Amelia Grace

Why does it mean so much? Why does it touch my heart when someone, a mere acquaintance really, says her name?

The picture below is the marker that is currently at the cemetery. This is the only thing we can have out there until we get her headstone installed (since it has been more than a year). So this is what has been marking her grave since May.

I went there today. I have been meaning to call Sharon, the lady who (with her husband) takes care of the cemetery, because I needed to ask about the installation of a headstone.

And who happened to drive in while I was there?
Her smile was as gentle and as sincere as it was the day we first visited with her. That day we had asked her questions about putting our precious daughter's body in the ground, in the ground she cared for. It was a nice spring day. A little windy. We told her how we were unsure of putting our baby in one of the larger cemeteries in town. She told us of how her teenage son was buried in town, in one of the larger cemeteries... and she wishes he wasn't. You could tell she has had guilt over it. But she now has peace about it, has forgiven herself, resigned to the fact that her mind (as any newly grieved parent) was lost during those first days after he died. At that time she was not involved with the Yankee Hill Cemetery, like she is now. "You do the best you can," she said.  Now... She answers the phone for them, she mows the grass, she meets with people, and SHE is who touched my heart today. Sometimes a touch can break what is fragile at the moment. And sometimes breaking isn't a bad thing.
When I spoke with her and told her we were ordering Amelia's marker, do you know what she said? She smiles, and looks me in the eye, and says, "Amelia Grace is getting her headstone." Then another wide, soft smile and she says, "I think about her when I mow."
- Sigh -
My first thought - awe, she used her name... I love that. My next thought - there are so many people buried here, does she think about everyone?  Not only does she sweat and toil over the ground as she mows with her large straw hat, but she is mentally and emotionally connected as well. That would be me. I would have a thousand day dreams of who these people were and how they came to be in this same square of land. All from different eras and of all ranges of ages. Entire families wiped out within days of eachother - maybe it was an illness or maybe a fire or a flood... A young man in the service who died in a battle... in another country?  A mother who died giving life to a child, leaving others behind.  A baby who lived two days. What happened little one? Do you know my "Millia", as Ev calls her still?

Now the part that I didn't "get" until a mile down the road.

She remembered her middle name.

She said Amelia Grace. Her lone marker has only had "Amelia Heath" on it for 5 months now, for most of the mowing season! I should have thought of this before leaving the cemetery, because now my eyes are filled with tears and I can barely see to drive.
Oh...

the simplest things that touch my heart...

that break it...

in a good way,

again...
Thank you, Sharon.
I'm thankful that my daughter's body lies under the earth in the corner of the world that you take care of.  I'm thankful that you remember her and that you think about her.
Thank you, God, for reminding me that you are so very aware of my aching heart, and that you know what my heart needs to hear - to heal. Thank you for being BIG in the small things.

Remembering your "Grace" today, even more so, because someone remembered ours.

The groom

As a little girl I dreamed of my wedding day.  A day full of flowers and a white dress, a beautiful shimmering white dress.  A man in a black tuxedo, waiting for me at the end of the aisle.  A father on my arm. A warm day.  A day of excitement and love. A day to remember for always. The beginning of a new life.
So every wedding I went to, I watched and waited for her to appear at the back of the church. Waiting... glowing... beginning her "float" down the aisle.  No one actually walks down the aisle on their wedding day - they float.  You didn't know that?  This is common knowledge to young girls :)
I would stare at the back of the church, first a bridesmaid, and then another, and then a glimmer of white from around a corner, or down a hall, through a door or across a ranch's graveled drive, and then she was there. I would gaze at her in awe.  I would imagine myself in the white dress, making my way down the aisle, smiling, glowing, sparkling...  Even after I was married, I still looked for the bride.  What does her dress look like?  What flowers did she choose to carry?  How will her hair be done?

Several saturdays ago, as I sat in the church waiting for the ceremony to begin, my eyes wandered not to the back of the church, but to the front.  In the past I would only look at the groom when the panorama of my vision included the groom in addition to the bride.  However, this time was different. Maybe it is due to the fact that my wedding day seems like eons ago, and my focus has changed over the past few years... A focus from girls - to boys.  Maybe it was the addition of our third son, or maybe the absence of a daughter, or that when asked what the "high" of his day was, our second son said, "I got to sit by my girlfriend" (the one with the heart on her backpack), or maybe just because... I'm not sure what had me looking for the groom.  In the past, he has somehow just sprung up from the floor.  I never watched him make his entrance.  For those of you wondering, he actually walked out with the minister.  Maybe this is customary... I honestly don't know, because this is literally the very first time I have looked to the front of the church, and watched for the groom.

I don't typically cry at weddings.  Sometimes a hallmark commercial can get me choked up, so I'm not sure why weddings don't have me weeping into my sleeve, but they don't.  That saturday, I watched a young man, maybe 23 or so, wait for his bride to round the corner with her father by her side. He smiled nervously, he shifted his weight quickly, he fidgeted with his hands, and he fixed his gaze at the end of the aisle.  He was standing tall, and he was handsome, but I could see him for a fleeting moment as his mom may have seen him... I could see him when he was 5, waving goodbye to her as he walked into kindergarten... I could see his face as he turned around after his first strike out in little league... I could see his grin from ear to ear when he opened his favorite Christmas gift... I could hear him ask for one more story at bedtime, and look at her with those eyes... She knows the eyes, the eyes she just can't say no to... the same eyes that are now fixed on his bride... floating down the aisle towards him.  I could see him if only in my mind, as his mother might have seen him a thousand times in a thousand memories prior to that day... And I cried.  I cried because I had never really thought about it before. I had never really thought about all of the moments that led up to that day. I had never really thought about one of my sons, ready for that day. The day that he was mature enough to take someone as his bride, to take care of her, to provide for her... 

Sigh... 

The wildness and silliness of my boys keeps me on my toes, stresses me out and brightens my days.  It is good to be reminded that even though they are young now, I am raising men.  Sooner than I realize, they will need to provide for someone else, they will need to have strength of character and an understanding of how to treat the beautiful white glimmer at the other end of the aisle.  This is a noble calling. I thank God everyday for my boys, and I pray that I would be reminded - in between diaper changes, mud on my carpet, and balls flung at my head, that a noble calling is before me.  I wouldn't have it any other way.

"There is an enduring tenderness in the love of a mother to a son

that transcends all other affections of the heart."

Washington Irving