If I could tell Maggie’s daughter what happened that night, I would tell her this.

I would say that all her mother ever wanted was for her to live. To breathe. To have a life. To know a life that was better than her own.

Maggie was brave in those final moments. Braver than I would have been. Actually braver than I was just being there, trying my best to help her to push, to endure the pain, to make it through.

My wife was the one who really was her champion and cheerleader. I think the guy in me was simply too shocked and scared to know what to do.

The crying and the breathing and the sweating and the bleeding and then suddenly, I had the great honor to hold this sweet, precious life in my hands. They were shaking, but at the same time I wasn’t about to let her go.

Neither was Maggie.

The first thing out of her lips was asking if her baby was okay. She asked how she looked, then wanted to see her.

Maggie’s own life was fading. Yet she suddenly didn’t seemed interested at all or worried about herself. She only wanted to see her baby girl and hold her . . .

The young mother’s life—the tiny blink of a life she unfortunately had—suddenly seemed worth it when she held her daughter. The decision she had made in the first place had been validated. She was there. She was real. And her cry—that was very real and very loud.

The baby had survived the crash in some miraculous way.

In those first few moments, when Maggie looked at her baby with a look that seemed to know the gift that she’d been given, that all of us had been given, she told us her name.

Faith.

Even while Grace and I tried to tend to her, tried to figure out a way to get her to the hospital, still hoping and waiting for an ambulance to come, Maggie could only talk about her baby.

She said this to Grace.

She reminded Grace how she had wanted to be there when her child was born. Then she told Grace that she just had been.

Maggie wanted to know about the assurance of Heaven as she held her tiny Faith. She asked me whether or not it was a lie. She wanted to know that if she was going to see Jesus on that day.

“I’ve accepted Him in my heart. Promise me He’ll accept me.”

The last words I told Maggie were the following:

“With all my heart, with all my soul, I promise you. He will.”

If I could tell Maggie’s girl anything, I would tell her how her mother died holding her in her arms, watching over her. She didn’t close her eyes while the light inside of them faded. My hands eventually took you and scooped you up into arms that weren’t going to let go.

Two women were given gifts that night. So was a man.

Maybe, hopefully, when Faith is older, we’ll be able to tell her the whole story. We’ll be able to tell her how we stumbled upon her birth mother in the most miraculous fashion. How God truly gave us this gift in the darkest of nights.

I still can only imagine what Maggie saw after leaving her baby behind. I know she wasn’t sad anymore. She wasn’t frightened. She’s wasn’t young and alone.

One day I’m sure we’re going to look at Faith and see that beautiful young woman named Maggie inside of her.