Little Emma got her wish

Last March, the story of a little girl who was nearly aborted and lives with a life-threatening heart defect came to light, and it was certainly about life and heart.

Emma Watson had a burning desire.

The report says Emma was 3 the first time she mentioned the Pope. She saw him on TV in the hospital and sat up in bed. “That’s my new pope,” she told her mother. “That’s my new pope. Do you think I can ever meet him?”

Watson didn’t pay much attention to the request. But over time she saw how serious her daughter was.

The Make-a-Wish Foundation doubted a child would request to see the Pope, Watson said. So several people wrote letters on her behalf.

“Ever since Emma began talking, she has spoken about prayer and wanting to become a nun,” wrote Dr. Hrair Garabedian, a Spokane, Wash., cardiologist. “Again, I am surprised by her complete devotion to God, but it does not surprise me at all she has requested a visit with the Pope.”

“Emma is a very special child and in some spiritual way, old beyond her years,” said another letter to the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

Watson said Emma is joyful, never complains, and has a deep faith.

Now, her wish has come true.

Last Wednesday, 7-year-old Emma Watson of Craigmont, Idaho, finally got her wish to meet Pope Benedict XVI…This time around, she almost missed seeing the Pope for two different reasons. First, only three weeks before the trip, she was hospitalized with pancreatitis. Then, on the morning of the general audience, the Watson family couldn’t find the Make-A-Wish volunteers in the plaza.

Eventually, they found one another, and the Watsons were rushed in and seated for the general audience just minutes before it began. Emma and her mother, Patti, were given front-row seats.

“Mom was looking the other way when the Pope came out,” said Emma. “I was in awe, and I started crying.”

“She kept saying, ‘It’s the Pope. That’s the Pope,’” said Emma’s mother, Patti.

After the audience, Emma and her mother were brought to greet the Pope.

The Holy Father blessed Emma “in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” and then put his hands on Emma’s shoulders.

“He asked us where we were from,” said Patti. “I said the U.S., and then we were ushered aside.”

Normally quite talkative, Patti said that Emma was “speechless for the first time in her life.”

Emma said that when she looked into the Pope’s eyes she saw “happiness.”

Surely Benedict saw the same in hers.