A wife who loses a husband is called a widow.
A husband who loses a wife is called a widower.
A child who loses his parents is called an orphan.
There is no word for a parent who loses a child.
That's how awful the loss is.
– Jay Neugeboren – An Orphan's Tale – 1976
I saw these words echoed in an episode of one of my favorite shows, "Six Feet Under," and thought about them for a long time.
There is no word for a parent that loses a child. Anyone knows how devastating it is for a parent that loses a child, and no matter how much I've gone through, I can't even imagine what's it like to lose a child as a parent. Losing a spouse is universal enough that we have a word for it. Losing a parent is universal enough that we have a word for it.
What does it mean to have a word for something? It means we can grapple with it as humans and can reconcile with it. A name and a label give a sensation universality and validation. But when there's no word for something? It means it's something we don't even want to think about -- and losing a child is one of those things.
"Widow" in Sanskrit means "empty," and when we go to Sanskrit for a word for a parent losing a child, the word is "Vilomah". Vilomah is a word that means "against a natural order". It's unnatural to have a child to die before a parent. It's unnatural to have to bury your own child.
But Vilomah has not entered our daily use and vernacular yet. Other languages have a word for a bereaved parent -- in German, a bereaved mother is a Verwaiste Mutter. In Arabic, a bereaved mother is a takla. In Hebrew, a family that has lost a child is a shakula.
Why isn't there a word? Why isn't there a label? And for those who say labels are limiting and imposing, imagine having to describe the fact that your child died, and then be asked about the circumstances around your child's death, and having to go into detail about the death of your child.
In 1988, Ronald Reagan declared October as the National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. Jude Gibbs of The Mighty argues that there isn't a word because words fail us. Words don't describe us, and the level of pain that accompanies losing a child cannot be measured with a word.
It is a phenomenon that disturbs me beyond belief, but now I am reminded of Robert Frost, my favorite poet, who had four children and a wife die before he did. "Home Burial" was one of his poems in one of his early books, "Home Burial." It is a rich and very sad poem that describes a narrator and his wife arguing after having a child die and having to bury the child.
The man is talking to his wife about the graveyard and his family's plot on the graveyard, and begins describing the act of burying the child. "Don't," the wife says four times. The man and the woman have a silent confrontation of looks, before the man pleas to her: "can't a man speak of his own child he's lost?"
And then come some of my favorite words in all of poetry:
"Tell me about it if it's something human.
Let me into your grief."
Of course, the rest of the poem is a lot of back and forth arguing and bickering between the wife and husband. As a reader, I get the sense that these vicious backs and forth happen frequently, almost every day. The two of them are jealous, resentful, fighting, and completely disgusted with each other. Life goes on, even when something so against the natural order like burying a child happens.
But how does life go on? Not only is a child dying in the poem, but a marriage is collapsing as well. The husband and wife don't communicate well, both grieving in their independent ways, showing there is no right way to grieve a parent losing a child. Perhaps there is no way to grieve at all of the wound -- only time will heal.
The lesson for today is that some things in life are unfathomable. A parent losing a child is one of them. I struggle to even find Bible verses that apply explicitly to a parent losing. child. But Matthew 5:4 tells us that "blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."
Losing a child is one of those losses no one ever gets over or moves on from. It is only a loss that we cope with better over time when it happens. There are no good rules or guidelines, but losing a child might not have a word, but there is a community of people who have also lost a child.
And maybe we should seek the counsel of parents who have been through it as a guiding light, not only the parents who have lost their children but those of us who have been in positions where we need to comfort them in the future.
Cheryl McDonald, who had a 26 year old son die from injuries in a car accident, wrote a poem titled "Life Goes On". Her child was an organ donor, and the bracelets her son wore had written the words "life goes on". McDonald talks about how the loss of her child can't be measured by the three years that had passed in time, nor can it be measured in any increment.
"As I yearn for the day when I'll again see my son,
Is it true what they say, that life goes on," she said.
She recognizes that time does not heal all wounds. Life goes on, and the wounds are still there. But as time passes from her son's death, she recognizes that her son's heart still beats inside a stranger she'll never meet.
"So many lives saved by your own,
Yes - it's true what they say, that life goes on."
So there is no word for a parent that loses a child. The only thing that is firm and true for the parent, for better or worse, is that life goes on.
