I’ve seen things during my time that there are no words for, and now, at the age of 54, when the amount of loss and trauma in my life is staggering and seems too heavy to bear, guess what makes it lighter? Guess what takes away the sting of betrayal, the stunning pain, the sad and heavy heart?
Serving children.
Anyone who knows me knows I love children, so when I became a Wish Fairy for the Make-A-Wish foundation a few years back, it was a perfect fit. Last week, in the midst of deep grief, I was able to meet a magical 10-year-old girl in her wheelchair and discuss her possible wishes, which were:
- A trip to Disney to live out her dream of eating at her favorite princess’s restaurant: Tiana
- A kitten
- A Room Makeover into pink with a Cinnamon Bun Theme (as in the Hello Kitty Bunny, not the pastry)
(What a coincidence! These are all my wishes too!)
If you know Make-A-Wish, you know they strive to grant “life-changing wishes to critically ill children.” As a Wish Fairy, when I’m assigned a child, I’m asked to send them (and all other children in the house) “icebreaker” gifts. I LOVE talking to the children, learning what they love, and then sending it to their home while we work on their wish. I also love the term “icebreaker” and imagine ice melting and warm water flowing with every word exchanged. Talking to this child acted as a balm for my aching heart and reminded me that nothing soothes the soul and heals the heart like service. Humility, compassion, care–throughout my life, my volunteer work has always been my form of “church’.
Holding a child with AIDS was my sacred work for more than ten years in Los Angeles. When I held them, sang to them, made “fairy feet” on their cheeks with soft fingers, I felt like I was touching the face of god, or grace, or whatever you want to call that boundless unconditional expansive love. Through my work, I found that surrounding a soul with love and care had the unknown side effect of surrounding my own soul with boundless love .
How tricky is that?
You would think it would be draining or depleting to go to a hospital or shelter to work with sick children but the secret is– it’s actually fulfilling beyond your wildest dreams to hold those children in your arms. Plus, it’s a weekly slap in the face that puts your own life into perspective really fast.
So when it seems my life is falling apart with loss and deep soul trauma, I know it is time to ramp up the compassion and service, and let the sacred moments work their magic.
As a teenager, some of my most memorable moments were my volunteer experiences working with the Special Olympics or delivering gifts to the state mental hospital children’s wing, where they let us play with the kids until two of them became violent and were removed from the room. My parents made sure service was woven into our every day lives in many ways.
When I turned eighteen, I wanted to be a movie star, a pirate, a princess, a lawyer, or a nun. I studied Mother Theresa and worked at the Food and Shelter Coalition in Provo and inquired about what it would take to join the Sisters of Calcutta. The scratchy underwear and no-hot-water thing made me turn elsewhere to fulfill my need to serve.
Back in those days, it wasn’t the click of a few buttons to find a way to serve. After I moved to Hollywood, I went to the United Way’s offices and walked up the dark dank stairway with the smell of mildew wafting through the air, and into an office where a small man in glasses thumbed through dog-eared index cards to find me a position. He sent me to Daybreak, a shelter for mentally ill homeless women, but when one of the volunteers had her hair lit on fire by a resident, and the place closed down, I went back to the office and told the man I wanted to work with children. He then called CBA.
CBA, Caring for Babies with AIDS, was a residential shelter in LA where I volunteered weekly for ten years. I did everything from reading stories to washing dishes to playing tag to rocking newborns to sleep. Some kids stayed there for years. Others were in and out in a couple of weeks. When I arrived, CBA had two little houses side by side with a yard between them. Disney animators had volunteered to come in and paint murals over the walls. We initially had children 0-6, but as protease inhibitors came out and the survival rate went up, our kids grew into teenagers. I created my own form of Creative Dance Therapy for the kids and was amazed by their transformation. When we re-enacted the Wizard of Oz, they LOVED pretending to be whirled around in a tornado and waking up in a magical land. Even the cynical teenagers joined in.
Of course there were children that were immobile or too sick to dance. For one eight-year-old who was blind and in his last days, I would go into his room, caress his head or hold his hand and sing softly to him. For another four-year-old girl I’ll call Raven, who had no mobility below her neck, I would prop her up with pillows and sing “Miss Polly had a Dolly” or “What if All the Raindrops were Lemon Drops and Gumdrops?” She would watch me with her big brown eyes and thick lashes, a smile growing into a laugh by the end.
Music and dance time were their time to be kids again–to forget about hospital visits and endless meds, drug addict parents and siblings who didn’t survive.
Raven was at the shelter for a few years, and on so many meds, that one day, her caregivers decided to take her off them. I showed up and no one was in the room with her. The staff made me wear a gown and a mask, and I went in to stand next to her crib, placing one hand over her heart, just like I’d seen Mother Theresa do in pictures. I wanted her to feel the vibrations of a human voice around her so I sang softly, all her favorite songs. She couldn’t see my face because of the mask, but she could see my eyes, and there was so much love in that room. She looked terrified, but seemed comforted a little bit by my presence and the songs… It was hard as hell to not fall on the floor sobbing, but I stayed with her as her lungs filled with fluid and she took her last breaths.
My mother cried when I told her about Raven. She shook her head and said, “I’m too sensitive. I could never do that job. How can you do it?” A better question for me is, “How can you not?” I went to too many funerals during those years with tiny caskets and balloons, and every time I thought, “This is too much, I need a break,” another child would show up like Gloria.
Gloria showed up with patches of missing hair and eyes that could barely open. She was 4, but couldn’t walk and when I held her it was like holding a feather. I circled my fingers around her tiny tiny wrist, and sang softly and to her. She vomited on my shoes, and as I gently cleaned her up, I knew I was not going to take a break.
That’s how I ended up there for ten years.
Over the last several years, while raising my own children, I have volunteered all over the place, with teenagers with cancer in the New Orleans hospital, (I still have Kung Fu Fighter ringing in my head all these years later after competing with the teens on a guitar–video game style–they always beat me.) I have volunteered at schools and museums and spent the last seven years at Horizons for Homeless Children and now, for Make A Wish.
Through it all, I’ve been endlessly inspired by another unknown side effect of service work–the other volunteers. There are armies of people out there quietly doing volunteer work, unsung heroes from every walk of life who show up and help, who raise their hand when someone says they need help. I love these people. I am inspired and amazed by these people.
And another thing I learned, that I have found so very very important as I go through my own staggering heartbreaks and loss: I learned to let go. The children showed up at CBA, and I didn’t know if I would be loving them for a few hours or a few years, or many many years. I had to be okay with that, just love them for this eternal moment, “a handprint on my heart” as the song says. I will love and love and love over and over, knowing it may only last a day, or an hour, or a hundred years, but I’ll still love just the same.
More tricks–the more I love, the more I am filled with love. How does that happen? I don’t know, it’s mystical, and I’m okay with the mystery.
I’ll just keep loving… and granting wishes.
“I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, than there is no more hurt, only more love.”
(Updated post from 2019)
