
A NAME FOR A PARENT WHOSE CHILD HAS DIED
Reposted from Duke Today By KARLA FC HOLLOWAY In an NPR essay nearly three years ago, I pondered over the lack of a word for parents whose child had died. I remember I said it must be a quiet word, like our grief, but clear in its claim. I recalled the word that Lady Bird Johnson wanted no part of when her husband President Lyndon Johnson died -- "widow" -- a Sanskrit word that meant "empty." She was not empty, she asserted. She was grieving. But at least she had a word to re