Gracie

Gracie was someone special. She was a young girl of four years old that attended my home church with her foster family. The family had two daughters that I had gone to school with. Gracie was a Hispanic girl with black wavy hair, big dark eyes, and light brown skin. She had a big smile that often was a toothy grin. She was adorable. She had such a sweet personality. Gracie would walk around and greet people saying "hi! hi!" the way little children do. She was so cheerful and won people with her smile.
Gracie was a lot of fun. I sometimes played with Gracie outside. I would play tag with her. I would let her chase me for a bit, running slowly. Of course I would eventually let her tag me and say "you got me!". I remember one incident when we had a church dinner and she was sitting near me. I was sitting across from a very fat man. She was sitting beside him and said "you have a big belly! He said "eat your food and we can match". She said "excuse me?". It was funny how she said that, and I was trying not to laugh.
I was hearing her foster family saying that they took her to the doctor often for treatments. I was curious as to why she needed so much medical attention. I asked one of the sisters why. She told me that she was HIV positive because her parents were drug addicts. I felt sad to hear that.
Time passed and Gracie was still herself. I nearly always saw her still being cheerful in spite of her condition.
One day my mother was on the phone with someone and I was close to her. She wrote on a slip of paper "Gracie died Sunday". I ran to my room and cried. I was blinded by tears for about ten minutes. Then I just dried my tears. I knew it was going to happen all along so I had come to terms with it.
Gracie only lived to be 5 1/2 years old. She died in 1995. I see the death of a child as something so sad, because it is like a flower that didn't get to finish blooming. They never got to grow up. There are many more like her. I do wish there was something I could do for the other Gracies out there in her honour.