My travels in Melbourne brought me to the immigration museum, where I proposed to do some of the research for my next post, about the concept of Immigration – that other, permanent form of travel – in Australia. When I stepped within, however, and up the stairs to the first exhibit, I was greeted by a tree with red messages for leaves. This tree, apparently a copy of one in China, was titled simply “Wish Tree”. And so before my post on immigration, I wanted to share an experience that I had at the Wish Tree in Melbourne:
We all make wishes, though most are not made with a genie’s lamp. Rather, most of our wishes are cries for help, pleas to the abyss. We wish upon stars, or while throwing coins into wells (that old racket). Some thinly veil their wishes as “prayers”, that noun denoting the instances in which you are appealing directly to the creator of the cosmos for your inner want. They cover the gamut of human desires, from the most banal and superficial to the most profound and meaningful.
For the most part, I don’t advocate wishing, for several reasons. First, it is an insistence on one’s own impotence, and we are almost never really impotent. As Admiral Hyman Rickover said (and those of you who served with me are chuckling now): “admittedly, one man by himself cannot do the job. However, one man can make a difference.” It seems a better alternative, rather than to wish that something were some way, instead to strive to make it that way. Second, on a philosophical level, our wishes simply almost never make us happy. This is called dukkha in Buddhism, but even in our common wisdom we understand: “be careful what you wish for”. Still, despite these reservations on our entreaties to the aether, my rational, pontificating mind was struck dumb at this tree, this amalgamation of appeals; this photomontage of petitions in many languages (I counted ten, but surely there were more).
At first, I was simply amused, seeing a few short wishes that clearly originated in the mind of youth: wishing for a PS4, say, a Samsung Galaxy, or “to be good at soccer” (hopefully in time to win the middle school championship). One can almost see the glee in the eyes of these children, rapturous at the opportunity to buttress their letters to Santa with pleas to this tree, instantly doubling their cosmic odds of obtaining their requested reward. These made me chuckle.
Then, as if the pages of a book were turning, building its story, the tree showed me more. I saw one young man wish that he would find a woman to be his partner. Another man wished that he might have a baby with his wife. Several wished to become Australian citizens, a fitting wish in this immigration museum. One wish was bitter, chastising that “multiculturalism means acceptance, not racism”; not really even a wish at all, just a spewing of left-wing frustration that didn’t properly fit among the rest. Further into the wishes I went. A wish on behalf of a homeless man, that he might not be cold anymore, and be able to see his family’s faces again. A wish from a (presumably possessed of a home) child asking that each homeless person have a wish for themselves. Another cuter, but more well-thought out wish: “I wish that all my wishes would come true.” A sort-of meta-wish: a wish that wishes might be real. These were tender and caused my face to break into a warm smile.
Then, the hammer fell. Hidden among the top branches of the tree, not asking for attention, in a child’s innocent scrawl: “I wish I didn’t have to die from cancer.”
I don’t cry often. But as I imagined this young boy or girl (my imagination chose girl, for whatever reason) writing this, imagined her parents holding her, wishing they could shield her from the brutal facts of the world, I cried. In my mind’s eye I can see them: “Don’t say things like that – don’t give up,” her father implores her. “We’re going to fight through this together – no matter the odds.” her mother assures. “We won’t let you die.”
“I wish I didn’t have to…”, the anti-wish, is another common sentiment. It isn’t typically a serious statement. For instance, when we wish we didn’t have to wash the dishes, or get out of bed for work, we aren’t really appealing to the cosmos to change our ill fate. Well perhaps some of us are, but we’ll set aside those dramatists. For the most part, we wish it were otherwise, but since it is this way let’s be on with it. Thankfully (thank god, I might say, were I religious), the vast majority of us are spared from such wishes as this child’s. And yet, her choice of the phrase “I wish I didn’t have to…” suggests a sort of resignation that, for the parent’s at least, must be heart-rending. Thus, in my imagined scenario, their reassurances. To me, though, there is a nobility in the sentiment. She knows what’s coming, and is preparing herself for it, even though she wishes she didn’t have to.
We are all afraid of death. None of us know why. And we all seek to postpone its coming by as long as possible. It is, in many ways, the most mysterious journey of all, and one that we all must take, by definition, alone. It’s impossible to know what is beyond that great door (though I suspect: nothing), but the loss that we feel when someone embarks, when they board that boat at the river Styx, is something that nearly all of us know.
My condolences to the family of this sweet child.