Why is there no mourning for a baby lost to miscarriage, stillbirth or neonatal death before 30 days?
I would like b’ezrat Hashem to present an understanding, a limited understanding, my understanding.
A soul of such a sweet child is certainly no less important than any other soul brought to this world. The mourning rituals of kadish, aveilut, yizkor, unveiling of a gravestone do not apply to such children. For grieving parents, this can seem strange, if not cruel. No formal way to say goodbye. No closure. I think we need to consider that the typical mourning rituals are actually not an expression of the soul’s importance, but of a person’s social and public existence. These kinds of souls do not have the same kind of public social effect as others. Their loss is usually quite private. In the case of a miscarriage, sometimes the parents suffer silently. I would like to suggest, that as usual, the Torah seeks when possible, to protect one’s privacy. If there were public mourning rituals for miscarried children, the miscarriage would not be private. And while I believe miscarriage desperately needs to be brought into the light, and that couples must be encouraged to share their loss with those they care to share it with, a public declaration is not appropriate. Not because miscarriage is something to be ashamed of. But miscarriage is something that most people don’t understand.
The Torah is sensitive. Hashem is supremely sensitive to our needs. I think the lack of public mourning represents G-d’s understanding that the loss of a miscarriage is a kind of loss that only the parents can understand. Under usual circumstances, when someone dies, there is a funeral. Everyone understands that inside of the casket, is the body of a person who once lives. And that person is no longer here. That person is gone forever. They can see and understand what has been lost. But when a fetus is miscarried, there is no person to see, there is no way for others to understand the loss that was incurred. Unless they themselves are mothers that miscarried. But even then, they can only remember and relate through their own loss. They are not missing that particular soul, because they did not know that particular soul. Even fathers, who also lost that miscarried child, typically recover much more quickly, not only because they are physically unaffected by the miscarriage, not only becasue they are generally less emotional, but also because they did not physically experience that fetus’s existence in this world. So when the parents mourn, their intimate mourning is private, only they can understand. To ask the public to mourn with them would be to ask the public to do something they are not capable of doing. In a way, a public mourning would be false.
Still then, I must ask myself, why does the Torah not prescribe a specific manner of private mourning for the bereaved parents? I almost feel neglected. I know miscarriage is hushed up by people but by You too G-d? You, who decides which souls will be born in live bodies and which will be miscarried? Hashem has left me no instructions of how to navigate my mourning. Hashem guides us in every life cycle event. But here, where I am, after my miscarriage, there’s nothing. Nothing I have to do. Or can’t do, except hold my husband’s hand, which is a subject for another day. Did You forget about me Hashem? About us? All the women who have suffered the tragedy of pregnancy loss?
I guess in a way, it’s a funny question. People often ask why does G-d involve Himself in the minutia of our personal lives. Can’t He just let us do what we feel is right? But I understand that G-d is perfect, and G-d guides me perfectly throughout the difficulties, celebrations, and everyday occurrences of my life. So where is He here?
I can’t perform the usual rituals associated with death. I can’t light a candle, or have a funeral, or say kaddish. I thought that my sweet souls deserved the same kind of treatment as all other souls who’ve returned to shamayim. My sweet souls are no less important than any other kind. But, the fact remains, that they are different. They were supremely holy souls that finished their tikkun without needing to be born, without needing to step into this world, to engage with it in any form. Subsequently, they require a different type of remembrance. A more personal remembrance. Of my choosing.
I can add a tevila for each soul lost. I can buy a special piece of jewelry with the birthstones of my sweet souls. I can donate tzdaka in their honor. Perhaps G-d’s will for each of us to choose how to mourn reflects the extremely personal, individual nature of miscarriage.
I draw a parallel also to the experience of the mother who’s experienced pregnancy loss to that of an onen. From the time of hearing of the loved one’s death, all immediate family members are exempt from time bound mitzvot until the burial of the body. During this time the all consuming grief renders family members emotionally unable to perform mitzvot. Burial is seen as a kind of closure,the point in time where the person is gone in body as well as in spirit, where life, though subdued, may resume again. While a woman’s lost pregnancy is buried when possible, I think her emotional state resembles that of an onen. She never had a true opportunity to depart because she never had an opportunity to meet her baby. You can’t say goodbye to someone you’ve never met before. Even in regard to a neonatal loss, lo aleinu, one could argue because the child was here for such a short period, there wasn’t the chance for hello and goodbye. And because this woman cannot say goodbye, she is consumed by her grief; it would not be possible to obligate her in mitzvot surrounding her loss.
Gratefully Thriving 