The Wish

By: Laura S., Big Sister, University of Pennsylvania, Class of 2008

When most people think about a mentoring program, they think that an older person is teaching and helping a younger person. The older person becomes a role model for the younger person; the older person uses their life experience to help the younger person work through whatever problems they are confronting; and the younger person learns from the good example set by the older person. The benefits of such a relationship are undeniable for the younger person, but rarely do people realize that the younger person can also teach, guide, and mentor the older person. I found this to be true last week, when I visited with my Little sister, Brianna.

I hadn’t seen Brianna in two weeks, due to our Thanksgiving breaks, so I was eager to catch up with her. I asked her about her Thanksgiving, and she told me that she got the wish bone. She proceeded to say how she and her grandma got to make a wish and snap the bone in half. I then asked Brianna if her wish had come true yet, and she said no. “Will it ever come true?” I said. Brianna replied, “Unfortunately, I don’t think it ever can.” I didn’t want to press the issue, because the rule is that a wish can’t come true if the person tells someone else what their wish was, but then Brianna kept talking. “I wished that my Grandma’s age, which is 83, could switch around to be 38, so she wouldn’t have to leave me.” As soon as those words came out of her mouth, my heart just melted. Brianna continued. “I think my Grandma wished to be rich. Yeah, I was going to wish to be rich, but then I realized that I could always wish for that next year, and that this is more important right now.”

I could not believe that a ten year old could be so deep. Brianna has her priorities in order, more so than people two and three times her age. She really knows what is important in life, and it was so refreshing to be reminded about what truly matters. I can honestly say that last week I felt like the little girl learning something from her big sister.