This-moment Grace

It falls unexpected in October.

A snow-white whisper hushing the trees burnt all red.

She stands at the window and I watch it fall behind her, her at the glass and the flakes so soundless, heaven on white wing.

And I don’t expect it, in a room full of women and flashing laughter, the way she turns and says it quiet —

“My daughter is dying.”

Sometimes grace is the way a moment unfurls into wing and something of God flutters near.

I step closer, step in, try to catch all this falling down.

Is there really anything to murmur except to just come close and stand with someone?

She says it straight out and clear. “There have been gifts.”

That when the diagnosis came, the doctor said terminal and only a year more, at the most five — but then the unexpected, this wild grace of ten whole years.

How she once sang like a bird, twirled in her four-year-old spin, and then the years of slow regression, the walking giving way to the wheelchair, the songs giving way to loss of words, and now, giving way to infant beginnings.

“It’s kept us always living just in this moment — because we know today is the last like this.” Sometimes you know you will never forget the way the light burns in someone’s eyes.

She’s a flame in snow.

“Just always so grateful for every moment we’ve been given.” It’s falling straight down behind her.

I reach out, just to touch her shoulder, and she’s radiant and the truth lands here in the open hands: Giving thanks to God is what ushers one into the very presence of God. And this is why He asks us to always give thanks.

He comes to those with the open, grateful hands.

In the morning the white-laced water begins its melt, these days all vapor.

Her testament, it remains, and I remember the way she flashed grace in snow, one fading moment after another, and I want to burn thanks right into me.

In the morning light coming up from the east, it’s clear — everything hanging on the trees, all that is left, all the leaves …

Still all in this open flame of bare, ardent praise …

God, today is the last like this. This place, this people, this moment — it will never again be just like this. Cause my eyes to see everything in my life afresh. I may not pass by here again. Now is not a forever grace, but amazing grace.