No Words
A million words, none for this.
One of the many sympathy cards I received when my daughter Alecia died, simply said, There are no words. It still rings true.
The Oxford English Dictionary contains more than 600,000 words. However, if you’re looking for the number of words in current usage, estimates vary: Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary has around 470,000 entries.
Estimates suggest there are actually about 1 million words in total if you include scientific, technical, and slang terms.
A million words– and yet, there is not one for a parent who has buried their child.
There are words for humans who have lost a spouse (widow/widower) and for children who have lost their parents (orphan), but there is no widely recognized English word for a parent of a child who died.
In fact, very few cultures and languages have words for this unspeakable grief. I did find one that seemed like a good fit. In Sanskrit, the word vilomah means “against the natural order,” It is sometimes used to describe a bereaved parent.
Terms like “bereaved parent,” “angel mom/dad,” or “child-loss parent” are frequently used, but none carry the same formal weight as widow or orphan.
It’s understandable that there is not a single word to hold this enormous grief. It feels impossible to fully describe the nightmare. The weight of it is something society struggles to acknowledge, let alone name. But naming it — giving it a word — could be a way to recognize and validate the experience. Grieving parents often feel unseen in our suffering. It deserves a name because we exist.
Being a lover of words and a heartbroken mom with nothing to call myself, I decided to see what I could string together. I looked at several combinations and meanings of words and came up with a few suggestions.
These are not pretty words. They do not try to soften the blow. Unlike angel mom, they go deeper, darker, like the massive gaping wound in our hearts and souls. Don’t worry, I’ll try to ease you gently into the reality as I go.
Lamenta (from “lament”) — A person who carries endless sorrow.
Eclipsient (from “eclipse”) — A parent whose world has gone dark, shadowed by the loss of their child.
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Hiraethian (from Welsh “hiraeth,” meaning a deep longing for something lost that can never be reclaimed) A Hiraethian is a parent whose soul aches for what can never return.
Parentus Fragmentus (from “fragment” + “parent”) A parent whose soul exists only in fragments, never again fully intact.
Solivagarent (from Latin: “solus” (alone) + “vagari” (to wander)) — A soul wandering alone, forever searching for what was lost.
Vacilient (from “vacant” + “resilient”) A strange mix of strength and emptiness, demonstrating the resilience required to keep going despite the vacancy left in our existence.
Severent (from “severed”) A parent who has had a part of themselves cut away through loss. One who has been forcibly severed from their child.
Mutilarent (from “mutilated”) A parent left permanently scarred and wounded– mutilated by the loss of their child.
Purgatorian- (from “purgatory”) Purgatorian was the first word that came to mind and the last word I will share. It captures the in-between existence we live in. Trapped here- incomplete. The way we are no longer whole, forever suffering, yet expected to keep moving through life. It conveys the deep, unrelenting grief of losing a child in a way that language so often fails to do. It signifies the unbearable limbo of living in a world without your child.
I told you they were dark. The reality of a dead child can’t be tied up with a nice bow. There’s no name for a parent who has lost a child because the grief is too immense, too unnatural — so much so that language can’t explain it. There really are no words.
There is an emptiness they leave, a hollow, aching space where something beautiful once was. It’s the kind of void that no amount of time, words, or healing can ever truly refill.
It’s so much more than the fact that your child is gone- it’s a lifetime of shattered experiences. Memories that can no longer be made. Unrealized potential and future plans and dreams- all just gone. And there is not a damn thing you can do about it.
Words exist to make things comprehensible, to explain experiences so we can communicate them and create a shared understanding. But the loss of a child is incomprehensible. It goes against the natural order, defies logic, and leaves those who endure it in a space where no word feels sufficient.
Naming it won’t fill the hole, but it could bring recognition — not just of the loss, but of the fact that it can happen to anyone. And while I know that’s terrifying, it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist. It would at least offer a sense of acknowledgment, a way for those who live with this loss to say, “This is what I am,” without needing to explain the unbearable.
Hi, my name is Jan. I’m a Mutilarent Purgatorian, a Parentus Fragmentus. I’m a Solivagarent- wandering alone through this world searching for meaning after being robbed of joy by the death of my sweet Alecia.
If you are one too, try one of these words. See if it fits. Or create your own. I’m so truly, deeply sorry you know what it means to have no words too.
