Suleika Jaouad

gainst all odds, they persevere, becoming better, braver for their battle scars. Once victory has been secured, they return to the ordinary world transformed, with accrued wisdom and a renewed appreciation for life. For the past few years, I’ve been bombarded with this narrative, observing it in movies and books, fundraising campaigns and get-well cards.

Taking Melissa’s ashes to the place she loved most doesn’t lessen the pain of losing her, but it has shown me a way that I might begin to engage with my grief. It has introduced me to the role of ritual in mourning

But now, I’m not so sure, because cancer does a weird thing to you. It takes who you are and what you think you know and throws that all in the trash.”

We call those who have lost their spouses “widows” and children who have lost their parents “orphans,” but there is no word in the English language to describe a parent who loses a child. Your children are supposed to outlive you by many decades, to confront the burden of mortality only by way of your dying. To witness your child’s death is a hell too heavy for the fabric of language. Words simply collapse.