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.