I have always been impressed and proud of Grace’s kindness, compassion, and understanding with others. She seemed to have been born with a "grace" that helps to make others feel special, loved and needed. When she had first mentioned Coalition for Kids she was over-the-moon with excitement. During the first meeting with Kamila I watched her face and it absolutely glowed with excitement. And when we walked out to the car afterwards I said "you don’t even have to tell me, I know you need to do this".
I would like to say her Dad and I were a worried about her first major trip, but that wouldn’t be true. From the very beginning we knew that she was in very safe hands, Kamila gave us peace from the start.
While Grace was in Poland we were issued with daily updates - very impressive, not to mention reassuring. I could tell just from the photos that she was safe, happy and totally "in the moment". Upon her return, she began to talk... and talk... and talk! Her stories of the children she visited were so amazing and she spoke of them with such happiness, no matter how sad the situation seemed to be, which kind of puzzled me at first. Then I realized that helping a child forget about their illness, their situation and their pain, made her feel so overwhelmingly happy she in turn forgot about their illness, their situation and their pain.
Other stories touched my heart too - she woke up in the early morning while on the train from Germany to Poland, and when she looked out and saw the countryside she was awestruck; placing flowers beside a grave side of a young soldier because he was just so young to die, and the many, many long conversations with Kamila, Christopher and Jocelyn.
I have unfortunately waited much to long to pass this testimonial along, so although I don’t recall every exact detail of Gracie’s Journey of a Lifetime, I just have to look into my daughter’s eyes to see she has even more kindness, compassion and understanding for others thanks to this wonderful organization!
