A Wish for Ashley

I never was an athlete.  Ballet dancer, yes, but stick-wielding, goal-tending, mouth-guard sporting sports player, I was not.  I don’t like to run, I shy away from competition and very few things seem worth moving so fast for that you must shove a piece of plastic in your mouth just in case you run into something.  However, if you showed the holiday shoppers at the Target in Methuen my picture, they might tell you another story.  About a girl who shows up each Christmas season, sprints up and down aisles, rams people (unintentionally) with shopping carts and strategically stalks children around the store to pull them aside and ask, well, what would you want for Christmas?   This side of my character didn’t emerge until the year 2000; but once it was uncovered, it was hard to keep in check.

December 18, 2000 was off to a rather ordinary start.  My mom took my siblings and I out to the Burlington Mall for us to buy presents for our friends.  She complained about the crowds, my sisters and I fought over which stores to go into, and my little brother- only 10 years old at the time- shuffled his feet and hung his head, wondering when the consumer torture would end.   Our frazzled expedition ended at Legal Seafoods, our family’s go-to restaurant.  We were regulars, but waiters always approached us with trepidation.  We were that party of five.  You know, those people who have 1,001 real and imagined food allergies, who are known to order dishes, only to ask for it without 70% of the fixings and with a bunch more added that we would make up.  Now, before you judge, we’re not trying to be difficult.  My oldest sister really truly is allergic to basically everything (seriously, she has business cards she brings to restaurants to pass to the chef: they have an ambulance on it and a list of everything that will instantly kill her) and I really truly think that any food more complicated than plain chicken is akin to cruel and usual punishment.  So when Dave, our waiter, took our order, we apologetically rewrote his menu and he respectfully hid his irritation. 

Twenty minutes later, Dave brought out our food.  And everything was wrong.  My chicken had Cajun spices.  My sister’s cod was sprinkled with nuts (aka poison).  My mom’s side sat on my brother’s plate, and my other sister’s meal didn’t show up at all.  We waited until Dave walked by and got his attention.  We politely- and apologetically- informed him that the order was wrong and he couldn’t hide his embarrassment and remorse.  He scrambled to fix it and seemed so despondent.  So when he finally delivered the bill, my mom just had to ask. “Is everything ok? You seemed a little bit…distracted all night.”  Dave looked sheepish.  “I’m sorry, I promised my wife I would pick up an Easy Bake Oven and I spent my break trying to find one, but the stores here were sold out, and I can’t make it over to the Toys R’ Us before it closes.”  My mom- a veteran of the Cabbage Patch and Power Ranger era- sympathized.  We left the restaurant, got in the car, and my mom turned around: “girls, we gotta go get that Easy Bake Oven.”

We picked up the Easy Bake Oven, grabbed a couple of Toys R’ Us gift cards, and returned to the restaurant.  We asked the manager to take the shopping bag and give it to Dave, and she asked us why.  We filled her in on what he told us and what we did, and she started to cry. “You have no idea,” she said. “He has three kids, and then his sister passed away of cancer three weeks ago so he just inherited three more.  He’s the nicest guy, and he’s killing himself trying to give the kids any kind of a Christmas right now.”  We wordlessly left the bag in her hands and went home.

But we couldn’t let it go.  You see, in our house, Christmas was always the holiday.  My mom is the kind of person who wants to give her kids everything she didn’t have growing up, so a Christmas full of games and magic was her signature.  Even when money was tight, she put aside dollars all year long in anticipation of the holiday.  As a result, we were not surprised that upon learning that three kids had just lost their mother, and six kids were facing a sad Christmas holiday, my mom immediately decided to act.  The next day she called the manager and asked for the names, ages, sexes and interests of Dave’s children.  And then we went to Target.  My mom handed me a handful of cash, and a slip of paper that said, girl, 9, likes fashion design, and told me to have at it.  I ran. I rammed. I approached girls who appeared to be around nine and asked them what things they wanted.  And four hours later, my nine-year-old girl had two carts full of gifts and I had 20 cents leftover.  My siblings, each assigned a member or two of the family to shop for, similarly trudged to the check out- cash in hand- exhausted.  And on December 24, 2000 we showed up at Legal Seafoods and told a shocked Dave that he might need a second car to get home that night.

That was the beginning of my family’s only holiday tradition.  Every year thereafter we would ask around for families in need- be it financial need or the emotional need to know that someone cares- and ask for donations from family and friends to give them a Christmas holiday they would not soon forget.  The families we chose never knew our names or why we were doing it.  We would just show up on the 24th, unload tons of wrapped and tagged gifts, say ‘Merry Christmas’ and be on our way.  Dave’s family was the only one who knew who we were.  They got presents for the first four years, and then graciously told us they were finally on their feet, and assured us they were healing and we should move onto others who were still hurting.  So each year our family would end up at Target. With cash, slips of paper (I graduated to shopping for upwards of 10 kids at a time) and the same competitive resolve to find the best gifts for the kids on our lists whom we only knew by their short descriptors. It came to be the thing I looked forward to the most each holiday.  It came to be a thing that united my mom’s work community, as her clients always overwhelmed us with their generosity and their willingness to join us spending hours wrapping, tagging and delivering.  That’s what the holidays are about.  So even though my aggressive alter-ego would emerge, I justified, hey. It’s for a good cause.

Last year we put our holiday sharing program on hold.  We were in the trenches of A Wish for Ashley, sorting through thousands of leads and trying to manage hundreds of people on search teams.  My whole family was exhausted. So we agreed- sadly- to skip our holiday tradition that year.  It was January 26, 2010 that our search came to an end.  And it was this past Saturday that we visited Ashley, told her the story of the holiday sharing tradition, and heard her say ‘I think we should bring it back. And make it bigger.  Because I want to thank the people who helped you guys find me, and I want people to feel what I did when they find out that strangers care.’ 

So here we are.  Ready to put on our running shoes, ambush Target and question random children.  But this year, we are starting all over again.  We need to find families to surprise.  Last night I sat down with a reporter at The Eagle Tribune (the first paper to cover our A Wish for Ashley search last year) and updated him on what happened since that first story, what it has been like getting to know Ashley all over again, and what Ashley wished for last weekend.  The story is being published today, and I hope that Tribune readers will send us the stories of some families who need to be reminded that people care.  I’m jittery, I’m excited.  I’m still finding it hard to believe that when we hit up Target this year- Ashley will be wielding carts with us!!!  The project may be little, but when your family has been through what we all have, those little memories we will make together are big.  So I gotta say, my alter ego is coming out.  A Wish for Ashley-ers, send us leads, volunteer to wrap or deliver gifts or contact us if you want to pick up and donate a gift or two.  Team: GAME ON.

With love (and a wee bit of adrenaline),
Audra
 

What Happens After Your Greatest Wish is Granted?

First you sleep.
Then you think nah, it didn’t happen.
Then you see your wish granted. In the flesh.
Then you wonder, how did I get so lucky?

And then, eight months later, you decide to help someone grant another one.

A Wish for Ashley is BACK!

A Wish for Ashley-ers it has been quite the year.  You know, it is not everyday that you find your long-lost cousin (YAY! YOU GUYS ROCK!), drive to Connecticut to meet her (I mean, I shouldn’t be on the road as it is), discover she is still the same girl you remember (plus a foot and half and a dash more sass), meet her beautiful son (who becomes your mild new obsession) and set about making up for 14 years of lost time (late night chats and dancing adventures and manicures, o’my!).  I can’t say life has gone back to normal because, well, normal was never my strong suit.  I can say my life has become more complete because, well, Ashley was always suppose to be a part of it. 

There’s no Happily Ever After.  Even having my greatest wish granted has not turned me into an idealist.  But for now, I’m just thrilled that there’s an After. And our family is making the most of it.  We’re still getting to know Ashley and she’s still getting to know us.  She marvels at our collective insanity… and then opens her mouth and demonstrates that the verbal vomit is genetic.   We observe her tendency to be on her feet, active at most times and then turn our eyes to the kitchen and see my mother, Ashley’s virtual clone, similarly demonstrating that she needs to be strapped down.  We’re all still learning, but I will say we’re all laughing.  ‘Cause when you find yourself living out the plot of a Lifetime television movie, is there anything else left to do?

Apparently yes.  Because Ashley made a wish.  And, call me a sucker, but I just can’t say no.  Ashley and I talked a lot this summer, during her first visit to my mom’s house, about how crazy it all was, being separated by circumstance and reunited due to the hope, love and support of strangers.  It’s humbling to think about.  It’s powerful to process.  We talked, and she shared how special she felt when she learned about all of you A Wish for Ashley-ers, people whom she never knew existed, and how she wished to share that same feeling with others… 

Well, folks.  It’s the holidays.  And this Christmas, our family is going to work on granting Ashley’s wish.  We want to find families in the Merrimack Valley (MA) who need to know that people care.  We want to pass on the love and support that our family experienced because we know firsthand how overwhelming and powerful those sentiments can be.   Send us information about children and families who would benefit from having a holiday wish granted, and we will coordinate the resources and donations to make it happen.  

A Wish for Ashley is now Ashley’s Wish for Others.  Email us!   Send your referrals to christmaswish@awishforashley.com and sign up to donate or volunteer as a gift shopper/wrapper/deliverer by taking up your Super Helper status once more: superhelpers@awishforashley.com. 

And yeah. The blog is back.  But I better have some guest bloggers. Cough. Ash. Cough. T. Cough. Kay. Cough. Beebs.  Wow, this cold is getting bad.

With love (and holiday cheer),

Audra