CNN reporter Andrew Kaczynski and his wife, Wall Street Journal reporter Rachel Louise Ensign, expressed their gratitude for the messages and donations after the death of their 9-month-old daughter, Francesca, on Christmas Eve from cancer.
“Thank you all, your messages have touched our hearts”, Kaczynski tweeted on Saturday. “We are very grateful for how much money was raised in honor of Francesca for Dana Farber to fight this terrible disease and we will spend the rest of our lives involved in the search for a cure.”
Shortly after sharing his message of gratitude on Saturday, Kaczynski posted a short clip of Francesca on Twitter, shot in late July. In the video, she is smiling and laughing, showing her cheerful personality.
“I know that many of you didn’t know Beans before your cancer diagnosis in September,” he I wrote. “She had great vitality before starting treatment. And we are so lucky that she had a normal six months to live.”
Kaczynski announced in Twitter in September, that Francesca was diagnosed with an “extremely rare and very aggressive rhabdoid brain tumor”.
He shared updates in the following months about his daughter’s condition. The child went through multiple brain surgeries In September. In mid-December, the reporter shared that her daughter had developed a fungal infection as a complication of her chemotherapy and spent two weeks on respirator and life support.
Kaczynski shared the tragic news on Friday that Francesca had died the night before, writing, “There will always be a bean-sized hole in our hearts for her.”
Kaczynski and Ensign described Francesca as a “daring and curious baby” in the obituary they wrote to their daughter to record her brief life.
“Her many smiles touched the world. She was so generous to them, even when most smiles were covered in masks and even when she faced challenges that would scare an adult, such as a cancer diagnosis or being born with hearing loss,” said obituary. “Francesca showed her parents a kind of love that they never knew and will never forget.”
Instead of flowers, the family requested that donations be made in honor of Francesca to Team Beans at the PMC Winter Cycle, which raises money for cancer treatment and research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. To date, Team Beans has raised more than $ 360,000 to benefit research on pediatric oncology and atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor (ATRT) in Dana-Farber.