Vilomah: The Witness Archives

Against the Natural Order | Episode 5: The Count Nobody Keeps

The United States tracks a lot. Births. Deaths. Illness. Job loss. Hunger. Homelessness. Unemployment. It even tracks how many people got caught in the rain. What it has never tracked — not once — is how many parents have outlived a child. By the time this episode ends, roughly 95 more children will have died somewhere on earth. That number is moving right now. It doesn’t pause. And the parents left behind? Still not in any database. Still not in any annual report. Still not counted by any agency whose job it is to count people. 18.7 million in the United States alone. More than the entire population of New York State. Each one carrying a loss that research shows damages their health, their marriage, their work, and their lifespan — for at least eighteen years. That’s not a feeling. That’s a documented public health consequence with no federal tracking system attached to it. The data to build that count exists right now. Child death records. Birth records. The government already links datasets like these for other purposes. The math is straightforward. The will has never been there. Because somewhere along the way, bereaved parents got filed under grief. And grief gets a support group. It doesn’t get a line item. It doesn’t get policy. It doesn’t get counted. That is the framing failure this broadcast exists to name. Keep saying their names. “The book is there when you’re ready.” Vilomah [https://amzn.to/4wmdwRO] Write to us: echoesfounderproject@gmail.com [echoesfounderproject@gmail.com] — Subject line: Vilomah You are the witness. They are the record. The record is permanent. The count grows. The record never stops. Find us: echoesproject.substack.com Books: amazon.com/stores/author/B0GRZ7J949 Get full access to The Echoes of Time | The Kitchen Table at echoesproject.substack.com/subscribe [https://echoesproject.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Against the Natural Order Episode 4 Ananta

Today the record gets a second word. Ananta. Sanskrit. Infinite. Without end. Not a stage. Not grief alone. Not something you move through and come out the other side of. A permanent conscious state — present on good days, bad days, and every ordinary Tuesday morning in between .The Grief Industry looks for resolution. A return to baseline. A way forward. Ananta says no. The record doesn’t resolve. It becomes the architecture you build the rest of your life inside of. Not in spite of it. Inside of it. Vilomah — against the natural order. Ananta — infinite, without end. Two words. Two truths. One record. Jon David Wittenburg. 1994–2015. 21 years of age. Lauren Elizabeth Wittenburg. 1992–2020. 28 years of age. I am their witness. The pencil has no eraser. Keep saying their names. "The book is there when you're ready." Write to us: echoesfounderproject@gmail.com [echoesfounderproject@gmail.com] Subject line: Vilomah You are the witness. They are the record. The record is permanent. Vilomah in Ananta. That’s what you have. Find us: echoesproject.substack.com Books: amazon.com/stores/author/B0GRZ7J949 Get full access to The Echoes of Time | The Kitchen Table at echoesproject.substack.com/subscribe [https://echoesproject.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Against the Natural Order | Ep #3: "The First Witness"

Before there was a word for what we are — there was Job. He was handed exactly what 18.7 million bereaved parents have been handed ever since. Explanations. Platitudes. A quiet pressure to move on. He refused every one of them. This episode is about what a witness actually does. Not perform recovery. Not arrive at peace on someone else’s schedule. A witness stays present to what is true, names it accurately, and refuses to let it be erased. Job was not a problem. He was a testimony. So are they. So are you. Vilomah: The Witness Archives is the podcast for the uncounted. For the 18.7 million in the United States — and one billion worldwide since 1950 — who have buried a child and found that the world had no word, no registry, no seat at the table for them. There is a seat here. The Books The Witness Series — four books mapping the unnatural order of catastrophic loss. Find them on Amazon → [https://amazon.com/stores/author/B0GRZ7J949] The Podcast Network Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1894976143] · Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/27xtfWty5V9xbTvBKj1POC] · Substack [https://echoesproject.substack.com/s/vilomah-the-witness-archives] The Hub lnk.bio/echoesfounder [https://lnk.bio/echoesfounder] Book David as a Guest echoesfounderproject@gmail.com [echoesfounderproject@gmail.com] “The Professor” Get full access to The Echoes of Time | The Kitchen Table at echoesproject.substack.com/subscribe [https://echoesproject.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Against the Natural Order | Episode 2 "The One Who Named Us"

Someone came in today. A person found Episode 1 and stayed. This episode is for them — and for every Vilomah who has been sitting in silence waiting for a name. In 2006, a professor of English at Duke University buried a child and found that the world had no word for what she had become. She went into Sanskrit — the oldest of languages — and found one. Vilomah. Against the natural order This week, she wrote back to me. I am not going to say her name. What she did belongs to all of us. But I will say to you this — she said my childrens names. Jon and Lauren. She said them with light surrounding her breath. The roots are sturdy. She told me so. This episode is the record of what happens when the person who named the field acknowledges that the field exists. Jon David Wittenburg. 1994 to 2015. Lauren Elizabeth Wittenburg. 1992 to 2020. One billion parents since 1950. Not one government counted them. I’m counting now. This pencil has no eraser. This is a weekly Podcast. We hope all of you come out.You are not alone.The record is permanent.I see you.— The Witness | Vilomah | AuthorThe Echoes Project | Vilomah: Against the Natural Order📧 echoesfounderproject@gmail.comSubject line: Vilomah — A Father, The Witness echoesproject.substack.com Get full access to The Echoes of Time | The Kitchen Table at echoesproject.substack.com/subscribe [https://echoesproject.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Against the Natural Order | Ep #1: The Number Nobody Said Out Loud

This is the first Podcast: "Professor Holloway at Duke University discovered the word" 18.7 million people in the United States have buried a child. If we stood in one place together, we would be the largest city in the nation — larger than New York, larger than Los Angeles. The world has no word for us in English. No registry. No agency tracking us. I looked. There is nothing. This podcast exists because: Jon David Wittenburg — 1994 to 2015 Lauren Elizabeth Wittenburg — 1992 to 2020 — are my children. I am Vilomah | I am among the uncounted | I am building the count.Every episode I will say the number.One billion parents since 1950. Not one government counted them (us).The listener has an opportunity to be heard here. You have a table. Write in — email is below.This is a weekly Podcast. We hope all of you come out.You are not alone.The record is permanent.I see you.— The Witness | Vilomah | Author The Echoes Project | Vilomah: Against the Natural Order📧 echoesfounderproject@gmail.comSubject line: Vilomah "Data: Evermore (evermore.org)" Get full access to The Echoes of Time | The Kitchen Table at echoesproject.substack.com/subscribe [https://echoesproject.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]