Vilom - a new english word?
A new word for a Bereaved Parent
“The young perish and the old linger. That I should live to see the last days of my house. No parent should have to bury their child” – King Théoden The Two Towers1
After years of battle my husband died from cancer in September 2018. I can’t describe the pain I felt that day. I became a widow. That one word sums up a lot; a single noun to describe what I had become; a person who’s lost their spouse. We have a word for a child who’s lost a parent, they’re now an orphan. But, what do you call a parent who has lost a child?
I didn’t think on it, a name for a parent who’s child has died before the parent. Until, I saw similar sadness and pain expressed on the faces of my old in-laws when my husband died. Yes, I was his wife who is now a widow but the parents lost their son. They were the ones who saw him grow from a baby, nourished him through his formative years into the man I married.
There is no noun I could find in English, Tagalog or even Korean to describe a parent whose child has died before them. You have to describe it to the speaker – bereaved parent, parent who’s child is gone/lost.
The closest word I’ve found to even start to describe a parent who’s child has died: Vilomah.
Vilomah is Sanskrit for:
· Against the natural order
· Produce in the reverse order
· Contrary to the usual or proper course
This definition is echoed in Yoga2. One example is the name of a breathing exercise: Vilom Pranayama3. It’s a breathing exercise where you can hold your breath on the inhale or on the exhale. Since the exercise goes against the ‘normal’ flow of breathing, holding the breath, the Vilomah definition is preserved here.
“There is no word for a parent who loses a child. That’s how awful the loss is.”
― Jay Neugeboren, An Orphan's Tale
The reason I put start to describe the new status of a parent is that there’s no real decision on Vilomah’s usage in English. From Duke University, Prof Karla Holloway4 offered Vilomah5 in 2009 and it seems to be catching on6. But, it doesn’t sit right with everyone. A Tweet from Abishek Avtans7, an Indic Languages Lecturer from Leiden University (Netherlands), from 2020 rebuts Prof Holloway’s usage of Vilomah saying that there is no hint of this sadness of loss in Sanskrit8.
I would like to put forward another contender to attempt to describe a parent who’s child has died: empty/hollow. That is what I felt and what I saw in my old in-laws face when Dwayne died. I think utilizing an already established english word is okay. Look at how the definition of gay has changed from the start of the 20th Century to now9.
But if that’s not your thing, let’s look at other languages words for empty.
Hindi - khokhala - खोखला
Tagalog: Guwang
Korean: Gumeong - 구멍
In that same grain, since the Sanskrit ‘Vimomah’ has already gained traction, I would actually prefer to use the modern Hindi: Vilom विलोम. The definition means opposite, inversive, antithesis. And I imagine that the loss of a child would, as the second definition would suggest, flip the parents life upside down. Also, when you end the word, to produce the humming ‘m’ noise, you must purse your lips. Leaving the lips to be left in a turned down state.
I am a widow; Listeners or readers underrated this instantly that my spouse is dead. If someone says that they are an Orphan; it’s understood that their parents died during their formative years. But for the parent whos’ child has died, what do we call them? Vilom? Possibly, or is it too much to restrain the subjective sense of loss that a parent feels to one word?
https://www.karlaholloway.com/vilomah
https://today.duke.edu/2009/05/holloway_oped.html
https://www.christiancentury.org/article/features/we-need-word-mothers-whose-children-have-died
https://avtans.com/2022/06/26/words-in/
https://www.gayly.com/history-word-%E2%80%9Cgay%E2%80%9D