The Journey of Grace

- personal reflection
~ written for Writer's Island

I never knew holding my Nana's hand as she took her last breath would lead me where it has. Somehow during the last 2 hours of her life I found a serenity and Grace. I had been looking for serenity for a long time. learning Grace was just a bonus. It was as if a peacefulness enveloped me. I knew it was going to be OK. Even now 8 months later when I see a bird fly by I know it is going to be OK.

She was a mother, a daughter, a sister, a grandmother and a great grandmother. She was a friend, a believer in God, a member of the parish, she was a Podiatrist. She loved to swim in the icy waters of Cape Cod well into late October, she was the most positive and most stoic person I have even known. Strength is silence, power in presence. All of these things describe by grandmother. She was many things to many people and multi faceted in her own being, but nothing describes her more than this one word. Grace.

She was Grace. Grace under pressure. She had the grace of eternal beauty. She had the gracefulness of a blue bird on the thinnest of branches. Grace in her words, and in the purity of her thoughts. She never said a negative word about anyone.

My Nana taught me more than I could ever clearly articulate in words while she was alive but it is what she taught me in the final hours of her death that will stay with me forever. She taught me that it is OK to let go. When the time is right and all of the details have been taken care of, when you have said goodbye, and set your sights on the future it is OK to let go.

For her, at 93, 2 weeks after falling and breaking her hip, she waited until her family was around her and she said goodbye. Two hours later with just me by her side, she gracefully said goodbye to this world and moved onto her her next journey. Being the religious person that she was I have no doubt that her next journey has just begun.

Life is a journey, a trip filled with hellos and goodbyes, all too often we say hello too readily and goodbye not readily enough. We are always looking for more, yet often never discarding what we are done with. As I held my Nana's hand at 9:14 on January 31, 2007 I realized that I need to say goodbye not only to my Nana but to my own internal struggles with myself, accept more, fight less, be graceful about it - all the way my Nana did with death.

This one's for you Nana. Thank you for giving me the strength to accept grace.


(c)Michelle S. 2007.