Strange that despite the archetype image of Christianity’s Pieta, humanity seems to have persistently avoided the task of naming parents who lost a child. We have a word for the reverse—child who lost both parents—orphan. There seems to be no word for the inconsolable mother on whose arms her child’s body slumps.
Orphan comes from the Latin word “orphanus,” meaning “parentless child.” Husband dies, we call the wife “widow,” theoretically from the Latin “viduus,” meaning “bereft, void,” although further back, it could also come from “uidh,” which means “to separate, divide.” Still, others say “widow” is a Sanskrit word that means “empty.” But what unnameable void can ever be imagined where the parents lose a child?
We have asked this question in the light (or dark) of news of the unforgivable nature of the newer coronavirus variant—the Delta—which has struck in all places, “regardless of demographics,” as an emergency official said. Yes, this time, including children, erstwhile skipped by the virus’ original version.
Only recently, Lapu-Lapu City reported of 32 minors at the Home Care Center for Children in Barangay Gun-ob being struck with Covid-19. The figure is a far cry from the regional health department’s Aug. 10 report of two 10-year-olds that were positive for the Delta variant. There is no word yet if it’s the variant that infected the Lapu-Lapu children, but at the current rate that infections are rising, it is wiser to assume of a Delta presence.
Early this month, too, the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) caught a trend of infected children, forcing the hospital to expand pediatric bed capacity and intensive care units for the Covid sick. PGH spokesman Jonas del Rosario, in a report, said the patients range from infants to teenagers.
This trend speaks of a rather dismal scenario. For one, scientists early on have found that coronavirus in children did not cause illness, but they became potent carriers as they carry greater viral load. Imagine the case with the current Delta variant, this time really causing symptoms, often severe, among children. Hospitals have been reporting pediatric admissions due to Covid-19. Secondly, minors find themselves at the bottom of the vaccination list, a situation likely made more tragic by parents who refuse vaccination.
This development magnifies every individual’s responsibility now, especially those who share the same roof with children. This adds weight to the urgency and gravity of submitting oneself to vaccination and in following the health protocols—yes, to the maximum. Government can shepherd the populace to whatever quarantine status it deems fit, but the moral responsibility of protecting our loved ones is nothing but personal. It rests on you, entirely.
The death of children “inverted the natural order of things,” as Duke University Professor Karla Holloway said of war survivors, who were instead made to bear the great grief of burying their sons and daughters, who supposedly should have outlived them. The professor herself had to forage for a word to call her own loss, and finally found “vilomah,” pronounced “vee-lo-mah,” drawn from the Sanskrit that means “against the natural order.” Voila, “vilomah” then to refer to parents who lost a child.
This pandemic had altogether messed up the natural order of our lives, and no less than the more potent mutations of the virus have outstretched their arms to endanger our children. While we do have the word, it is one we hope we’d never get to use—God forbid, vilomah.