Hi, my name is Cindy Shelton, and this is a story I never expected to be carrying in my heart for so long.
It is the story of a little girl named Grace, and a mother whose love refused to accept the word “impossible.”
I met Grace and her mom, Misty, nearly two years ago.
At first, I was just someone watching from the outside, quietly following their journey.
But some stories don’t stay at a distance.
They pull you closer, little by little, until you realize you can’t look away anymore.
Grace is one of those stories.
From the moment you learn even a fragment of her life, you understand this is not an ordinary childhood.
Grace lives with a complex and overwhelming array of medical conditions that most of us can barely pronounce, let alone comprehend.
Among the most devastating is a condition that causes her brain to grow faster than her skull can contain it.
A cruel imbalance that no child should ever have to endure.
Because of this, Grace has already undergone multiple skull surgeries.
Surgeries not meant to improve comfort or appearance, but simply to keep her alive.
Each procedure carried risks no parent should have to sign their name beneath.
Risks that included loss of function, permanent damage, or death.
And yet, Misty signed.
Every single time.
Because when the alternative is losing your child, courage becomes instinct.
For five long years, Misty has lived in survival mode.
Not metaphorically, but literally.
Her days are consumed by medical appointments, emergency decisions, hospital stays, recovery periods, and relentless uncertainty.
Her nights are filled with monitoring, worry, and prayers whispered in the dark.
Doctors have come and gone.
Some hopeful, some exhausted, some who eventually admitted they had no answers left.
There were moments when medical professionals quietly gave up on Grace.
Moments when the unspoken message was clear: prepare for the worst.
But Misty never did.
She did not stop researching.
She did not stop asking questions.
She did not stop advocating when doors were closed in her face.
She did not stop believing her daughter’s life mattered, even when the system seemed to say otherwise.
Grace is here today because her mother refused to let her disappear quietly into statistics.
She is here because love outworked despair.
What makes this story even heavier is that Misty is doing all of this alone.
She is a single mother with no safety net beneath her.
No backup caregiver.
No pause button.
On top of caring for Grace full-time, Misty is also the primary caregiver for a 93-year-old friend who lives with them.
Two lives depending on her strength every single day.
There are no weekends off.
No sick days.
No moments where she gets to collapse without consequences.
Exhaustion is not a phase—it is her reality.
Misty once enrolled in full-time online college, trying to build a future while holding everything together.
But this past semester, she had to let that dream go.
Not because she lacked determination.
But because caregiving left her with nothing left to give.
She hopes to restart in the fall.
Hope is one of the few things she hasn’t lost.
Grace’s world is not defined by playgrounds or carefree milestones.
It is defined by resilience learned far too early.
She has endured pain that most adults would break under.
And yet, there is something extraordinary about her.
Grace has a light that refuses to dim.
A presence that reminds you why this fight matters.
She is not a diagnosis.
She is not a prognosis.
She is a little girl who deserves time, care, and a chance to live beyond hospital walls.
She deserves a childhood shaped by love, not constant crisis.
This is why I am starting this fundraiser.
Not because Misty asked me to—but because I couldn’t stand by anymore.
No one should carry this much alone.
No mother should have to choose between survival and stability.
The funds raised will help with medical expenses, daily care, basic living needs, and giving Misty just a fraction of breathing room.
Room to rest without fear of collapse.
Room to focus on Grace without choosing which bill can wait.
Room to believe the future doesn’t have to be this fragile forever.
I have asked Misty to write her own story and share it through the fundraiser updates.
Her words deserve to be heard directly, without filters or summaries.
If you want to follow Grace’s journey, please look up Grace Hurtado on Facebook.
You’ll find her under the hashtag #gracetheworld.
If you can donate, know that your generosity becomes tangible hope.
It becomes time, care, and relief.
And if you cannot donate, please share this story.
Sharing is also an act of love.
Because sometimes the miracle isn’t a cure.
Sometimes it’s a community that refuses to let a family fight alone.
Thank you for reading.
Thank you for caring.
And thank you for helping Grace’s world keep turning.
Born Too Soon, Loved Forever The Brief Lives of Amelia and Eli, and the Silence They Left Behind
Some lives are measured in years.
Others are measured in heartbeats, hospital lights, and the love that gathers in a room knowing time is running out.
Amelia and Eli belonged to the second kind.
They were never meant to be statistics.
Never meant to be footnotes in medical charts or quiet mentions in family histories.
They were children.
And they mattered.
Amelia entered the world far earlier than anyone was prepared for.
Born at just twenty-seven weeks, she arrived alongside her twin brother, Kai, into a neonatal world defined by uncertainty and fragile hope.
Her body was impossibly small.
Her skin thin.
Her breaths shallow and carefully supported.
In the NICU, every movement was watched.
Every monitor sound carried meaning.
Every hour felt earned.
Despite the overwhelming odds that accompany extreme prematurity, Amelia surprised everyone.
She showed signs of strength that defied expectations.
She held on.
She responded.
She fought in the quiet way that premature babies do, not with force, but with persistence.
Her parents learned quickly how to love inside fear.
They memorized the curve of her face, the way her chest rose and fell, the subtle changes that only parents notice when they know time is uncertain.
Love deepened rapidly in that space.
Because when a child must fight simply to exist, love has no room to hesitate.
For a moment, hope lived comfortably beside fear.
Then, without warning, everything changed.
Sepsis moved swiftly through Amelia’s fragile body.
An infection that can overwhelm even the strongest adults gave her no time to recover.
What had been cautious optimism turned into sudden devastation.
Her body, already working harder than it should have, could not withstand the storm.
Her life ended quietly.
Too soon.
Without explanation that could make sense of the loss.
The silence left behind was unbearable.
The death of a premature baby carries a unique kind of grief.
It steals not only a child, but the future imagined for them.
The milestones that were never reached.
The growth that never came.
The life that should have unfolded slowly.
And yet, Amelia was never alone.
She was held.
Spoken to.
Loved fully in the time she had.
Her life, though brief, was complete in the only way that truly matters.
She was known.
Her memory remains alive in the way her family speaks her name.
In the quiet acknowledgment that she existed, that she was here, and that she mattered.
Her twin brother, Kai, continues to grow.
Carrying forward a bond that began before birth and did not end with death.
In every milestone Kai reaches, there is joy.
And there is ache.
He walks this world without her beside him, yet never without her presence.
She remains woven into his story, inseparable from who he is becoming.
Amelia’s light does not fade with absence.
It lives on through memory, through love, through the quiet understanding that some connections are eternal.
Alongside Amelia’s story stands that of her brother Eli.
Eli was born still on January 17, 2025.
His life ended before it could truly begin.
A placental abruption took him without warning.
A sudden, catastrophic event that left no opportunity for intervention, no time for preparation.
Though Eli never cried, never opened his eyes, never took a breath, he was never without love.
From the moment he existed, he belonged.
Being stillborn carries a grief unlike any other.
It is filled with silence instead of sound.
There are no memories of movement or laughter.
Only the weight of what should have been.
But stillbirth does not erase existence.
It does not diminish significance.
Eli was known.
He was named.
He was held with tenderness that knew no limits.
His presence was real.
His impact undeniable.
In his stillness, Eli taught his family about love that exists without memories.
About grief that lives alongside gratitude for having known him at all.
Amelia and Eli are siblings not bound by shared time, but by shared love.
Their stories intertwine in the hearts of those who loved them.
To grieve two children is to carry a weight few can comprehend.
It is to wake each day holding absence in one hand and love in the other.
Learning how to live with both.
Their mother has spoken openly about her desire to keep both names alive.
To speak them.
To remember them.
Names matter.
They are proof of existence.
Evidence that a life, no matter how brief, was real.
By saying Amelia’s name, her presence remains in the world.
By saying Eli’s name, his life is affirmed.
Memory becomes an act of love when time is taken too soon.
Remembrance becomes a bond that death cannot sever.
Grief does not move in straight lines.
It arrives in waves, often without warning.
Some days feel manageable.
Others feel impossibly heavy.
But within that grief lives an unbreakable truth.
Amelia and Eli were loved completely.
They changed their family forever.
They reshaped the meaning of love, loss, and resilience.
Their lives remind us that time is not the measure of worth.
That significance cannot be calculated in days or weeks.
Some souls come into the world briefly, yet leave behind love that outlives everything.
Amelia’s strength, even in her short time, continues to inspire.
Eli’s quiet presence continues to echo.
They are not forgotten.
They are not invisible.
They are deeply loved.
Eternally remembered.
And forever part of the story of a family that carries them forward — not in silence, but in love.
