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the mystery of growth

4 Comments

Infertility.

Miscarriage.

Infant loss.

It is not lost on me that the story of our family has become a story of three deep losses.

Who gets ALL of that? A girlfriend asks me, half-kidding, half-despairing.

I know, I laugh in that dark way we learn to laugh when Irish blood runs through our veins, tragedy and comedy flowing together so we can survive. I know.

But what I don’t know is what to do with this story. 

Tell it, of course. Trust that the vulnerability of the telling has already changed lives, mine and those of people who write to me or stop me in person and share that something in our story has resonated deeply with theirs. 

But how and when and where and to whom to tell this story – all these questions have been churning within me for months.

Whenever I have felt grief settling over my life like a hard, vast dome, impenetrable and suffocating, I have to remember myself back into a better metaphor. Grief is not something foreign outside me, threatening to take my life.

It is something organic within me, creating me anew from the inside out.

I am far from the only one who knows this truth. For months I have been collecting sparkling gems from others – mothers, writers, seekers – who have lost and kept living. They have given me words when I needed them most. They remind me of the deepest truths of a story like ours.

It is creation:

This doesn’t have to be the end. It could actually be the beginning of something powerful. Something supernaturally, life altering. This beautiful mix of sorrow and joy creates something explosive in a mother’s heart…

It is resurrection:

This big, huge thing that God is doing, this thing that will change the world forever, comes about quietly in the dark…We find it right here, in the midst of ordinary grief, in the midst of ordinary darkness. We never expected it, but here it is…

It is mercy incarnate.

I don’t know if this love causes terrible things. I don’t know if this love allows terrible things. All I know is I cannot look at the terrible thing without also seeing love…

Science has a name for this, too: the expansion of empathy, the deepening of faith within tensions, the calling to create out of loss. Post-traumatic growth.

(A great introduction to the concept is found here.)

“The existence of post-traumatic growth suggests that, while the pain never vanishes, something new and powerful is likely to come.”

 We want transformation to come without a price, for growth to arrive without suffering. But life speaks the truth that more often, the painful experiences are the ones that catapult us into a new place entirely.

I have seen this in so many stories – from Scripture, strangers, friends and family – that I know the Holy is at work here.

Twice a month my husband and I sit around a table in the basement of a downtown hospital. We listen to other parents share their stories of loss. We tell our own. Every single person around the table has lost a child. Or more. 

(Believe me, it is a terrible club. But once you are in it, you are terribly glad to learn you are far from alone.)

One evening the support group facilitator leaned across the wide table said something simple but startlingly clear. 

Time does not heal. It’s what you do with time that heals.

This is the question of my life right now. What do I make of this time of grief? How do I let God recreate my life after loss?

The world spins madly on and people tire quickly of what is heavy to bear. When they ask how we are doing these days, they do not want to hear the truth. 

Half the time people leap to answer the question for me – you’re doing better, right? You seem good! You look great. 

But the space between their question and my response is where I do all my living these days. It is the space of transformation. It is the empty, potent space of Holy Saturday, of a life ripped open by death but clinging to the belief that God will make something new. 

If this space is left wide open – with air for the wound to breathe and time for the ache to settle and freedom to reenvision a new version of the life that looks drastically different from what we expected – then the possibility is ripe for growth. 

I see this in the lives of so many people who have suffered beyond what the world wants to hear. I know that it is true, and every morning I convince myself again to trust that it could happen for us. That it is happening for us. 

It is the growth that changes everything. 

For five months these words from Scripture have hung on our wall by the back door. For five months I have read them to myself with every coming and going. 

After five months I am even more convinced that they are true. 

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. (Romans 8:18) 

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Mary says

    25 July 2016 at 8:11 pm

    Laura thankyou for sharing your wounds being vulnerable letting Gods light shine in your life. My precious neice passed away from mitochondrial disease 4 days before her first birthday our entire family was shocked and forever changed. Her precious life brought us all together we miss her so much especially her parents and brothers with a yearning that never dissipates we cling to her memories we loved her deeply in the blessed time we shared with her. She was joyful and patient in her affliction. She gave us courage and comfort. We trust that our good God will heal our hearts and carry us through this enduring pain. Please God carry us all!

    Reply
  2. Katrina says

    25 July 2016 at 9:52 pm

    Thank you for sharing your story. Grief and loss leave a profound mark on our souls.
    I feel the need to share my story one day. My story of loss of expectations, miscarriage, postpartum depression and anxiety. I am not a blogger or even a writer but one day I will share it. Thank you again for sharing your story!

    Reply
  3. Sara Kazlauskas says

    26 July 2016 at 11:02 pm

    Living in the in between with you, Laura! I have also found that people don’t want to really hear where I am; they want it to all be better now. But one wise Italian grandmother hugged me close on Sunday and said, ” Hang on! Big things are coming. God is getting you ready.” Hugs and tears and prayers!

    Reply

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  1. what i learned from 2016 - Mothering Spirit says:
    16 November 2016 at 6:46 am

    […] in before, if you resist bitterness and embrace vulnerability. When grief is well lived – and yes, there is such a thing – it gives birth to growth, empathy, understanding, and stubborn […]

    Reply

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About Laura

I’m Laura Kelly Fanucci. Mother, writer, wonderer. This space is where I explore mothering through writing. It’s where I celebrate how God shows up in the chaos of raising children. It’s where I love to build community with readers like you. Read More…

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thismessygrace

Mother, writer, wonderer.
Seeker of God in chaos & life with kids.
Author of Everyday Sacrament & Grieving Together.
Glimpses of grace & gratitude.

thismessygrace
Now you'd be three, I said to myself, seeing a chi Now you'd be three,
I said to myself,
seeing a child born
the same summer as you.

Now you'd be six,
or seven, or ten.
I watched you grow
in foreign bodies.

Leaping into a pool, all laughter,
or frowning over a keyboard,
but mostly just standing,
taller each time.

How splendid your most
mundane action seemed
in these joyful proxies.
I often held back tears.

From "Majority" by Dana Gioia, a poet-father who knows.

2.27.2016.
Always a birthday.
Even when not happy.
I am standing in a fluorescent-lit gym, dingy mesh I am standing in a fluorescent-lit gym, dingy mesh tank top hanging off my scrawny shoulders. I am eleven years old, listening to a grey-haired coach with a whistle round his neck.

"Here is how you pivot," he says, grabbing the ball & crouching down. "Plant your foot, solid like a rock. Don't ever move it."

I am trying to learn, because basketball is cool & I am not. I desperately want to be good at shooting, scoring, stealing, anything. But he is teaching me something I will not forget.

“The power of pivoting is you can turn any way you want. You can move where you need to go. You just have to keep this foot planted."

Today I pivot.

One day between birthdays. 24 slim hours to turn from joy to grief.

Yesterday the bouncing babe turned a whole year old. He has seen all sides of the sun by now. He gets to keep going: an ordinary miracle.

Tomorrow his sisters would have turned 5. A ghost of a birthday, shared by twins, lost to us, held & gone all at once.

All I can do is pivot.

Here is my foot planted firmly in the ground of now. I can turn in any direction I want: from joy to sorrow & back again. This is the only power I have, but it is enough for today.

I will wobble. I will feel the frantic rise in my throat of attack coming at me, blocking my view, trying to steal what I hold. For a few desperate moments I will want to pick up both feet & run far away, run fast as I can from what I never wanted.

But my pivot foot is stronger & steadier. It will stay where I have asked it to stay, from when I learned deeper truth.

Pivoting is still movement, still freedom, still control over a small corner of here. You are the one who decides to stop & plant your foot.

And the pivot is not forever. It is part of a move, not the end point. It is an interim, a passage, a survival strategy.

Part of me is forever awkward & eleven, scrawny & uncertain. But more of me is almost-forty, scarred & stronger. Knowing I can stop when I need to stop & go when I want to go, even in a full court press out of my control.

Today I pivot. I never want to forget the strength here too, the potential to turn between all that comes at me. The power of knowing this is not the end.
One day I’ll tell him the story. How after days One day I’ll tell him the story.

How after days of long labor, sick & scary, heaps of drugs to save both our lives, I stared bleary-eyed at the hospital clock: ten to two, clear as night, & made a decision.

How with no midwives in the room—unknown OBs now, nurses we didn’t know, no familiar face among them—and the clock ticking, I had to do what all those strong women I trusted had taught me to do.

How I decided to midwife my own birth.

How with no strength left, I struggled up through fog & pain, fumbled for my phone, scrolled through the dark until I found the song, & turned it up to rise above the beeping & the monitors & the awful alone sounds of awake at 1:50 am in the hospital.

How I closed my eyes & waited for the beat to come & prayed for the strength. To be my own midwife.

Drop beat. Beat drop. Pause.

The battle of Yorktown. 1781.

I cranked one weary smile. Closed my eyes as the song picked up. Turned my clumsy body to the left side to bring on a contraction.

Gotta meet my son.

Breathed through the pain. Timed it. Heaved to the right side to bring on another wave.

The world turned upside down.

Smiled when the night nurse came to check, surprised. Feigned shock when she raised her eyes that things were changing.

How as soon as she left the room, I glared at the clock, hit repeat, turned to one side, then another, kept contractions coming & coming, coaching my body hour after hour to do what I knew it could do.

History will show that this child was born from pitocin for induction & magnesium sulfate for preeclampsia & a failed epidural or two & eight shots of epinephrine when maternal blood pressure tanked.

But I will know that he was born from sheer grit & the strength of every midwife I’ve loved & the back beat of Hamilton at 1:50 am in a lonely hospital room.

The world turned upside down, then 100 more times in the tumultuous first year of his life.

But I did what I had to do & what I could do & I did it all for love of him. That day & every one that followed.

That is a story worth telling.

His birth. (Mine, too.)

2.25.20
A story and a word of thanks. You are amazing huma A story and a word of thanks. You are amazing humans.
Want to do some outrageous good with me? If our d Want to do some outrageous good with me?

If our daughters had lived, they would turn 5 years old this week. Our grief is enormous. But our gratitude for their lives is even bigger.

So in honor of Abby and Maggie's big birthday—one whole hand—I want to do something big.

Hunger has gnawed at my heart for the whole pandemic. It's all around us, growing every day. Yet often it flies under the radar of our concern because it's constant, while a thousand outrages and injustices rise up anew each day.

But I know our neighbors are struggling to put food on their tables. I believe we're called to feed the hungry.

And I'm convinced that in the worst of times, we can show up with our best selves.

So I want to do something outrageous. I want to raise $20,000 for Second Harvest Heartland, one of the largest food banks in the U.S., located right here in our beloved Twin Cities.

Their need has skyrocketed by 30% during the pandemic. Food shelves across the country are seeing record levels of need.

Feeding the hungry is a work of mercy. A work we must take up in earnest.

I know many of you are struggling, too. Stretched thin, worn through, tapped out. Most of us don't have a lot to spare these days. So here's where we can help each other.

If each one of you who follows along to read my words gave $1 to @secondharvestheartland we could meet this crazy goal TODAY.

Could we do it? Should we do something spectacular this week?

I'm willing to try. I bet you are, too. If you give small—or big if you've got it, or simply share this post if you can't give right now—we could do it in HOURS.

That's the power of social media for good. The power of loving our neighbors in tangible ways.

Let's do it. I'm with you. Right now I'm giving in honor of two sweet girls that I wish were swinging their feet at our kitchen table, scarfing down dinner alongside their brothers.

Do it in honor of the kids you love. Or the kids you'll help but never meet.

Make it part of your alms-giving this Lent. Or make it today's small sacrifice: the cost of one cup of coffee.

I'm ready to do some wild good in this hardest week. Thank you for loving with me.
Caught myself dizzy from scrolling here and rememb Caught myself dizzy from scrolling here and remembered—we aren’t an island of misfit toys. We’re one big book of psalms.
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