Stealing Wishes

          What happens to wishes once they’re wished?  Once the die is cast.  Or the candles blown out.  Where do the wishes go?  And if those wishes are really prayers, are they any less of a wish?  Or more of one?  Is it really possible to steal someone else’s wish?  Really?

            I was walking around a lake not far from home with our daughter Anna, now 14.  Recent rain showers had made the air through the woods steamy and moist, and made the trail muddy and soggy in places.  We visited as we walked.  Joking, mostly.  Enjoying spending some time together, just the two of us.  Which in itself is rare.

            We visited about numerous things.  Sharing remembrances of earlier walks on this, and other, trails.

            “Remember the time we saw a bear cub up in that tree?” she asked.

            I said I did, and we laughed about how we’d had to get a ride back to our car.  Because we couldn’t find where the mama was.

            We rounded a corner in the trail, and Anna said to me cheerfully, “Okay, Mama, let’s get some money!”

            “Mama” is not a name we’ve used with the kids.  I’ve always been Mom.  Except when they were really young.  And now. Now I’m “Mama” when they’re being funny, teasing me, or just feeling particularly light-hearted.

            “What do you have in mind,” I asked.

            “Come on, right up here,” she laughed, jogging up the trail.

            Ahead was a small footbridge over an even smaller stream, which was nothing more than seasonal run-off from the mountains up ahead.  And at the bottom of the stream, nestled in among grasses, twigs and mud, is change. There’s been nothing there over the years to designate it as a wishing well.  Nothing more than one person, one time, tossing a coin into the water and probably uttering a wish.  Over the years others did the same as they passed.

            “So what’s your plan?” I asked, slightly hesitant.

            She was already standing in the grasses off to the side of the trail, pulling off her shoes and socks.

            “I’m going in.  You stand on the bridge and tell me where to go. ‘Cause once I’m in there, it’s really hard to see.”

            “You’ve done this before?” I questioned.

            She looked up at me and smiled that smile.  The one that tells you that you are at imminent risk of losing any sense of control. That though she’s smaller than you, younger than you, and less experienced, the only reason you’re in charge is that she has so chosen it.  Big blue eyes laughing from underneath damp and dangling bangs. Braces flashing as she chuckles.

            I sighed, knowing that smile.  Fighting being swept away by its current.

            “When and with whom?” I pursued.

            “Me and Sara did this last summer.  We got a bunch of change.  It was really fun.  Come on, Mama.”

            I resigned myself.  Okay.

            “Here, hold my socks. I’m wearing my shoes in though, because I don’t want to step on anything.”

            I nodded.  Then, standing on the small footbridge, I glanced in both directions and gave the go-ahead, as she stepped into the water.

            “Brrrr, that’s cold,” she remarked.  She bent to pick up a dime, before proceeding a second step.

            I started pointing out where other coins lay, half hidden in the silt at the bottom of the creek. And every few seconds I glanced both directions down the trail to make sure no one was coming.

            Anna proved to be very good at uncovering coins in a creek bed.  And very thorough.

            “Don’t you think we oughtta leave a few?” I asked.

            She looked up at me from her position in knee-high, ice cold water, and smiled again.  Surely, I was joking.

            I shrugged.

            Twice during our mission, I called “car”, and she quickly jumped to the grass on the side of the creek. Just in time to look nonchalant before cars rolled by us slowly, admiring the beauty of the lake behind us.

            “Okay, there’s something silver over there.  Looks like a dime, maybe,” I said, pointing off to her left just another step or so.

            “Got it,” she answered, following my directions.  “Oh! It’s a quarter!”

             “Must’ve been a big wish.”

            She paused to smile up at me.  That smile again.  The same one we used to get when we’d catch her cutting her bangs, or find her under the table at coffee hour after church with 30 Oreos mounded around her and chocolate all over her face.

            I smiled back. Then quickly gave directions to a few more coins hiding in the murky bottom of the stream.

            And as quickly as she’d stepped into the creek, she was climbing back out, sweatshirt pocket hanging low, full of wet and dirty coins.  In a minute, we were back on the trail, finishing our walk, eager to count our loot.

            “So,” I asked, “what happens to all those wishes, do you suppose? You know, if someone steals the coin you wished with.”

            She turned to me and laughed.  “I don’t know.  But let’s see how much we got and then go buy some ice cream!”

            “Okay!” I answered, almost as eagerly.

            “Actually Mama,” she added, “I think the wishes have a better chance of being answered if someone else takes that wishing coin and uses it for something great like ice cream.”

            I chuckled.

            We ended up with just under two dollars in change, and quickly spent it on a couple of ice cream bars, supplemented with change from the car.

            And on the drive home, as I enjoyed my ice cream bar, I thought again about wishes.  What happens to wishes after they’re wished? Particularly if someone else steals the item that was wished upon.  And what were those wishes, anyway?  Because if any of them were parents’ wishes for their children, for special moments shared with them before they are grown and gone, I know what happened to that wish. It came true.