Project Diary: "The Missing Word"

Earlier this year, Marilyn participated in the making of a documentary. It is a short film, just over 7 minutes long, a joint project of Visioning Beyond Violence and Oakland's Youth ALIVE!. It came out this week.

Watch The Missing Word.

“The Missing Word” is about a linguist seeking to create a new word to refer to parents who have lost a child. That is, we have a word for children who have lost their parents, for spouses who have lost spouses, but nothing for parents like Marilyn whose have lost children. If someone says, “I’m an orphan,” we know what that means immediately. If someone says, “I’m a widow,” we have an immediate sense of their situation. But for the parents of the killed, there is no such word, and so always for them, out in the world, there is the burden of explaining and elaborating on their trauma. A one-word description could make their lives just a little easier, and signify as well the community they have become part of through their pain, but also through their enduring love for their lost children.

As an important part of her process, the linguist, Chelsea Frazier, listened carefully not only to the stories of three mothers who had lost sons in Oakland, but to how they told their stories, to the images and words they used. Then she invited them to come meet her new word and give her their thoughts about it. The film features beautiful commentary by the moms, including Renita Joseph and Carmen Morales, a look at Frazier’s process, and then, finally, the introduction of the new word.

The mothers who participated in the documentary, as well as some of the other people interviewed, are closely associated with Youth Alive. I got to watch it with all of them at YA last night. They had lots of ideas for how to bring the word to the world, and into usage.

The filmmakers are hoping that the new word will be used extensively, routinely, and that before too long it will begin to appear in dictionaries. You can learn more about the project and the people who did it here.

Watch The Missing Word.