My Story

Michael Hicks

2/02/10

Charlie’s Wish

One early fall morning, Charlie was playing with his bowl of cereal. His dad was in a big hurry because they were going to be late. He yelled at Charlie, “Hurry up, you’re going to be late!” Charlie just sat there in his chair, continuing to play with his Alphabet Cereal. All of the sudden, the frantic father noticed that it was snowing heavily outside and the radio that he had on in the background announced that school was cancelled. This was a pretty odd occurrence considering it was only October, but the dad didn’t pay much attention, he only sat down by his son and let out a sigh of relief that they weren’t late.

As he looked over at Charlie’s bowl of cereal, he noticed something very odd. Charlie had spelled the word snow with his cereal. The dad said, “Did you spell snow, Charlie?” The boy nodded and continued to play with his cereal. Charlie’s dad looked over at him and asked, “If you could do anything in the world on your snow day, what would it be?” Charlie tilted his head in thought for a moment and then spelled out, “VACATION”. All of the sudden they were both sitting at a table on a cruise liner, but Charlie continued to play with his cereal, almost seeming uncaring to what was happening around him. Charlie’s dad exclaimed, “This is incredible!” but Charlie didn’t notice. Charlie then spelled out “MONEY”. In the middle of the table a large pile of cash appeared out of nowhere. Once again, the dad was very excited, but Charlie continued. Charlie then spelled out “CAR” and a new Ferrari was parked right next to their table on the cruise ship. This continued for a while but finally the father couldn’t take it anymore.

“What is wrong with you Charlie? You’ve made all of these beautiful things appear out of thin air but you seem to not even notice them. Aren’t you excited?”

Charlie responded with a shrug of his shoulders and continued to play with his bowl of cereal. Now his father was a bit annoyed and wanted to find out what was wrong with his boy. “Charlie, if none of this makes you happy, what is it that you really want?”

Charlie continued to play with his cereal, this time with a tear rolling down his cheek. He spelled out the word “MOM”.

Charlie’s dad hugged him and apologized for her leaving and told him that everything was going to be all right. Charlie smiled for the first time in a week.