People talk about “Amazing Grace” like it’s just a beautiful old song floating through church walls and funeral halls. But I’ve always wondered something deeper — why does grace have to be amazing before we notice it? Why don’t we recognize grace while it’s still quietly sitting beside us in ordinary moments?

I first truly understood the meaning of grace at my sister Denise’s funeral in 1998. She died at only 33 years old from Sickle Cell Disease, a disease she carried her entire life with more strength than most healthy people ever carry anything. And somehow, despite all her pain, despite hospital visits, blood transfusions, exhaustion, and suffering, she became one of the greatest gifts my life ever received.

Denise was my amazing grace long before I understood what grace even was.

As a child growing up in Toronto, life was not soft. My mother worked constantly just to survive, and survival sometimes leaves little room for childhood. I remember being left alone in rooming houses at three or four years old with a sandwich on a plate and one instruction:

“Don’t open the door.”

And I listened.

I sat quietly all day while the world carried on outside without me. I remember hearing children playing beyond the walls and wondering what freedom sounded like. One day I finally stepped outside because another child was there playing, and when my mother came home, fear rushed across her face. She warned me about all the terrible things that could happen to little girls left unprotected in this world.

But Denise changed everything when she was able.

She took me with her everywhere. To typing classes at school where I’d sit in the back hammering away on typewriter keys like I was preparing for some grand future I didn’t yet understand. To parks where she taught me how to read by watching airplanes write letters across the sky over Christie Pits. To pinball arcades. To neighborhoods filled with Portuguese and Spanish families whose homes smelled like warmth, food, music, and life.

She gave me moments that felt bigger than our circumstances.

And that matters more than people realize.

Because sometimes love is not rescuing someone from pain completely. Sometimes love is simply giving them moments of light while they are inside it.

That was Denise.

Even while carrying her illness, she still lived. Really lived. She laughed. She socialized. She dreamed. She even managed to have a child despite spending so much of her life in hospitals. Honestly, part of me still laughs thinking about it — this woman was out here battling sickle cell anemia, surviving transfusions, missing a leg, and somehow still finding romance and excitement in life. Meanwhile healthy people give up because Starbucks got their order wrong.

That perspective stays with me.

The last conversation we ever had still echoes in my spirit.

She had just come home from the hospital. We talked about life like we always did. Then suddenly alarm bells began ringing loudly in the background of her apartment building. She rushed me off the phone saying:

“I can’t hear nothing with these bells ringing. Call me tomorrow.”

Tomorrow never came.

The next morning my mother called and told me Denise died in her sleep.

And strangely… grief was not the only thing I felt.

Part of me felt relief.

Relief that her suffering had finally stopped. Relief that the body which had betrayed her for years no longer held her captive. Relief that someone who had carried so much pain could finally rest.

That realization taught me something difficult about love:
sometimes loving someone means being willing to let them go peacefully.

Her death changed me permanently.

Not in some dramatic movie-scene way. Quietly. Deeply. Permanently.

Because after losing her, I stopped assuming tomorrow was guaranteed. I stopped treating life like something sitting safely in storage waiting for me later. I began understanding that death doesn’t only happen to people. Death happens to relationships, identities, homes, seasons of life, friendships, old versions of ourselves, dreams, and chapters we never get back.

But inside every ending… grace leaves something behind.

A lesson.
A memory.
A strength.
A warning.
A blessing.

That’s why I believe grace is amazing.

Not because life avoids pain.
But because somehow beauty still survives inside it.

My sister taught me how to live fully despite suffering. She taught me that love is an action, not a performance. You can say “I love you” a thousand times, but if your actions don’t feed people emotionally, spiritually, physically, or mentally, the words become empty noise.

Even dogs understand this better than humans sometimes.

Love must be shown.

Denise showed it.

She believed in me before I fully believed in myself. She loved hearing me sing and constantly pushed me not to stop using my voice. She once told me to turn one of my songs into reggae music someday because she could already hear the rhythm before it existed.

And maybe that’s another form of grace too:
people who see something inside you before the world does.

Now, years later, I realize my life has been filled with amazing graces disguised as painful moments. If certain endings never happened, I would not be who I am today. If certain people never entered my life, parts of my spirit may have never awakened.

So maybe the real question isn’t:
“Why do painful things happen?”

Maybe the better question is:
“Did I recognize the grace hidden inside the experience?”

Because somewhere, right now, alarm bells are ringing for all of us in different ways. Time is moving. Chapters are closing. People are aging. Opportunities are shifting. Life keeps whispering the same truth over and over:

Love people while they are here.

Show them.

Call them.

Forgive them.

Laugh with them.

Sit with them.

Because one day, without warning, the conversation ends.

And when it does, the greatest comfort will never be money, status, followers, or possessions.

It will be knowing you loved fully while you still had the chance.

That…
is amazing grace.

—————————————–Thank for reading

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