willower®

A few years ago, I saw that someone had added “willower” to UrbanDictionary.com. Okay, it’s a crowdsourced online dictionary of slang words and phrases, but I especially like UD’s tagline: “Define Your World.”

One day, maybe willower will become a part of our vocabulary, and help to create a world in which bereaved parents can weep more openly and feel less alone, and find support and inner strength while readjusting to their loss, and redefining their world.

It isn’t yet in the pages of Merriam-Webster. But wherever willower might travel, to Urban Dictionary and beyond, I hope that somewhere, someone grieving their child’s death discovers it and plants it in their redefining soil, this one seed, one word: willower. So they will feel less alone in this world.