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hearts of flesh & hearts of stone

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He and I stare down at the freshly laid gravestone, edged by spring-green grass.

“When people come into our office for this,” he trails off, shielding his eyes from the morning sunshine, his weathered face suddenly young in disbelief.

“It’s the absolute worst when this happens,” he shakes his head, unable to speak the words “baby” or “dead” in the same sentence.

I nod. I can say anything; I have already baffled him with my sunny cheer, interrupting his silent, solitary task by jumping out of a minivan full of (living) children to ask if this was my daughters’ gravestone he was laying. When you start having a Strange Conversation with a Stranger, you can say anything and it is marvelously freeing.

(It wasn’t theirs; there is another baby buried next to them now; she lived two months; my mind calculates the math every time; dates are codes in this terrible club.)

“It’s not like Grandma who got 80, 90 years, lived a full life,” he continues, waving a heavy hand toward his mud-splashed truck. Two more markers lie nestled in the bed, each bearing two names (until death do us part, and even then we share the stone), waiting to be lowered by his small crane.

“It’s just – it’s terrible.”

. . .

He works with death each day, 9-to-5. His job is to translate love into stone, to dig up soft earth and lay down hard granite. Memory carved into rock for centuries to come.

Still he cannot bring himself to speak of what it means when a baby dies.

I have long thought this about infant death, even before my twins died. We shove it to the side, push it to corners of cemeteries, cover it with pity in hushed conversations, shudder at the strange ones who still talk about dead babies decades later.

We bury it down not because it is so small, but because it is terrifyingly huge.

A whole life swallowed up by death at its beginning.

For wherever we stand to consider the stark reality of the youngest dying, we ourselves have had decades of living to look back on. To imagine all evaporated in an instant – every first kiss, home-cooked dinner, summer thunderstorm, family party, tear-streaked laughter, lakeside sunrise, new job, wedding toast, newborn grandchild, fireworked sky, fresh snowfall, Christmas morning – is so overwhelming that we race from the thought as fast as we can.

They lost a baby, we whisper.

No: they lost a child, a teenager, an adult, too. They lost everything at once.

I was the strange one that morning.

I drove away and left him to his quiet task, his daily works of mercy. As fields rolled past, young and green and beginning, his faltering words carved absence into my thoughts.

It’s the absolute worst when this happens.

His fear and reverence shook me. A validation of my own life’s unraveling; a yawning abyss into which I might fall again, if I only consider the enormity.

I don’t know how they did it, strangers comment, shaking their head to break the somber spell of sorrow. I can’t imagine the strength those parents have.

We don’t know either. Would it make you feel better to know that?

But we never had the chance to choose. Getting through grief meant life or death, and we already had enough of death.

Any strength came from simple repetition: another morning, the child is still dead, rise and eat, rinse and repeat.

I don’t know how we go on, I only know that we go on.

. . .

A few months ago I spoke to a gathering of women of all ages. After the talk, they came up to me one by one. From their mouths poured stories of babies lost. Miscarriage after miscarriage when no one helped. Stillborn sons and daughters whisked away by doctors.

To a person, those women could tell me how old their babies would be right now. Half a century later.

If there is one truth I could impress upon the soft ground of your heart as you read hard words, it would be this: grief whisked away or buried in corners or muffled in whispers or shamed into silence does not shrivel up sooner. It grows in the darkness until it seeps out the edges.

So speak their names, send a card, remember their dates, count them in the family’s number – do any small thing to honor the enormity of their parents’ loss.

Let the air of love breathe round the wound if there is to be any hope of healing.

And this, too: honor the startling wonder of your own life and those you love. The dazzling, baffling gift that all your cells conspired to keep you here this long when it could have been otherwise, a thousand different ways.

We keep their memory not in stone, not in earth, but in the flesh of hearts that remember. Grace and love, grace and love, let our pulse beat in thanks.

I don’t know how we go on, I only know that we go on.

Glory, what a heavy blessing that it is so.

. . .

If you or someone you love has suffered the loss of a child, our new book Grieving Together: A Couple’s Journey through Miscarriage speaks to infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant loss.

A special early e-edition of the book is now available. Simply pre-order the book on Amazon and forward your receipt to JAdamson@OSV.com to receive the e-book via email before your hard copy arrives when it releases in November. 

Stay tuned for more special resources for Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month in October.

This post contains Amazon affiliate links.

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Comments

  1. Lauren says

    2 October 2018 at 2:47 pm

    This: “If there is one truth I could impress upon the soft ground of your heart as you read hard words, it would be this: grief whisked away or buried in corners or muffled in whispers or shamed into silence does not shrivel up sooner. It grows in the darkness until it seeps out the edges.” My aunt has said something very similar when she talks about losing her brothers. That as the days pass by, as we who grieve become more and more “okay,” less and less visibly grief-stricken—it’s merely a cover. Not a day goes by that we don’t remember that litany. It doesn’t disappear; it just gets knitted even more closely into our being. Say their names, because we know them and have not forgotten them.

    Reply
  2. Gabriela says

    2 October 2018 at 10:16 pm

    Thank you for this. I lost my 7th baby one week and a half ago. I have 6 living children to mother here on this side of heaven. The absence of my little one that I didn’t have a chance to hold, kiss, feed is quite overwhelming.

    Reply
  3. Heather Faase says

    3 October 2018 at 7:25 am

    I should know better by now, but I sure don’t. I made it through the first half without a tear because it’s all too familiar and this is our life. I even thought to myself, “I’m a rock these days, I don’t think Laura can break me today”. You did. You got me at “No: they lost a child, a teenager, an adult, too. They lost everything at once.” I hate the club we’re in but I love that we have a fearless leader like you to put words to the pain.

    Reply
  4. Jamie says

    4 October 2018 at 11:46 am

    Thank you for this. It’s all beautiful, but this part particularly rings true for me:

    “And this, too: honor the startling wonder of your own life and those you love. The dazzling, baffling gift that all your cells conspired to keep you here this long when it could have been otherwise, a thousand different ways.”

    Our daughter lived only 33 hours. We never got to bring her home from the hospital. When friends seem to be taking a healthy pregnancy and uneventful ultrasounds and newborn homecomings for granted, I want nothing more than for them to realize what an staggering miracle it all us. If the loss of our baby makes other people more grateful and aware of how precious it all is, that would be so, so good.

    Reply
  5. Aaron says

    5 October 2018 at 11:37 am

    Could barely make it all the way through without a lump in my throat. I couldn’t imagine such a thing. I remember when I lost my parents, it was life shattering. I can’t imagine losing a son of mine.

    Reply
  6. James Connolly says

    16 October 2018 at 9:10 am

    I still think of my children who died, three of them, twin girls and my little boy. Dad’s are supposed to be strong – it’s been over 40 years! You never forget, you just move on because you have to.

    Reply
  7. Natalie says

    1 November 2018 at 8:11 am

    This is probably one of the most beautiful things I have ever read. You have a gift to translate the untranslatable, to put into prose the feelings that can’t possibly be shared unless you are in “this terrible club.” Your writing is a blessing.

    Reply

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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

thismessygrace
If our daughters had lived, we never would have pl If our daughters had lived, we never would have planted this garden. 

There are pockets of beauty in my life today that could not have existed if they had survived.

Acknowledging this does not mean I accept their loss. Or that I wouldn’t trade it all to have them here instead.

But the grieving know this strange, stubborn, saving truth: that goodness can grow in the gaping holes left by the ones we love.

I don’t know any simple ways to make sense of the hard times in which we’re living. As a porous soul, I feel it all and it breaks my heart, even as I cling to what I know is true.

But loving and losing my girls has taught me that life is both heart-breaking and resilient, that surviving is more complicated than we suspect, that most people are walking around shattered beneath the surface.

Sometimes I can catch a glimpse of it, searing as sunlight: the grief in someone’s eyes behind their anger, the burden sagging their shoulders, the past that’s poisoning their present. Few things have transformed my life more than learning to recognize pain in others.

Grief is a long letting go of a life you thought you’d have. Most of us are carrying more of it than we realize—or remember when we’re dealing with each other (especially when we’re tearing each other down).

Go gentle today. Practicing compassion and generosity of spirit will crack open more of the world and its confounding struggles. You might lose the satisfying clarity you clung to before life broke your heart in complicated ways, but you will find more of God in the messy, maddening middle.

I have learned this much from the garden I never planned to plant, from a version of life I never dreamed.
Nearly 20 years ago (!) these crazy kids graduated Nearly 20 years ago (!) these crazy kids graduated from Notre Dame. Now we’re thick in the midst of life-with-kids, celebrating middle school & preschool & everything in between. 
 
Since June is a month for graduations & celebrations, I’m delighted to help you celebrate with @grottonetwork .

Grotto Network shares stories about life, work, faith, relationships, and more. Check out their videos, podcast, and articles to help you reflect on where you are in your journey.
 
Grotto Network has generously given 2-$100 gift cards to Bloomin’ Brands Restaurants (Outback, Carrabba’s, Bonefish Grill & more) to help you celebrate this month with friends & family! It’s a huge giveaway, because we all need to savor and celebrate whatever joy we can find these days.
 
To enter the giveaway, follow @grottonetwork and @thismessygrace and leave a comment below about what you’re celebrating this month. Tag a friend for extra entries (up to 3).
 
Rules: Open to the U.S. only. Entries will be accepted until 6/11/22 at 11:59 pm CT. The 2 winners will be chosen at random and announced on 6/12/22. Per Instagram rules, this promotion is in no way sponsored, administered, or associated with Instagram, Inc. By entering, entrants confirm that they are 13+ years of age, release Instagram of responsibility, and agree to Instagram's terms of use.
“How did you do this?” I want to ask her. “H “How did you do this?” I want to ask her. “How did you let your heart break a thousand times?”

I want to call my mother and ask her impossible questions, to probe her heart that held five children and let each of us go in the hardest ways. But I know what she will say, “It’s hard. But you’re doing a beautiful job.” She can’t give words to the deepest yearnings and groanings. None of us can.

I wish I could ask my grandmothers, each of them gone for decades now, each of them matriarchs who raised big broods of their own. I never got to know them as an adult, but I have heaps of questions: How did you do it? How did you not lose yourself or your way? Or did you, and that was precisely the point?

I want a whole book of answers to impossible questions, and none exists. So I send my thoughts to the mothers of faith whose short stories, mere snippets on pages, have sparked small lights to guide me along. To Sarah and Ruth, Hagar and Rachel, Mary and Elizabeth. Every unnamed anguish the holy ones carried, every treasure of love they held in their heart.

Is it any coincidence that birth often brings both cries and screams, laughter and joy?

We hold it all within us. We cannot give words to the enormity of what it means to mother.

I sit outside a coffee shop two blocks from my children’s school on a sunny afternoon, the last day of the year. I wipe away tears for the natural nostalgia, but I also feel the gutting grief welling up from my own wounds of motherhood to know a deeper truth: marking milestones with love and longing is nothing compared to the gaping loss of not having your child here to break your heart in a thousand tiny ways.

So I resolve again, a hundred times again, to let this vulnerability become the strength that keeps me fighting for all children to have what I want for my own: life, love, health, safety, support, opportunity, community, hope. This is how parenting asks us to change. To let the particulars of our lives stretch us to love more widely.

I once thought “to mother” meant to have and to hold.

Now I know it also means to let go.
Many of you asked me to save these suggestions I s Many of you asked me to save these suggestions I shared after the school shooting in Uvalde.

Remember: we can’t do everything, but we can each do something.

Just because we can’t eradicate evil overnight doesn’t mean we can’t take small strong steps toward change.

Any work for justice and peace is long and hard. But we can build this work into our daily lives in concrete ways.

Look at the children in your life. What would you do to keep them safe and alive?

Start there. Let your life and love lead you.
When women meet, the world changes. Today is the When women meet, the world changes.

Today is the Feast of the Visitation. A day when we remember the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth.

Two women pregnant with new life, blooming with prophetic power.
Two mothers called to change the world.

What would happen if we gathered together like this today?
How could the world change if we made Mary’s song our own?

“He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.”
(Luke 1:51-53)

Imagine if we stayed in this holy space—not for a moment’s meeting, but for months together—to gestate the dreams God was waiting to birth through us.

Imagine if we let ourselves be filled with the Holy Spirit to shout out with loud cries.
Imagine if we lifted our souls with prayers of justice and joy.

Imagine if we gave each other strength and service, courage and compassion, as we kept asking how to answer God’s call in our ordinary lives.

When women meet, the world changes.

If you want to know how to fight for justice for your children, for your people, for this world, look to the Visitation.

The mothers will show us the way. They already have.

(Image from the “Windsock Visitation” by Br. Mickey McGrath, OSFS, commissioned for the Monastery of the Visitation in north Minneapolis.)
Here’s what I wish I would have heard preached t Here’s what I wish I would have heard preached today on the Ascension.

Right now is a time to be prophetic and pastoral, a time for each of us to ask how God is calling us to act.
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