Grace

What does grace mean to you?  It has so many meanings to me.  Selfishly, when I hear the word spoken aloud, my heart skips a beat.  I feel a flutter inside me, I can even smell a long ago scent.  Grace was the middle name of our daughter, our third born child.  Our perfect little girl, that was called home at less than six months of age.  Grace is also a gift, given to us, not earned, and not deserved.  Grace is something I did not believe in.  Forgiveness, the promise of a life after this, those were fairy tales to me.  That was until I was blessed to carry an Angel in my arms, to have her leave this world, and move on to the next when I was still imagining a lifetime of memories, a future never to be lived.
Four years ago I got up and got ready for a dentist appointment. I had just returned home from a trip to California, and the kids and baby were happily sleeping away. I struggled with whether or not to get the baby up.  I should feed her and changer her before I go, I thought.  In the end, I let her sleep, I didn't want to ruin the wonderful sleepy morning my family was having.  I would only be gone an hour, James could handle it.  It would be fine.  I left the house to the sounds of Maddison's snoring on the baby monitor.
Whoever said hindsight is 20/20 is wrong.  You may think it is all so clear looking back on it.  But it is impossible to see the past that way.  The past, like the future, is a mixed path of decisions blending into each other, and combined with God's will.  I have struggled for years, and I am sure I will still struggle with why I did not get my daughter up that day.  In the end, I don't believe it would have changed a thing.
Maddison came into this world, but she wasn't meant to stay.  She has taught different things to different people, and through my experience I have learned a lifetime of things.
My heart breaks as I think of the saddest day of my life, but I know it was the beginning for her of an eternity of perfection.  Thanks to Maddison Grace, for you brought me to the road, thanks to those that walk the road with me, and thank you God for the Grace that has been given to me, a chance to not only have Grace in this life, but eternity with my child in the next.