Have you ever had a dream so big, you were afraid to want it too much? That’s how I felt as soon as I even heard about the Disney College Program (DCP). During my application process, anytime I felt my hopes floating up, I would shove them back down into my chest and duct tape them down. But you know hopes. They always find a way to float back up again.
So I let them float. All the way up to Infinity and Beyond! And just like any respectable Disney princess would, I went and shared my dreams with my own “Grandmother Willow.”
I sat next to her in that chair she never left, and I held her hand in mine. When I told her, “Grandma, I might get to work at Disney World,” her warm smile could have thawed any number of frozen hearts.
“If I go,” I said, “what would you like me to bring back for you?”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter.”
“No, really! Anything you want! A t-shirt? A Mickey Mouse doll? A lightsaber?”
At this point, my mom nearly choked on her muffin. “A lightsaber? Lindsey, you can’t get Grandma a lightsaber. She would literally attack the nurses with it whenever she didn’t want to take her pills!”
And Grandma and I smiled at each other, because we knew exactly what my present was going to be.
A few days later, she was gone. Mom and I were each holding a hand when she slipped through the veil between this world and the next. And you know what? I knew she was out of her pain. I knew that she’d lived a good life. I knew that she loved me, and that I’d see her again. But all that doesn’t make the initial separation hurt any less. It’s a painful wrenching of circumstance to go from loving someone, and desperately trying to keep them with you to missing someone, and knowing you’ll eventually have to move on.
But three days later, I had a very Moana-like moment. You know, when Moana sees the light go out in her Grandma’s cabin, and then three seconds later that huge glowing Manta-Ray thingy races under her boat and she knows her grandmother is going to be with her? Well. Our moment was just as dramatic. I opened up my email on February 14th, 2017, and received my acceptance to the Disney College Program. From that point on, I knew for sure — that I wasn’t just moving on, I was moving forward. And I certainly wasn’t going alone.
Now you wanna hear something really cool? Like, sickeningly serendipitous? Get this: I got cast into the Jedi Training attraction. That’s right. JEDI TRAINING in Hollywood Studios. WHERE WE GET TO CARRY A LIGHTSABER EVERYWHERE!
So I know it wasn’t just coincidence that led me here, and it definitely wasn’t my own pure skill. Call it pixie dust, magic, divine intervention, or a grandmother’s love. I am here to grow, and learn, and meet new people, and take pictures of Mickey cake pops in front of the castle, and work hard, and have the time of my life — and I get to do it all with Grandma’s lightsaber right by my side every day.
Lindsey Does Disney!!! 