Labeling the Abyss: Giving Grieving Parents a Name

At the end of August, we got to celebrate Rennie Lynne's 4th birthday.  Let me tell you- Planning a party for a living daughter is way more fun than planning one for a dead daughter.  Yeah.  Grief comes in these sudden, smashing waves, completely upending normal life and knocking the unsuspecting victim (Read: Me) on their butt.

There is no word for a parent who has to bury their child, for one who stares at an ultrasound waiting for a heartbeat that won't come, for one who gets the dreaded "overdose" call from a hospital.  At least a concise title could appropriately bear witness to the heaviness of loss, much like "orphan" or "widow" can.  Often this missing terminology is attributed to the idea that a child's death defies definition, the event being so wrenching it removes human capacity for suitable language.  And yes, this IS true; a loss of this type disrupts the natural order of things, spinning the circle of life in the wrong direction.  However, I'd submit that deep grief -especially over unanticipated events, aka: a pandemic- is enough to throw anyone's rhythm off-balance, leaving them dumbstruck and inarticulate. Although a situation or sadness may be considered *out of the ordinary* for the general population, it doesn't eliminate the brutal familiarities of that experience for the ones who've endured it.  Bluntly put: Simply because something is unnamed, doesn't mean it is unknown.  With infertility, by "specifying" my heartache -i.e. actually naming the second son I hoped I'd carry- it gave me the boundaries I needed to appropriately mourn.  Words matter.  Names are powerful.  Language helps us identify the world around us and the world within us.  In her raw book "Notes on Grief," Chimamanda Adichie speaks to this: "Grief is a cruel kind of education.  You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger.  You learn how glib condolences can feel.  You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language." 

With that established, I humbly present: Vaycrent.  A title for a parent whose child dies before them.  And because loss related things so often need to be clarified, vaycrent refers to a parent (of any age) whose child (ages embryo and up, according to each parent's consideration) dies (of any cause, natural or otherwise) before them.  (P.S. This isn't remotely a conversation about abortion, so please don't infer religious sentiment.  Read thoughts about that topic here.)

Vacant.  Vagrant.  Vacuum.  These words represent foundational pieces of Vaycrent.

Vacant- Empty.  An unfilled position.  A blank stare.  All accurate descriptions of parental grief.  When Margot was born, the hospital sent us home with a decorative box full of infant loss resources.  That's what we brought home.  I went in full of our miracle baby girl and left completely emptied out.  Of everything.  The loss of a child, especially an only child, seemingly strips parents of their role.  Because if a person isn't *presently acting* as a parent, then how the hell can they claim the title?  These are the dark thoughts clouding minds of mourning parents.  It's as if the ability to rightly classify yourself as a parent died along with your precious child.  That part of yourself is gone.  Cleared out completely.

Vagrant- Someone without an established home, who drifts from place to place.  Losing a child not only undermines one's position as a parent, but also aspects of personal identity and connection.  In a world that groups people by broad generalities, loss parents don't know where they belong.  Think about it-What questions are asked upon meeting someone for the first time?  "What do you do?"  "Where do you live?"  "Are you married?"  "Do you have kids?"  "How many kids do you have?"  And yes, on the surface these quandaries may sound very straightforward.  But grief's blended greytones struggle to find a safe resting place inside the harsh definition of such a black-and-white environment.  If a grief parent acknowledges their deceased child in these small talk situations, it becomes A WHOLE THING.  Usually the other person is stunned into sad eyes and awkward silence, until they can discreetly creep backwards and talk to a less-complicated, happier-looking individual.  But if a grief parent doesn't take these moments to say their child's name, they WILL be deeply pierced by self-loathing and sadness later on.  Guaranteed.  It may be minutes, an hour, even a week, but loss mamas (and daddies) are haunted by these interactions.  We dread having to again (and again) give an out loud confirmation that our child isn't here, will never be here.  And every reminder of their absence calls into question whether we belong here -or anywhere- either.

Vacuum-A space utterly lacking any physical material.  A void.  A sucking mechanism.  The black hole of loss -particularly early on- is entirely consuming, pulling in everything that "used to" be significant and rendering it nothing.  Even one's self is consumed, annihilated inside tragedy's greedy maw.  Given time, the blankness allows for creation again.  But the profound severing left from their undoing remains, forever wounding the very soul of a person.  Perseverance of loss eludes simple explanation.  Consider this: Just as a child's life isn't a singular event, neither is a child's death.  Parents celebrate numerous milestones and accomplishments as children grow and age, so it makes sense that -to an extent- vaycrents (<- Used my own word!) also mourn these milestones, accolades, and the more significant absence the removal of these happenings represent.  We didn't only lose Margot our daughter, the most beautiful and active baby.  We lost Margot the toddler, Margot the pre-teen, Margot as Rangila's sister, Margot as a college student, Margot as a flower girl in her brother's wedding.  The present-tense love we have for her can sometimes manifest as present-tense grief.  And, okay, the suction of grief's vacuum may *very well* lessen over time, but it won't disappear.  Because once you've stared into death's abyss, you will never fully escape its pull.

 

 

Read more about Melancholy, a statue by Albert György, here.

So, Vaycrent.  You'll notice it concludes with "rent," a shared suffix with the related word, parent.  To me, this acknowledgement is important.  No matter if you lost your child at 30 days, 30 weeks, 30 months, or 30 years, you are still a parent.  Their parent.  No matter if you go on to add many more children to your family -or- none at all, you are still their parent.  But the other piece of rent is just as meaningful.  A very bible-y definition of rent is to tear something, typically fabric, in half.  Usually this comes up in reference to Job who, after losing his entire livelihood and family, sat in his self-ripped (self-rent) clothes grieving among ashes and pottery shards.  The act of renting one's robes was the ultimate expression of agony.  And I'd submit that a death of a child, encountering unexpected tragedy, can absolutely tear the fabric of your life in two.  Before and After. The severing of self mentioned earlier.  Recognition of this split doesn't diminish the beautiful things of before -or- assume beautiful things can't be attained in the after.  It does, however, validate the truth of loss, the ongoing reality of missing your child at various ages and stages.  It confirms that, although each human lifestory has an assigned ending, the human lovestory knows no such bounds.