Laura Kelly Fanucci
Recent Posts
We were brand-new to the clinic, looking for a new doctor after our beloved pediatrician had retired. Our three living children are healthy as galloping horses—a simple fact made astonishing after the deaths of their two sick sisters. But they still need well-checks and vaccines and strep tests and a place to call about rashes…
READ MOREWith laughter from the party still ringing in my ears, I headed toward the coat rack, hoping to grab my jacket and slip quietly away into the early evening cool to make it home before dark. But just as I reached the door, he turned and caught my eye. We smiled. Who can resist the…
READ MOREI have two items on my to-do list that I can’t get done: Order gravestone. Buy car seat. Every week they stare back at me blankly from my planner. Five simple words. One phone call to make. One purchase to click. Every week I turn away. I can’t tackle either one. (Yet.) Both must get…
READ MOREThis post contains affiliate links. May means Mother’s Day. I’ve written before about the complicated nature of this holiday (and the need to remember all kinds of mothers on Mother’s Day). But it remains a beautiful time to celebrate the women who have mothered us—and the mothers that many of us are becoming. In honor…
READ MOREOn the morning of my 22nd birthday, I woke disoriented. It was no youthful hangover. Not the tiring drag of gazing out onto another gloomy day of Indiana grey. No. I felt strangely lost. Adrift and unmoored. I had outlived him. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Grief was woven into the fabric of…
READ MOREThis post contains Amazon affiliate links. Trust me on these. I know, I know – I joke to my husband that over the past year, this blog morphed into “vaguely poetic reflections on life and death.” (I still scratch my head that anyone else wants to read along, but I’m so grateful you’re here!) But…
READ MOREPregnancy after the loss of a baby – following miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death – is a daunting prospect. From a distance I used to think “trying again” or “having another baby” must be a happy, hopeful, healing part of parenthood. (File this away under “Things I Didn’t Really Understand Until They Happened to Me.”)…
READ MOREThis week we remembered the anniversaries of Maggie and Abby’s births and deaths. As I journeyed through the three days, a brutal triduum, I began to see how deepest grief can take the shape of the paschal mystery. Dying and rising. As the first year after loss ends, I find myself turning toward new directions.…
READ MOREI had just thrown up when the doorbell rang. I wiped my mouth clean and pulled the door open to let February chill rush inside. “Laura?” asked the stranger. “Have a good day.” He handed me a hulking bouquet, plastic wrapped against the wind. “Ooo, Mama!” chirped the small boy at my knees. “Those are…
READ MORE“How can you choose to have a child now?” She asked me honestly, the way a wise and good friend can. We’d spent half of dinner talking about how the world is spinning mad, careening out of control. And then she leaned over the table in flickering candlelight and asked me – me sitting there nauseous,…
READ MORE‘A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter.’ One year ago was when everything started to go wrong with our twins. When the worst-case scenario became the present-day reality. When…
READ MOREHe stands at the top of the stairs, bare feet dancing in dinosaur pajamas. His bright eyes meet my own as I climb. His face beams with delight, blue stars flashing with brimming joy. MAMA! He shrieks with joy. MAMA! You are HERE! He tips his head backward, golden curls bouncing with glee. He laughs with bliss, bursts…
READ MORE