There Is No Word

 When a spouse dies, the one left is called a widow or widower.  

When parents die, the kids are called orphans.  

But when a child dies, there is no word for the parents who are left behind.

I know that I wouldn't be the one wearing a sign that says "I am one".  But if the topic came up, it might be easier if I could just say that I'm a ... i dunno ... parent left behind.  There is no loss that matches the loss one feels when a child dies.  The love between a parent and child is one of a kind.  Which means the loss is also one of a kind.  

When I lived in San Jose, our neighbor across the street was the sweetest older gal.  She was in her 80s and loved to chit chat, always something interesting to say.  But when her son died from a heart attack in his late 50s, she told me "We're supposed to go first, a parent should never be there to watch their child die".   I have to agree with her.  It's an unbelievable pain that doesn't fit any other description.  

My mother is a good one to go to for discussions about loss.  Her husband died, her daughter died, her grandson died, both her mother and father died many years apart.  She's had many losses in her life, but I won't be asking her which of them was the hardest.  They are all hard to deal with, each in their own different way. 

But in my normal fashion, I happened to Google a search and found this:  “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.

Like I always say to my mom when we discover something we didn't know before ... "Who knew??"  I know I won't be hearing it from anyone else, but there's a bit of comfort in knowing that someone has identified us in some way.  Vilomah.  Yup, that's me.