Do you have any wishes? I do. I wish that cheesecake was health food. I wish that running late counted as exercise. Now that I’m older, I wish wrinkles were all the rage.

Here are things children have wished for:

Shelly said, “My one wish is for it to rain Mexican food.” That would give people something to taco about.

Jared said, “When I grow up, I want to be a dog.” Ah, Jared, I hope you always have a woofover your head.

A teacher asked her kindergarten class what they wished to be when they grew up. The girls said things like Cinderella and Dora the Explorer. All the boys said they wanted to be Batman. Well, as long as they’re not Robin anyone.

Garret wrote, “If I had one wish, I would wish for all the pizza in the world except veggie pizza and anchovy pizza. And if I had two wishes, I would have a million dollars. And if I had three wishes, I would have some dinosaurs that wouldn’t wreck the world.”

Laila left this note for the tooth fairy: “Dear tooth fairy. I love money and all, but may I please have a pack of bacon instead?”

Ah, kids.

When I think of wishes these days, I think of my grandkids.  PHIL CALLAWAY

Record Holder

Some of the most heartwarming stories come from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, where terminally ill kids are granted one wish. For some, that means meeting their favourite celebrity or dinner with their favourite athlete.

One little girl wanted nothing more than to tour a pickle factory.

One of the most famous Make-A-Wish stories began when a nine-year-old English boy, Craig Shergold, was diagnosed with brain cancer. Rather than asking to meet his heroes or tour a pickle factory, he wanted mail. Shergold’s friends and relatives began a letter-writing campaign requesting that greeting cards be sent to him with the goal of beating the Guinness World Record for number of cards received.

Celebrities and kind-hearted people around the globe complied. Truckloads arrived each day with millions upon millions of cards. Britain’s Royal Mail even gave the Shergolds the equivalent of their own postal code and tried to get the word out. “Craig is OK. Stop sending mail. Seriously, it’s getting hard to breathe over here.” But the letters kept coming. Eventually, the family had to move.

Craig passed away in 2020 at the age of 40, after an operation paid for by a billionaire wellwisher that helped prolong his life. His Guinness World Record of 350 million get-well cards still stands.

A Grandfather’s Prayer

When I think of wishes these days, I think of my grandkids. Here are a few of my wishes for them:

That they’ll keep digging in the dirt and reading books. That they’ll stay off social media for about a hundred years. I hope they make their beds every day and mow the lawn. I hope the girls continue to be kind and tender and stubborn over the right things. I hope the boys get a black eye fighting for something they believe in. I hope they experience homemade ice cream and a homemade slingshot. And if a friend offers them drugs, they’ll know he’s no friend.

I guess my wish is really a prayer. How do you improve on Philippians 1:9-10? “I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return” (New Living Translation).

And, if you’re ever ungrateful, I hope you think of Jared and give thanks that you have a woof over your head.

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