Against the Natural Order | Ep #9: "The Waves"

Against the Natural Order | Ep #9: "The Waves"

There is something the grief industry never quite gets around to telling you. Not the stages. Not the timelines. Not the five-step framework for processing what you are carrying and returning to a functional baseline. Something more specific than any of that. The waves. Nobody spoke to you about the waves. They gave you stages, timelines, a framework built for someone else’s comfort. What they didn’t give you is what actually happens — the Tuesday you’re completely fine and the Wednesday that arrives with a smell, a song, an aisle in a grocery store. You didn’t see it coming because you weren’t supposed to. An estimated 18.7 million parents in this country are in a wave cycle right now. Not one of those states is tracked. The wave is part of the cost the federal government has never agreed to count. Episode 9 is live. Subscribe free and listen now. 👉 echoesproject.substack.com Get the books — The Witness Series 👉 amazon.com/stores/author/B0GRZ7J949 Amazon | B&N | Google Play | thewitnessechoes.com 🕯️ Honor their memory: Resources: 988 (free, 24/7) | 1-866-903-3787 Grief Hotline Episode 9 is live now. For the ones the language forgot. 🎙️ Listen: [SUBSTACK EPISODE LINK] 📖 The Witness Series: echoesfounderproject@gmail.com [echoesfounderproject@gmail.com] | Subject: Vilomah The count grows. The record never stops. thewitnessechoes.com anantavilomah.com Get full access to The Echoes Project at echoesproject.substack.com/subscribe [https://echoesproject.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Against the Natural Order — Episode 8: "No New Law Required"

Seven episodes in, you know the number. An estimated 18.7 million Americans are parents who have buried a child. Estimated — because there is no official count. The framing is wrong. The data already exists to fix it. This episode names three specific things the federal government already has the power to do. Right now. No new law required for any of them. The price of the missing count first. The federal government spent $2.8 billion on mental health programs in 2023. Some of that money is supposed to reach parents who have buried a child. A program can only be measured against the people it serves — and those people have never been officially counted. The money goes out with no way to know if it’s landing. Peer-reviewed research put a number on the financial hit these families carry in the first six months: $21,332 per family. The Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model identified an estimated $15.5 billion in unclaimed Social Security survivor benefits — owed to bereaved children who lost a working parent. There is no equivalent accounting for what Vilomah parents are owed. That research doesn’t exist. It should. That is the price of the missing count. It has a dollar figure. The three proposals: 1. The SIPP Amendment — The Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation tracks household income, family structure, and program participation. It has no question about whether a parent has buried a child. Five questions — already drafted, already on the record in this episode — could be added by written directive. No new law. 2. The Z63.4 Permanent Tag — ICD code Z63.4 already exists in the medical system for the passing of a family member. But it documents a visit, not a life. The proposal: a permanent tag in your medical record that follows you to every provider, every appointment. A petition to the committee that manages the coding system. No new law. 3. The NCHS National Study — The National Center for Health Statistics counts conditions that affect the American population. It has never run a study on bereaved parents. One directive from the Secretary of Health and Human Services to an agency already doing this work for other populations. The authority is written into federal law. No new law. It has been done before. In 1996, Congress directed the Census Bureau to begin tracking grandparents raising their grandchildren. Same system. Same type of authority. The bereaved parent population is larger. The need is documented. The path is the same path. That is the record being placed. This episode on Father’s Day weekend. To every father in this field — and to the fathers who served this country and carried this weight alongside a uniform — you are not invisible. If this weekend carries weight for you, you are not behind. You are not broken. You are here. That counts. Honor their memory: ForeverMissed.com [https://www.forevermissed.com] — build a memorial, keep their story, make sure their name stays spoken. Resources: 988 — available 24 hours, every day. 1-866-903-3787 — National Grief Support Line. If you’re hitting a breaking point, don’t ignore it. It’s enough weight already. EchoesFounderProject@gmail.com [EchoesFounderProject@gmail.com] The record continues. Get full access to The Echoes Project at echoesproject.substack.com/subscribe [https://echoesproject.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Against the Natural Order | Ep #7: "The Year They Stopped?"

The system once knew we existed. In 1850, the federal government did more than record who died. It recorded who was left behind: the parents who had to wake up the next morning, keep living, and carry a loss no policy has ever fully named. For 35 years, bereaved parents appeared in the federal record. We were counted. We were visible. We existed in the data. Then the system changed. Not by accident. By design. And for 116 years — through wars, recessions, civil rights movements, and generations of policy reform — no one put us back in. The column still exists in the federal database today. It is simply empty. That is what this episode is about: not only grief, but erasure. A decision made more than a century ago, and never undone, declared that a parent who buries a child is not a population worth tracking. If tonight is heavy — 988, call or text, free, any hour. Or 1-866-903-3787, 24/7. Honor their memory — ForeverMissed.com Resources — thewitnessechoes.com EchoesFounderProject@gmail.com [EchoesFounderProject@gmail.com] | Subject: Against the Natural Order The record continues. Get full access to The Echoes Project at echoesproject.substack.com/subscribe [https://echoesproject.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Against the Natural Order | Ep #6: "The Architecture of Silence"

Somewhere between the time you started reading this and the time you finish it, more children will have died. The parents they left behind will not appear in any database. No registry. No federal count. No agency whose job it is to track people will have tracked them. 12:20 AM EST That is not an oversight. That is the architecture. This episode is about the scale of what the world has refused to face — and what it means to be part of a global demographic that has never been named. The count grows. The record never stops. That is a documented public health consequence with no federal tracking system attached to it. Estimated — because there is no current figure. That is the point. #Vilomah #AgainstTheNaturalOrder #TheEchoesProject #Ananta #BereavedParents Honor their memory — @ForeverMissed Write to us: echoesfounderproject@gmail.com — Subject line: Vilomah If you need to talk to someone — 988, call or text, free. Or 1-866-903-3787, Mental Health Hotline, 24-7. Get full access to The Echoes Project at echoesproject.substack.com/subscribe [https://echoesproject.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

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 Project at echoesproject.substack.com/subscribe [https://echoesproject.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]