Saving Grace

Grace.

noun
1. elegance and beauty of movement, form, expression, or proportion
2. a pleasing or charming quality
3. goodwill or favour
4. a sense of propriety and consideration for others
5. mercy; clemency

Not one of the 7 virtues - prudence, justice, temperance, courage, faith, hope, and charity - but it does, perhaps, encompass all of them in one way or the other.

Is it something one is born with or something that is learned?

Certainly gracefulness is a trait present early on - a born dancer, for instance.  Have we not all watched, occasionally in envy, as a graceful woman walks among us, head held high, each step sure? That would certainly not be someone who is consistently tripping over non-existent curbs or snakes in the carpet.

However, what I'm really talking about is less about movement and more about a person's very nature. Grace Kelly - aptly named, Audrey Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman and her daughter, Isabella Rossellini, Olivia de Havilland and most especially Ms. de Havilland as Melanie Hamilton Wilkes in Gone with the Wind.

All women whose grace lit them from the inside.

Was that inherent or taught?

I've quietly pondered grace today and thought much about those who possess(ed) it.

First, we were all deeply saddened at work to learn that one of our co-workers, a friend, succumbed to her fight with cancer on Sunday. A woman who radiated grace - kindness, compassion, gentleness, and who had such a tenacious spirit and courage to wage a battle when all hope seemed lost. She never once lost hope.

Second, upon reading the comments on a "news" article related to the death of John of whom I wrote over the weekend, I discovered an ugly bunch of witless wonders battling it out over medical marijuana and maligning, in every possible sense, the boy who killed him. In the midst of this firestorm, John's sister and mother, two women I've never met, wrote eloquently, with restraint, through their pain, of John, his family and friends, his daughter, and went on to write with the utmost compassion for the boy who robbed him from their lives.

Grace.

I've been fortunate to be touched deeply by it. By the essence of a woman I had the distinct pleasure of knowing personally and of two women I will likely never know.

Grace.

Is it inherent or is it taught?

I'd like to know.

I'd like to learn.