Winter Stroll

AUTHOR’S NOTE

On the Friday of Christmas Stroll this past year, 2014, I lost a person whom I loved very much. Her name is Grace MacEachern and when she passed-suddenly, in her sleep-she was eight and a half years old.

Grace’s parents, Matthew and Evelyn, are friends of mine. Evelyn is so dear to me she is more like family than friend. To an outside observer, then, it would seem that my friends lost their child, and like any parent, I keenly feel their loss and their unimaginable pain. However, I more than feel it; I share it. For I always felt that Grace was not just my friends’ child, but my friend.

I am a novelist, but can I do a worthy job of describing Grace? I will try.

Grace was a life force. She was intense. She was brilliant and she had a huge, beautiful, room-brightening smile. Despite suffering a host of physical and medical challenges, the child never failed to beam and she never failed to ask a zillion questions in rapid succession. (“Hi, how are you? What did you eat for breakfast? What are you going to have for lunch? Do you have any lotion? Do you have any lipstick? Are you pregnant?”) She learned my name at an early age, and when she caught a glimpse of me, she would come running and grab me around the legs. Her grip was ironclad. I like to flatter myself and think that I am really special and magnetic to children, but the truth was, Grace was super passionate about two things: Chapstick and cupcakes. I was good for one 100 percent of the time (Chapstick; I am never without it), and the other about 50 percent of the time (cupcakes; as we all know, I love to cook).

This past summer, when I was fighting breast cancer and going back and forth for my reconstruction appointments at Mass General, Evelyn and Grace would drop macarons from the Petticoat Row Bakery on my front porch. They were Grace’s favorite and they are also my favorite, and Grace liked to get them for me because she knew I was sick and that I was busy getting better and that the macarons made me happy. Grace wanted everyone in her world to be happy and well. She had an uncanny sense of people, even adults, especially adults. Her kind and concerned manner, her empathy, belied her years.

Christmas Stroll is a magical time on Nantucket Island, and I will always love it. However, it will never be the same for me after losing my young friend. I loved her, she is gone, and I miss her. I marvel at the fortitude and the faith of her parents and her two brothers. For all of you readers who have children, I humbly ask you this: Please hug them a little harder tonight for Grace, kiss them one more time tonight for Grace.

Life is so, so precious.

Merry Christmas.