Vilomah
Through a contract with the Richardson Police Department, NYFC advocates remain available 24/7 to provide crisis intervention to victims of crime or other traumatic events. When a Richardson Police Officer responds to a situation, at any time, he or she can notify an NYFC advocate to request assistance. The Victims’ Assistance Program Director and NYFC therapists take turns being on-call after business hours. If they are notified, they respond to the scene, hospital or the station – wherever the officer suggests. They do not arrive as “therapists,” for they do not provide therapy. Rather, they provide crisis intervention and valuable information about how to manage the next 24 to 48 hours. They provide a bridge between a victim and the services available at our agency, where individuals and families can then receive long-term counseling and advocacy for months (and sometimes years) to come.
The most common type of call we respond to involves the death of someone’s family member or other loved one. Usually, the death is unexpected and involves a tragedy, such as a car crash, a horrible accident, a suicide or homicide. The hardest of those calls involves the death of a child, and NYFC advocates have responded to a countless number of these tragedies. Until recently, we had no name for these parents – parents whose children had died. That was until I learned about “Vilomah.”
Around Memorial Day, I read a piece in the Dallas Morning News regarding the need for grieving parents to have a name to describe their status. The column referred to Dr. Karla Holloway’s suggestion to apply the Sanskrit word “vilomah” to these special mourners. The article shared Dr. Holloway’s words: “Vilomah” means “against a natural order.” As in, the grey-haired should not bury those with black hair. As in, our children should not precede us in death. If they do, we are vilomahed. “Vilomah” is a name for the grief we represent. It might sound odd at first. But we have grown used to the word “widow.” It’s not much different, and it shares the same etymology.
I sent an email to Dr. Holloway because I feel like she has initiated what could be a trend or custom, and I wanted to give her credit for that. She also has experienced the grief that comes from losing a child. She wrote about her son’s death in the preface of her book, Passed On: African American Mourning Stories. Dr. Holloway is a professor of English at Duke University; I imagined she’d be too busy to reply, but I wanted to make an attempt to correspond with her. I was pleasantly surprised to find an email from her in my inbox less than 48 hours later. Her reply to my email included this: “I am indeed interested in the word gaining usage: but not in having it connected to my invention. My desire is more in line with something like what poet Gwendolyn Brooks said – to put something in the air, and let it take its own flight…But the word is ours, openly, for the grim and grievous use of those of us who heretofore have had no name.”
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One Comment on Vilomah
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macromedia on
Tue, 7th Jul 2009 2:21 am
Perfect!
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