When you wish...

My mother called me yesterday. I was desperately trying to pick goat meat out from a deep crevasse between my teeth, when the phone rang. The arduous task of finding something that could substitute as floss was mentally consuming me. I was running amok, looking. Would my bracelet work or the edge of this business card I plan to never use? Maybe this iPod cord? My search was halted when I answered the phone. I brushed my mother off and asked that she call me later. I need ten more minutes to complete my mission against this piece of unrelenting, un-budging meat.

My mother agreed to call back, “That’s fine. I just wanted to say, really quickly, that I sent an email to Anderson Cooper and Ellen Degeneres about your blog and what you are doing…” I giggled. I would be lucky if an intern of those shows read the first five words of that email. Let’s just say if an intern did happen to read it and did hand it over to an assistant’s assistant of an assistant producer’s hairdresser. Um…that hairdresser would thank the intern kindly and use my mother’s printed email as Kleenex or origami paper and would fold it into the cute kangaroo shape. That is, if I am lucky. However, the thought of my mother taking time to send those emails warmed me. She’s cute. My mom finished her sentence hurriedly, “…and also…your granddad had a stroke and is in the hospital.”

…

I stopped and didn’t move a muscle, listening to the other end, frozen. There is nothing that socks me in the chest and yanks at my heart faster than listening to my mother’s voice begin to quiver over the phone. Hearing her stifled pain completely unzips me.

…

Now, that I have taken my moment, I am going to skip the emotional part. I should probably keep that to myself. I only mentioned it because when I got off the phone with her I got to thinking of my grandfather, my family, and the amazing places they have been in their lives. The memories collected and cherished. Their travels and experiences not only safeguarded in hundreds of overly stuffed photo albums, ones that I would finger through for hours as a child, but kept alive through reminiscences around dinner tables and Christmas trees. I too, am gathering my own life’s lessons and wonderful experiences here in Uganda. They will be my most treasured, always. Before I actually physically start to turn into Dr.Phil, or worse I explode into a million little emoticon fireworks, I just want to emphasize that I know I am a truly lucky girl.

I hope that the children I have met here should be as blessed as I have been. The other day a little girl took off my watch and she stared at it in amazement, when I showed her it had the indiglow feature she lit up more than my watch ever could. My watch somehow disappeared with her and now I wake up thinking it is 2pm when it’s actually 7am. However this is alright, because the kids here have nothing to play with. I see children cut the plastic water containers in half and use it as a make-shift sled. You should see how they play with a tire for hours.

So, I guess all of this leads me to the unveiling of my two to three year plan. Drum roll, please. I would like to give some special children of Uganda the time of their lives, if only for a week or two. I want to take them on a trip, and nowhere else in the world brings children more joy and happiness than Disney World. Now, could my friends in the age bracket of 20-30 that are reading refrain from shouting anything cynical at the computer screen. Shut up and think back when you were a kid. Remember a wonderful place you loved that had so much magic, even if for a limited time. And don’t say the library because 1) you are lying and 2) They don’t have those in Uganda either, so there.

Now, I will continue to network and fundraise for all organizations I have worked with, but this is just my large pet project. I think Julia Roberts sappily said it best in Steel Magnolias in that heart wrenching scene with Sally Fields, “ I would rather have thirty minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.” The children chosen would be from an organization called Radiant Love Caring Mission in Busia. All are orphans living with HIV/AIDS, most terminally ill, and they are in desperate need of a little magic.

I could focus all my efforts on spreading the wealth over an entire village. Why not spend that money on food, shelter, or medicine? Like I said, I will continue to fundraise for those programs. But I have a different aim with this project- Joy. Covering the necessities is important to me, but so is bringing the children joy. Even if given shelter, these kids will still be spending their time playing with tires and raising other kids. I want to allow them a break from that stress and let them be children for a little while, even if for two weeks. Now, this will take a lot of planning. I would have to arrange health clearances for travel and RNs to come along. I would need to get sponsors for the kids. What better way to sponsor a child than coming to Orlando and being a mentor to them? Someone could actually meet their sponsored child and establish a big brother/big sister relationship. I need to work on weaseling Disney into donating pretty much everything. Ahhhh…but that is why I have given myself two to three years to pull it off. I am going to do it. You can call me crazy, but do so and then step aside.


***To all those that might read this would you keep my granddad in your prayers (including you, Anderson Cooper and Ellen Degeneres) his name is Bob Cook, my Papaw. Thank you.

UPDATE: Not that anyone is going to read this. But I realize taking a bunch of kids to Disney World is kinda silly, and there are other ways I can bring the children happiness. Plus, after researching on how to get visas for these kids I realize that I would ACTUALLY have to be Angelina Jolie. I am looking into changing my name so maybe I can fool the system.