Blessed

 

Jacob Hansen and his family live in Eagle Mountain, Utah. When Jacob was born, he was born two months early was born with cystic fibrosis (due to heredity) and also has cerebral palsy which came about when he was in the NICU and got spinal meningitis. Jacob has an older brother named Brendan who is two years older than he is and is his best friend. 

Brendan does a lot for Jacob but it’s all out of love for his brother. Whether it’s helping him play a card game, taking him to the bus stop in the morning or saving every last recess at school just for Jacob so the two of them can play four square with some other kids. Brendan truly loves his younger brother and does all these things for and with Jacob not because he has to, but because he wants to. 

The Make-A-Wish foundation partnered with the Utah Grizzlies hockey team to help make Jacob’s wish come true. His wish was to meet and play on the ice with the Utah Grizzlies. So the Hansen family made the trip from Eagle Mountain to West Valley City to watch and hang out with the Grizzlies. Both of the boys had a great time hanging out with the players and getting some time on the ice and so you would think that this would be a perfect ending to a great story but there would be one extra caveat to the story. 

Although while they were there, Jacob received most of the attention, Jacob made sure that Brendan wasn’t far away. In Jacob’s own words “It’s my brother’s life-long dream to be on the ice” and when he was asked if it was his life-long dream to be on the ice he replied “no, I just wanted Brendan to feel happy so I volunteered.”

This day was never about his own wish or his own dream of what he wanted to do, but he used his one Make-A-Wish “wish” so that his older brother could have his. His wish was just to see his older brother and his best friend be happy.

Blessed is the person who sees the need, 

recognizes the responsibility, 

and actively becomes the answer…