilience of wish kids and their families. These families have climbed up and over cliffs to endure cancer treatment, medical diagnoses, and choices that no family should ever have to make – with or without a global pandemic – and they have done it with dignity and grace.
Joy is empowering, and it takes a community to help make this joy a reality for families in need. As the Vice President of wishes, I see my role as cultivating joy through the wish-granting process and inviting the community to help be a part of the healing experiences that unfold.
Plus, the creativity and inclusion of donors, volunteers, medical professionals, community members and staff engaging in the creation of each and every wish creates a community that is much larger than a single family.
In a beautiful way, a wish is a tool that helps them to strengthen their resilience. It gives them an anchor in a storm, something to help calm the overwhelming feelings that go hand-in-hand with childhood illness. Wishes, and the community behind each experience, allows families to focus on what they can do instead of what they can’t do. It can give them the confidence boost they need to know that they can persevere and overcome obstacles.
Just as it does for wish children and their families, resilience can offer that same positive benefit in the workplace. It can center and ground leaders in decision making, bolstering their confidence and positioning them for greater success. Ultimately, people desire to work for calm and clear leaders who can work through challenges with clarity, purpose and resolve. Overcoming obstacles and coming out on the other side quiets the fear and insecurity that lead to overwhelm and unproductive behaviors behind the scenes. Resilience inspires confidence, and that leads to success.
In the spirit of learning and growing, I want to share with you what wish kids have taught me about resilience:
Photo courtesy of Susie Naye
Lesson #1: Find joy now
It’s easy to get caught up in long-term planning, fuss over little details and obsess with minutia. Time and again, wish families show me how to embrace each moment as it comes and focus on the big things that matter.
- Joy
- Connection with family
- Taking time to celebrate each good thing that happens, no matter how small
Take 8-year-old wish kid Owen, who was diagnosed with a brain tumor not long before the pandemic hit. When he first started thinking about a wish, he wanted to travel. As lockdowns prevented that from happening in the moment, Owen’s volunteers asked if there was anything that would bring him immediate joy.
He decided that what would bring him the most joy would be a basement room makeover. Instead of focusing on what he could not do, Owen was able to reimagine what joy would look like during this unprecedented time.
Lesson #2: Resiliency is contagious
Like many leaders, I appreciate a good to-do list and am task-oriented when it comes to my work. And yet what has kept me at Make-A-Wish for more than 20 years is the creative empowerment that wishes provide.
Offering a child with a critical illness the chance to make a wish gives them the chance to focus on replacing fear with confidence, sadness with joy, and anxiety with hope. This is an empowering, aspirational mindset worthy for all.
We recently granted a wish for an accessible backyard pathway. Liam uses a wheelchair to get around and requires help with nearly every aspect of his life, except for his smile. When Liam is outside with the sky overhead, he smiles… and smiles… and smiles. See Liam smile and experience the empowerment that his wish delivered for yourself at https://youtu.be/9KagImQJ_oQ.
His wish offers his family the chance to spend time together outdoors, something that was incredibly difficult before.
Lesson #3: Expect to change directions often and be generous with one another
For families of children with critical illnesses, change is a constant. Change of plans. Change of treatment. Change of schedule. Change of normal. During this unprecedented year of change, I think of the brave kids we serve and how, if they can endure dramatic change with courage and generosity, so can I.
That memory inspired Harry to use his wish to help others.
Months after his own experience, Harry wished to give care packages to teens staying inpatient at Seattle Children’s Hospital. He wished to create gift bags filled with carefully curated items to help teens feel more comfortable while undergoing chemotherapy in the hospital.
What did Harry put in the care packages? A quality comfortable pillow, a gift card to his favorite pizza place, and a Netflix subscription, among other items.
Harry’s resilience is unbelievable by itself; the fact that he used his heartfelt wish to give generously to other teens shows the tangible healing power that wishes can provide, not just to one family but to the greater community.
As vice president of wishes, I’m the lucky witness to superhuman resilience—the result of participating in joy and working with a caring community. I will never get tired of helping to create these experiences for the children and families we serve, and I value the lessons that each encounter represents as a leader.
