The Wish

SOMERSET, MICHIGAN
October 1973

I remember the wish. I remember the days of waiting for the chance to make that wish year after year. I knew it was wrong to wish for anything for yourself; wishes should be given to others, not wasted on you. But surely I thought, on my birthday, on that one single day of the year that was supposed to belong to me, surely I could wish for something for myself. Those candles, representing all the years of my life, surely I could wish upon my own life for something for me.

What I always wished for was this: to be loved. Not forever and ever, not for a year or a month or a day. Just once. Just once in the days to come until the next year, I wanted to feel certain that it was possible to be loved, and that I was. Just for one moment in the days to come. That was my birthday wish each year, the hope that kept on burning in me, the small flickering light of possibility.

I remember the moment this happened although I don’t remember my age. I was ten or eleven, maybe even nine. I was older than my little brother who didn’t know the candles were not for him. He was old enough to be able to blow them all out, young enough to do it without thinking, before I had a chance for my wish. He blew them out, and I laughed outside and felt blown out inside. I asked for them to be relit for my wish. You don’t need a wish, I was told. The cake would be cut and served; the candles were thrown away. And my wish, which could not even be made, would not come true that year.