There is a word for a child who loses their parents.

We call them orphans, Greek fatherless –

A parentless child.

But what is the word for a parent

Who lives past the span of their child?

Whose years on their gravestone encompass

Those on their child’s 

Instead of overlapping?

Is there a word for a pain so nameless?

To bring a life into this world

Then to see if end,

To hold their body at birth

And again in death?

The know the beginning and end of a story

You were never supposed to finish?