MURRAY — The walls in Christine Sharer's office are covered with pictures of children.
One boy smiles next to Michael Jordan. In the frame next to him, a girl hugs a black Lab from her wheelchair. In another, a young girl walks hand-in-hand with Santa. Nearby, a girl with no hair poses in a high-end, black-and-white fashion photo.
None of them is Sharer's own child, but she remembers all of their names, ages and personality quirks.
She often forgets which life-threatening illness plagued or ended their young lives.
Sharer founded Utah's chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation shortly after moving to Utah 25 years ago. Since then, she's dedicated her life to offering hope, courage and a little bit of magic to children with life-threatening illnesses.
It began with a tiny group that gathered in Sharer's kitchen and used her home phone. Today, the chapter has grown to 11 full-time staffers and 280 volunteers, and it now operates from its own building in Murray, complete with a wishing room and stained glass stars left by each wishing child.
All together, they've granted 2,500 wishes to Utah kids suffering with everything from auto-immune disorders to brain tumors.
The prospect of a wish may seem trite, but for a child who's lived by the dictates of a disease, it's one of the most sincere human desires, Sharer said.
"There's something iconic about making a wish," she said. "It goes deep into the human psyche somehow. … Having a dream, making a wish, being afraid to say it out loud because it might not come true, wanting it to be real — there's something human to that."
The wishing process takes eight to 12 weeks, depending on the child's health and wish. After a child is referred to the foundation, a doctor must agree the child's illness is life-threatening and that he or she is healthy enough to have a wish granted. After that, the child receives an invitation in the mail to come make a wish — and a key to the wishing room.
They decide their wish and gather with their family in the wishing room — a serene, open space with color-changing walls and a fountain — to read and submit the wish.
Then the magic begins.
A child who wished to go to Disneyland might start getting postcards in the mail from Mickey Mouse saying how excited he is to meet them.
A child going through medical treatment might get a visit from the volunteers assigned to their wish, called wish granters, telling them that soon their wish will come true.
All the while, staff and volunteers are working feverishly to make one very sick child's wildest dream a reality.
"We like to think of ourselves as fairy godparents," Sharer said.
The fairy godparents have made some spectacular and seemingly impossible wishes come true.
Children have asked to be astronauts, bakers, soldiers and superheroes. They've traveled all across the U.S. and Europe and have received everything from a big-screen TV to a backyard secret garden.
Some wishes are simple. Many children want to go to Disneyland, or they want a puppy to play with because they're confined to their home.
Some wishes are more complicated. One little girl wished to meet all her siblings scattered across the U.S. Sharer said it was a miracle they found them all because most of them weren't listed in phone directories.
A teenage girl wished to go to the orphanage in India where she was born. It wasn't an orphanage anymore, but Sharer's team managed to find the building and get her there.
But whatever the wish, Christine McAtee, director of community outreach, said the success is in the child's smile. For one glorious day, no one asks them about the illness or gives them shots.
"Sometimes we forget how sick the children are," McAtee said. "We see these kids on the happiest days of their lives. Some of them don't look sick at all."
But Sharer and McAtee agree, the wish isn't really what matters.
"We give an outlet for people to express compassion, a vehicle for people to show love," Sharer said. "It gives people an opportunity in a concrete way to love their neighbor, whether they know them or don't, and walk with them. You can only make so many casseroles."
Karen Harris experienced that love firsthand April 26 during the send-off party for her 13-year-old son, Devin, before they left for the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tenn. Surrounded by family and friends, Harris was fine talking about her son's illness but got emotional about the wish-granting experience.
"It's an overwhelming feeling to have people want to do something for you," she said tearfully. "We could have taken him to Nashville … but they just take it to the next level."
One of Devin's wish granters, Vicky Amdal, said getting her daughter Lauren's wish granted 12 years ago still strengthens their family.
"It just gives a sense of hope and brings something indescribable to a child and a family," Amdal said. "Even though we still have hard times and still have treatments, it's fun to look back and remember. … The power of that wish gives a boost."
Lauren, who is still battling chronic lung disease, is a testament to the real power of a wish for a child.
"Before the wish, she had to be on oxygen all the time," Amdal said. "But while we were there, she didn't need it, and after the wish, she still didn't need it."
When Jodi Scott started granting wishes, she saw a little girl getting her wish fulfilled and wondered, "Would I have been her friend?" Now she takes her kids with her to wish grantings to make sure they're unfazed by children who need wheelchairs or oxygen tubes or those who have no hair because of medical treatments.
McAtee grew up singing in nursing homes and having dozens of teenage boys live with her family as foster kids.
"There's something ingrained in me that wants to do something for other people," she said. Behind her was an office wall covered in hand-drawn thank-you cards.
Sharer gave up tenure teaching at Loyola University's theater department in Chicago to move to Utah with her husband.
"I felt like an alien," she said. "I cried all the time."
Now, 25 years and 2,500 wishes later, Sharer is part of the loving community brought together through the power of a wish.
"Our national mission statement is that everyone everywhere will share in the power of a wish," Sharer said. "And as we grow, people are."
e-mail: ashaha@desnews.com