I just can’t imagine being 25 and having multiple experiences of speaking to or visiting young people and children at their request as their dying wish. The weight and the privilege of that. To be faced with the almost unthinkable courage of those children and their loved ones in such painful circumstances, and to know that a few words sung or spoken by you will bring comfort and joy….The responsibility must have impact in a way that permanently alters you as a person. It’s not an experience anyone could prepare you for, and for famous people who encounter this when they’re very young themselves….well, I can’t even imagine the impact on them.
As someone who used to work at Make a Wish a few years back, I just wanted to add a couple things…
I’m not sure many people know that in 2013, having only been a band for three years, One Direction broke the record for meeting with the most Wish kids of any other celebrity/group act. I don’t know if they still hold that record, but in 2013, when they were ages 19-21, they had met more children with life-threatening illnesses than anyone else on the planet, and that doesn’t even include the children they met through Believe in Magic or Rays of Sunshine or those like Emma who they met outside of any organization.
It’s a common misconception that Wish kids are all terminally ill; to be eligible for a Wish, their condition must be considered life-threatening, but not necessarily terminal. Still, it is a mathematical certainty that many, many of the children that the boys have met over the years are no longer with us.
We talked a lot in the office about how different wishes went, especially with various celebrities. There are some who have had the nerve to stand these kids up, to decide at the last minute to change their schedules, or treat them otherwise rudely and poorly. Others will shower the kids with swag bags, tickets, backstage passes, shopping sprees, anything and everything they can give–but they won’t meet with them. Because they just… can’t. And I really don’t hold that against them. It is *such* an enormous weight and responsibility to take on and live with and the boys have all willingly taken it on time and time and time again, and I truly don’t think the power of that can ever be overestimated and I cannot commend them highly enough for it.
