Beloved Urbandale Teenager is Laid to Rest

Red and blue were the colors of Grace Chance's funeral Monday morning.

They were the colors of Grace's championship softball teammates, who wore their uniforms as they ushered people into the sanctuary at Urbandale's

Red and blue were on display as parents and friends wore their softball jerseys and jackets to the service. Even New Hope's Middle School Pastor, Jesse Johannesen, wore a bright red shirt.

And red and blue were the colors of 100 balloons, released into a clear winter sky as 14-year-old Grace was laid to rest in the Chapel Hill cemetery. Friends and family hugged and cried and cheered as the wind carried the balloons toward the sun.

Oh, there was plenty of black, plenty of mourning, plenty of tears in the overflow crowd of about 700 people. (They brought in extra chairs, then folding chairs, then they started seating people in the hallway outside the sanctuary.)

Grace's casket was black, but it was decorated with hundred of silver words — signatures and goodbyes from her friends, who should have been signing her eighth-grade yearbook, not her casket. "See you in heaven Grace," wrote one student.

Grace, an honor-roll student, member of her school's student senate, show choir and band — who "loved dill pickles, red Skittles and was 99.9 percent vegetarian, but she would eat hot dogs" — died Jan. 12, after an eight-month battle with a form of brain cancer that is almost unheard of in young girls.

Grace fought the disease: brain surgery and a summer of radiation treatments that burned away all her hair and burned her scalp purple. Then there was the chemotherapy treatments that made her sick and made it difficult to eat. There was more surgery, dizziness, nausea, and more tests. 

About a week ago, toward the end, her family joined about 600 other people for a candlelight prayer ceremony outside her house, praying for a miracle.

The day before that, the people who loved Grace most gathered around her in her bedroom to pray, not even sure how much she heard.

"It was difficult for her," Pastor Johannesen told those gathered in the chapel. "She was barely able to nod." 

But Grace wasn't yet done that day. Despite being sedated, for her pain, despite being weak, from so much, she gave back once again.

After the prayer in her bedroom, the pastor recalled, "She sort of came to and said: 'That prayer was the longest prayer.'"

Those who had gathered to comfort her laughed in her bedroom. Those who gathered in the chapel to say goodbye laughed, too.

"Grace was special," said Johannesen.

And not just because that's what you say about teenagers whose lives are so cruelly cut short by cancer.

He said she was special because of her determination — she taught herself to swim and to play the piano. Because of her love of learning — she loved school and loved learning about sharks and dolphins and the ocean and had hopes of becoming a marine biologist. Special because she had a fierce sense of justice.

Johannesen recounted the story of how, seeing three older boys picking on a smaller boy, Grace confronted them and told them to stop. And of how in first grade she asked her parents to buy her some books so she could learn Spanish.

A Latina girl was new to her class, didn't speak English and was lonely. Grace wanted to learn Spanish so she could be the girl's friend, he said.

And the pastor said that Grace and her family were special because of the grace and openness that they showed during this difficult journey. It was an amazing grace that brought together so many people in Urbandale, that showed what is special and powerful about community. People, some who didn't even know the family well, raised money, brought in meals, prayed and worked to help defeat the inoperable tumor in her brain.

Two students read tributes they had written to Grace. Her softball teammates sat in their uniforms on the dais and the middle-school Pizzazz show choir also sat on stage and sang "I'll be There," the Michael Jackson song of friendship.

Greg Waldrop, a family friend who had watched Grace grow up, also read something he had written Thursday, the day she died.

He said while her loved ones were crying, he hoped that she was laughing.
"Are you laughing right now?" he read. "I bet you are. You are walking in your garden, as were promised, and you are laughing."

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See photos of Grace that were shown at her funeral service.