Whether the tree is large or small is in the eye of the beholder. For most of the dozen or so folks scattered around the patch of mulch where the red maple sapling is being stuffed into the ground, it looks small – skinny-armed and loosely-leafed.
But to 9-year-old Aria Momin, who has to lift her chin to see its tippy top above her head, it’s big.
In size, and in meaning.
This tree, which will someday rise 40 to 60 feet from the dirt Aria lovingly tucked it into Wednesday morning, is just the first of 1,000 that will be planted across the Houston area this month in her name. The 1,000 saplings will replace trees felled during Hurricane Beryl last year, fulfilling Aria’s biggest wish – the one she cast with the Texas Gulf Coast and Louisiana chapter of Make-A-Wish.
Aria makes quick work of planting the tree. That’s no easy task considering the gardening gloves she’s been issued dangle off the tips of her little fingers, and the blue-tipped shovel she’s handed fits her like a canoe paddle.
One down.
“Nine-hundred ninety-nine to go,” booms Shelly Millwee, president and CEO of the local Make-A-Wish chapter. There is laughter. Applause. A few tears. And on Aria’s face, a smile as wide as the brim on her blue bucket hat. This wish that started in a dark and scary place is beginning to come true. And by the end of this weekend, if enough Houstonians turn out, she will meet her goal to give away 1,000 trees.
Last summer, when Hurricane Beryl hit Houston, Aria saw the devastation firsthand. To hear her tell it, she was looking out the window at her home in Sugar Land when a tree cracked. She uses her hands to describe what happened, holding them up in a prayer position before dropping one to a right angle.
“The branch went WHAMP,” she says.
That happened all over Houston, knocking down power lines and littering the street with tree debris.
“The storm came and it caused the trees to fall,” explains Aria, a shy girl who relies on her actions to speak louder than her words. “That made me sad, so I decided to replace those trees by planting 1,000 more.”
That wish sounded big when she first made it. And she wavered a bit. Would it even be possible to find 1,000 trees to give away? How would something like that even happen?
“Initially, she was like, ‘I don’t want to ask for 1,000. It’s not possible,’” says her mom, Rufina Momin.
But Rufina pressed her daughter not to water down her wish.
“No, you should,” she told Aria. “It’s OK. This is your wish, so let’s share it.”
The local Make-A-Wish chapter has seen their fair share of wishes over the years. Last year, the branch granted 602 wishes, and there are currently about 1,100 in the queue. The wishes – granted for any child who, like Aria, is battling a critical illness – run the gamut, with the average cost hovering around $15,000. Most often, children wish to go to Disney World, but occasionally, a child will stun the entire staff with a wish like Aria’s – one rooted in a selfless desire to give back.
When Millwee saw Aria’s wish come up on the list, she had a lot of questions: “Why do we want to give away trees? Why 1,000? And honestly, I had no idea how we were going to come across 1,000 trees,” she says.
The answers fit themselves into place over the course of a couple months. The local nonprofit Trees For Houston provided saplings – primarily a mix of eastern red bud, southern magnolia and loblolly pine trees – for Aria and her family to pass out this weekend at Constellation Field in Sugar Land and Memorial Park in Houston. Without their support, Millwee notes, she isn’t sure how they would have granted this wish.
That’s a familiar feeling for Millwee and the wish granters she works with. “When we’re supposed to grant a wish like this, we don’t know the how, but the how just kind of comes,” she says.
Finding the how, and making it happen has meant the world to Aria, who one day months ago lamented to her mother that if humans aren’t conscious about planting trees to replace ones we lose due to hurricanes like Beryl and other reasons, our beautiful blue-and-green planet will turn brown. We need those trees, she says.
“Trees breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen,” she says. “People breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. So, like, without trees, nobody will be alive.”
She is excited to see where the trees are planted, and even plant three in her own yard. (That, her mother notes, was one instance in which Aria was forced to compromise: Her original plan to plant six trees at home just didn’t jibe with the size of the family’s yard.)
Her parents, Rufina and Shehzad, look forward to watching them grow alongside their daughter. The Momins don’t talk about Aria’s condition in front of her. But though she is small, she is doing well. It’s important to note that more than 70 percent of wish kids survive their illness.
There have been times in the recent past that the family was filled with pain and fear – moments that evoke feelings like the ones felt during Beryl, when the city’s trees were knocked down. But now, Rufina says, the tree-planting project has helped the Momins replace those memories with seeds – saplings, even – of hope.
“Make-A-Wish has not just helped Aria plant 1,000 trees, but Make-A-Wish has planted confidence in Aria, and it will just keep growing,” says Rufina. “Just like the tree grows, her confidence is going to bloom, blossom and grow for her entire life.”
And as it grows, that plucky little sapling will show everyone just how big it really is.
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