The Grief No One Names

≈ 6 min read

FR EN← The path· Cross-cutting appendix · completes the “Loss of a baby” order of service in the core sheet

Listen

Tip: tap a paragraph to read from there.

Do not give the Deuilmètre to these people. It assumes a death the world around them recognised — it counts time as though the world had wept with them. It did not, and that is the wound. The Deuilmètre now carries this limit at its head, and sends them here. This sheet is the tool.

At a glance

Disenfranchised grief(Doka, disenfranchised grief): a loss that those around do not recognise, do not name, do not ritualise.
A double pain: the loss itself, and the silence built around it.
Naming is the first pastoral act. Name the child. Name the loss. Out loud.
The father is forgotten— almost always. “It was her body, her child… and yet it was our loss.”
Your recognition may be the only one this person will ever receive.

Train — what you must know

Kenneth Doka gave a name to what every pastor has seen without knowing how to say it : disenfranchised grief (disenfranchised grief) — a grief that society does not recognise as a real grief, and for which it offers neither rite, nor condolences, nor permission to weep.

When a woman loses her husband, the community knows. There is a coffin, a ceremony, neighbours who bring food for a week. The pain is terrible, but it is recognised. When a pregnancy stops, when a woman loses the child she was carrying : no one brings a meal. No one comes and sits down. No one knows what to say. The loss is just as real — but it is invisible.

What must be held. The widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17) is the biblical figure of this pain : a woman no one expected in the great story, gathering two sticks — the exact measure of a last fire.And God saw her. Before she knew, before she understood, He had already sent someone to her. Heaven’s silence was not His absence : it was the time Elijah took to walk.

“Pain may be unavoidable, but our sense of misery is, to a certain extent, optional.” — Roberto Badenas, Frente al dolor

And Badenas again, on what truly comforts : “What we most need is not for someone to explain to us the why of our suffering, but for someone to offer us his presence and his sympathy.” Elijah does not arrive at Zarephath with a theological explanation. He arrives with his presence.

Understand — the griefs no one names

Perinatal grief— miscarriage, blighted ovum, intrauterine death, stillbirth. “That formed dwelling which never received its inhabitant.”
The father’s grief— the great forgotten one (see below).
Suicide, overdose— shame is added to the silence.
A former spouse, a hidden relationship— one is not even allowed to grieve.
Dementia— losing someone before his death, because memory has left him and one no longer exists for him.
Infertility— the awaited child who never came.
The living child who has become a stranger— the one who took a road no one imagined.
A smothered calling— that sense of a call which no one else ever saw.

The double pain. There is the loss. And there is the silence built around the loss because no one knows what to do with it. The person says nothing, the family says nothing, the Church says nothing — and she ends by wondering whether her pain has the right to exist.

The silence of the one who has lost is not a refusal to speak. It is often the effect of shock: trauma takes away the capacity to put things into words (D. Langberg). Your part is not to push her to speak — it is to give her back access to a language which she will take up again when she is ready.

The father — the one no one asks about

It was her body, her child. And yet it was our loss. The father says nothing: he does not know whether he has the right to be as sad as she is. So he shuts down, he “holds”, he becomes the pillar — and no one ever asks him how he is. His grief is doubly unrecognised : invisible because perinatal, invisible because male.

What you do : you ask him the question no one asks him. Separately. “And you, how are you?” You tell him he has the right to grieve his child. You do not let him take refuge in the role of the strong one.

Serve — name, ritualise, come back

1. Name. This is the first and the most powerful pastoral act. Name the loss out loud.Name the child by his first name if he has one — and if he has none, gently offer the parents the chance to give him one. That name may be the only rite this child will ever receive.

2. Ritualise. A pain with no rite stays without form. Offer it a container : a moment of prayer with the parents alone, a candle, a flower, a letter written to the child, an entry in a register. This is not a funeral — it is a recognition .

The letter — and the line not to cross. Writing to the child is not speaking to the dead. You do not call on him, you ask him nothing, you expect no answer : no one hears it, and that is precisely why it sets you free. It is a word the mother lays down, not a word she addresses. The line is crossed the moment one speaks to the deceased expecting him to listen, to watch over, to protect (see “ Hymns and Funerals ” : a song addressed to the deceased — we do not speak to the dead). The difference is not in the gesture, it is in the intention — like the two candles of the foundation.

3. Mobilise the Church. Here is the scandal: for a widowhood, rice is brought for a week; for a pregnancy that stopped, no one moves. Make them move. A meal, a visit, a presence — the same gestures as for any other grief.

4. Come back. Perinatal grief has dates that no one else knows : the expected due date, the date of the loss. Note them. Come back on those dates. No one else will.

The sentences that wound — and why

« You are young, you will have others.” — As if a child could be replaced.
« It is better this way, there was probably something wrong with him.” — As if logic could relieve a pain.
« At least you had not had time to grow attached.” — As if attachment began at birth, and not at the instant the mother learns he is there.
« God needed an angel.” — False, and cruel: God is not the author of this death.

And the opposite trap : do not go and promise either that “the jar will fill up” if she makes an act of faith. That promise has its place in a Sabbath sermon —never at the bedside of a woman who has just lost her child.

A resource — a sermon on this pain.“ When Heaven Is Silent ” (Ps. Ah Kiune Hughes) — the widow of Zarephath and the suffering that has no words left.Careful : it is a 45-minute Sabbath sermon, with an appeal. It is not a funeral sermon and it must not be preached as one (see the outline). It is a resource for preaching on suffering and for walking with this particular grief.