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Death when the promise of life is so great is death at its most unfair. The first steps, that won’t be seen. A first word unimagined. These painful losses leave a vacancy where a full heart was supposed to have been.
The community, well coached in the act of providing support to survivors after the death of an older person, is left without the script of normal grieving to follow. Losing a baby screams out from the deepest fears and keeps all but the bravest from even trying to offer comfort. Bereaved parents drift through a searing horror without comfort.
There was little in the way of formal Jewish ritual to comfort parents either. Before the age of modern medicine, many children succumbed to fevers, infections, and common illnesses now considered minor, before reaching their bar and bat mitzvah. As shiva and mourning customs were being shaped, they may have been curtailed for parents who lost young children to keep Jewish communities from being swathed in mourning rituals.
Today, babies are expected to thrive. When they don’t, their loss is real, sorrowful, and deserving of mourning. Funerals for infants are held regularly. Parents can choose to observe a shortened or full shiva. They join in the Kaddish or they may choose a less public ritual of personal mourning.
Recommended Reading
Confronting the Loss of a Baby by Yamin Levy
Rabbi Levy, himself the father of a stillborn baby, expresses a contemporary
view of the need for healing the loss of a baby.
Tears of Sorrow, Seeds of Hope by Nina Beth Cardin
Many people who endure the emotional suffering of infertility,
pregnancy loss, or stillbirth bear this sorrow alone. The sorrow of
the emptiness felt from a loss that is without a face, a name, or a
grave. At last, there is a source that acknowledges and encourages
expressions of their grief, and offers comfort in the moments of their
pain.
When a Baby Dies by Nancy Kohner, Alix Henley
Using letters from and interviews with many bereaved parents,
Nancy Kohner and Alix Henley have written a book which offers understanding of
what it means to lose a baby and the grief that follows.
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