When you lose a spouse or partner, there’s a term. You’re either a widow or widower. “Widow” comes from the Old English widewe, which has an Indo-European root meaning ‘be empty.’
It’s comparable to the Sanskrit vidh that means ‘to be destitute,’ and the Latin viduus that means ‘bereft. Each definition adds to our understanding of the experience, and they indicate that there is not one word to describe how it feels to lose a mate that we dearly love.
When grief comes, ordinary language splinters like a tree that’s been struck by lightning. No one term is able to describe all the feelings, thoughts, and anguish of the experience. We need a glossary.
The terms we use should not take us on a bypass around talking about grief. They should take us into the heart of the City of Grief and into the experience, so that we can hear the stories.
Instead of saying that we’re a widow or widower, we should say that we are Empty. We are Destitute. We are Bereft, Lost, Broken because grief has taken over our entire existence, especially in the beginning. The terms that have meaning will change as we move through grief.
We grab snippets of words from the air and weave them into a tapestry of grief’s landscape.
We need to use the words that express the depths of our sorrow—the adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and metaphors—because if we don’t express the fullness of our grief, it will burn us away until we are hollow and silent.
Every grief term is just a door, a business card that you hand someone. It tells them what is rumbling and tumbling through our days. But it only identifies the door. They have to decide whether or not to open it and walk in.
Losing a spouse or partner is one kind of loss that we experience in life. When both of our parents die, we are deemed an orphan, which is a significant designation when we’re a teenager or younger and are suddenly on our own, scrambling to survive, although it feels odd to use this term when we’re older than 60 when they die.
In Sanskrit, to lose a child is vilomah "against a natural order." In Hebrew it’s shkhol. Are there terms in English for the devasting loss of a child, a sibling, a best friend?
Thank you for this. I read it with tears in my eyes as I approach the anniversary of my husband's death. Your writing goes right to the core of grief and I share it with those who might not see it here. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Mary. May your anniversary be one of remembrance and gratitude for what has been and what will be.
DeleteLike Mary, this week is the anniversary of my husband's death and your words couldn't have come at a better time. A neighbor of mine, whose husband died a few years ago, still uses "We" when referring to something she has that she shared with her husband. "'We' still have that old lawn mower," for example. I find it apt and appropriate that she does.
ReplyDeleteMaybe there's something in the air, Lynn and Mary—the anniversary of my wife Evelyn's death is coming up in two weeks. I heartily agree about the we. Shared experiences and shared possessions always are a "we" matter. And because grief for our loved one never goes away, neither does the part of us that is forever "we." There's no reason why we need to change this. We're "we" unto eternity.
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