Dear Joe,

I met Kelli in Rockford, Illinois, as I drove through my 35^th state of a 50-state road trip. She was yet another one of my amazing and gracious hosts, and also the driving force behind an organization called Nik’s Wish. It’s a story I’ve shared hundreds of times, and I’ll never grow tired of telling it.

Kelli had three sons. Her youngest, Nik, who had cancer, received a Make-A-Wish, and their entire family went to Hawaii. But then Nik met another kid at the hospital who was never granted a wish. His name was Nate. He had been diagnosed a month after his 18^th birthday, so he had aged out of being eligible for a Make-A-Wish.

Nik couldn’t imagine it. “We have to help this kid, Mom!” he kept telling Kelli. Nik never stopped talking about it, and a few months after Nik and Nate met, Nik died tragically during what should have been a routine procedure.

After he died, Kelli couldn’t stop hearing her son’s voice. “We have to help him, Mom.”

After her son’s funeral, Kelli raised funds in her small community and was able to find Nate and his family, who lived in a completely different state. She was able to grant Nate a wish. It helped her so much with her grieving that she decided to keep going. She created Nik’s Wish in honor of her son and has, to date, granted over 400 wishes to children aged 18-24.

A few years after we met, Kelli asked me to be the speaker at one of her biggest fundraisers for Nik’s Wish. I went back to Illinois without hesitation.

The event was a huge success, but it left us all exhausted. I was amazed at how she could keep going. Kelli’s 9-to-5 job at the time involved working in HR, and a significant part of that role included firing people. When she wasn’t at work, she was granting wishes.

I’ve always wondered how strange it must feel to have one part of you forced into a job where you ruin someone’s day, while the other part works tirelessly to make someone else’s day better.

The night after the event, we were sitting around having our usual sip of whiskey when I said to her, “What if there were angels?” She looked at me, confused. “Like an angel in every state to start helping you get the word out and fundraise, we could call them, ‘Nik’s Angels!’” I explained.

It was January 2023 when Kelli texted me. “There’s someone I want you to meet,” she wrote. “Is it my future husband?” I joked back. “Haha, no, a cancer warrior from Alabama,” she replied.

“This kid is special. You need to meet him.”

I pressed the call button, and a second later she answered. Phone calls have always felt easier to me than sending 500 texts about the same matter. “His name is Joe,” she began. “He has terminal brain cancer; he’s 23. We granted his wish to go to the Kentucky Derby in May, but time is not on his side right now. I wanted him to pick something else... something we could do for him sooner. But all he keeps asking for is to work for me!”

I started laughing. “What?”

She continued, “Nik so inspires him, and he said he wants to help.”

I stopped laughing and suddenly found myself tearing up. He was 23, had terminal cancer, and all he was thinking about right now was how to help other kids get their wishes instead.

“What can we do?” I asked her.

“Well, I’m trying to get the board to approve of having a spokesperson. Someone who can represent Nik’s Wishes in Alabama.”

“AN ANGEL!” I yelled into the phone. “He should be the first angel!” She agreed.

Joe had already been getting the word out; he had been interviewed on local news about Nik’s Wish and was telling the story of Kelli and Nik. He had a fundraiser planned for the end of March. But it was only January, and Kelli had said time was not on his side.

“We need to fly to Alabama,” I told her.

“Let’s do it,” she agreed.

I had been off the road since 2019 at that point, and over the past year, I started to set up More Good as a nonprofit with my sisters. I called Kelli back and asked if it would be possible to grant a wish while we were there. She said she’d need to get approval from the board for the wish money, so I asked if I could bring a check myself from my nonprofit and have Joe grant a wish right away to someone there.

She said yes.

Three weeks later, Kelli, her husband Tom, and I flew to Alabama. We were going to meet Joe, and I had planned to conduct an interview. We would end the interview with the plan that Kelli would come out with the check for him from More Good.

Kelli and I had reviewed how the surprise would go before meeting with Joe.

I would scratch my nose just before telling him how we were going to name him the first official angel, and she would grab the big check we had created, ready to surprise him with it.

Moments after itching my nose and announcing that Joe was the first official Nik’s Angel, Kelli bounced in front of us with the check. Joe instantly put his hand to his face in amazement as he listened to what I just told him. He slowly came to terms with the fact that, because of this moment, he would be granting a kid his age a wish in a matter of hours. The moment suddenly hit me at the same time. I felt myself start to cry, and then I looked to my right. And there was Kelli. Her smile reached all the way across her face, holding the check up to Joe.

It was upside down.

I burst into laughter.

A classic Kelli moment. There was an incredible kid next to me, having an emotional moment and taking it all in, which almost made me start crying. Then, unintentionally, Kelli stepped in to make us all erupt into laughter. It served as a reminder that nothing in life is ever truly perfect, no matter how much you try to plan. Her ability to make me laugh during some of the most emotional moments in my life has been impeccable.

We told Joe that within 24 hours, he would be granting his first wish to someone on behalf of Nik’s Wish. Kelli had connected with her primary contact at the University of Alabama’s Children’s Hospital and found someone local who had asked for a wish. His name was Jerayle. He was 21 with a type of bone cancer. His wish was to go on a family vacation to Montana.

The next afternoon, Kelli, Tom, and I drove Joe to Pinson, Alabama, and parked down the street from Jerayle’s house. We unloaded a sign announcing that his wish had been granted, along with some confetti cannons. We arranged for Joe to be the only one to knock on the door and deliver the wish before we jumped into view to shoot off our confetti cannons.

The look on Jerayle’s face when the confetti went off and he read the sign was worth the entire trip to Alabama. I snapped one last photo of Joe and Jerayle standing together before we left.

On the flight home, I created my very first TikTok video, which embarrassingly took me way longer than I’d care to share. I posted the story of Joe and mentioned that if anyone else wanted to step up, we would love to have more angels! Fundraising is the most challenging aspect for Nik’s Wish.

Joe… our original Alabama Angel raised $28,000 in the nine months that followed. He spoke on television, in various speaking gigs, and organized fundraisers. Toward the end of the year, his body no longer functioned beyond his thumb. And with that thumb alone, he applied for a $10,000 grant for Nik’s Wish, which he got. Nine months. He did all of that in nine months.

And then, on December 27, 2023, Joe passed away. And while it still rips my heart out to share that news, the knowledge that this incredible human lived and accomplished more than some who might reach the age of 100 has offered so much comfort.

Six months after he died, Kelli got a call from Joe’s professor at the University of Alabama. She told Kelli that Joe had wanted to start a chapter of Nik’s Wish at the University. She would devote her time to getting the right people to start the very first Joe Thompson alpha chapter of Nik’s Wish, where they would donate at least one wish a year in honor of Joe. Even after he was gone, he continued to work.

I tried as often as I could to send Joe an encouraging text or an “I love you” after we had met. A few days before he passed away, I wrote to him about how proud I was of all he was doing for others, and I concluded my message with, “You are a blessing and I am so glad to know you.”

To which he responded: “I’m just doing my job.”

-

Yesterday afternoon, before I headed to the airport, I spoke to a company in upstate New York about my mission.

Halfway through my presentation, I shared the story about Kelli and Joe. Eventually, I mentioned that Joe had passed away. The second I said it out loud, I broke down.

In the hundreds of presentations and speeches I have given on More Good, this has never happened. I have teared up, sure. But never completely broken down to the point I couldn’t seem to stop the tears. It took me a full two minutes to regain my composure.

I finished the presentation, and as planned, I threw my suitcase into my truck and headed to the airport. I drove the first 45 minutes in complete silence, thinking about Joe, how incredibly inspiring his life had been, and how, if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be heading to the airport right now.

I realized that, despite the tears this kind of work will inevitably cause, it will still be worth it. Because, as Joe reminded me, we are just here “to do our job.” Whatever that job is. Wherever it might take us.

This week, he has led me to Florida.

To be continued.

The TikTok video I made for Joe.