Quotes / Outliving One's Offspring

Anime and Manga

Mai Sakurajima's Mother: My daughter... Mai... is she really...?
Hospital Worker: We've done everything we could. A true shame.
Mai's Mother: (gasps in horror) Mai... (collapses to her knees in grief) Give Mai back to me! Give her back! (descends into pitiful sobbing)

— Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl

Fan Works

Jake cleared his throat. "I just wanted to say that I've neglected studying any of this for... for a while, but I do know there’s a lot of talk in the Torah about escaping slavery. And about how afterward, there's some necessary adjustment. Wandering. How it doesn't just end there. How the price of freedom is the blood of the firstborn, and how even freedom isn't always a solution. But I'm still grateful for what we have." He looked slowly up and down the table. "And I want everyone else to know where we came from, and to be grateful too."
No one said a word, even in the pause that followed. Jake at his most intimidating could make war-princes cry, top-ranked vissers beg for mercy, and people like us forget what an incredible dork he was the rest of the time.
"Jordan's right," Jake said. "Rachel died fighting the yeerks. Died so that we could live without fear. I'm not dishonoring her memory by refusing to talk about how she died, or why. And if anyone has a problem with that..." Shifting tactics, he scooped up his glass of water and held it up. "Here's to us, okay? And here's to the people who made sure we could be here."

— Eleutherophobia: Back to the Future

There's footage of her son's death. Footage, and everyone has seen it. Jean only knows because her sister-in-law called to tell her.
Rage choked Naomi's voice through the tears, that whole conversation. "How dare they," Naomi said. "How dare those bastards think they can… they can…"

— ''Ladybird, Ladybird''

Heather wasn't quite as ambitious as the rest of us. I tried to convince her to reach for the stars and use her full potential, but it just wasn't what she wanted. When she left, Laura and my husband insisted we cut her out. It was either her or them, and I couldn't bear to lose the rest of my family. And now... I'm never gonna be able to tell my baby I was sorry and that I loved her!

— Louise Sanders about her daughter Heather, Ma Fille, "Custody Battle"

Film — Live-Action

"You Klingon bastard, you've killed my son.... you Klingon bastard, you've killed my son!"

— James T. Kirk, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

"Let me through... Let me through! Coming through... THAT'S MY SON! That's my boy! My boy! No, no... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

— Amos Diggory, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

"No! No. No. It's not supposed to happen this way. I'm supposed to go first. I've always been ready to go first!" [Gasping] "I don't think I can take this. I don't think I can take this. I just wanna hit somebody 'til they feel as bad as I do!"

— M'Lynn Eatenton at her daughter's funeral, Steel Magnolias

"Look how they massacred my boy."

— Vito Corleone, The Godfather

"You nurse a child, you raise it, pet it, you love it...and it ends like this."

— Paula Batory, The Naked City

"Do you really think death frightens me now? I watched my eldest son die."

— Priam, Troy

"No. No parent should have to watch their own child die. I have my kids here for me now. You go."

— Murphy Cooper to her father on her deathbed, Interstellar

"I am NOT going to bury my son! My son is going to bury me!"

— John Q. Archibald, John Q.

"I hope you're having a laugh with your mum up there. How I wish I could take your place, son."

— Duncan, Good Grief

Literature

"In the natural order of things, fathers do not bury their sons."

— Paul Auster, The Red Notebook

"A wife who loses a husband is called a widow. A husband who loses a wife is called a widower. A child who loses his parents is called an orphan. There is no word for a parent who loses a child. That's how awful the loss is."

— Jay Neugeboren, An Orphan's Tale

So Moses said, "Thus says the Lord: 'About midnight, I will go out in the midst of Egypt, and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle. There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again.'"

—Book of Exodus

There is only one thing in this world shittier than biting it from cancer when you're sixteen, and that's having a kid who bites it from cancer.

—Hazel Lancaster about her own parents, The Fault in Our Stars

"A parent's greatest fear is the idea of burying their children. Everything else is a distant second, and worth forgetting in the face of that unbearable loss."

— Evelyn Baker, That Ain't Witchcraft

I've been so busy staying alive I never thought of what this must be like for my parents. Right now, they're suffering the worst pain anyone can endure. I'd give anything just to let them know I'm still alive. I'll just have to survive to make up for it.

— Mark Watney, The Martian

Don Alonso, the Lord of Arganza, for his part, survived the passing of his beloved and unhappy daughter only for a short time, as might be expected from his age and his deep affliction. With his death, that illustrious house was extinguished, and its property passed to very distant relatives.

— The Lord of Bembibre

Though rich in land and livestock, Prince Oleg had not been well-blessed in his children. The babies born to him and his wife had died one after another, each taking away more of the couple’s youth and their belief that life can be sweet. At last, only one living child was left to the care of the princely household—Oleg’s five-year-old niece, Sophia.

— Maiden Crown

Live-Action TV

"You know how you call a guy whose wife died a widower? Or, if your parents die, you're an orphan. You know, there’s no word for someone whose kids die. Because it's the worst thing that could happen."

— Leah, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, "New World Order"

"How do parents go on when they lose a child? You know, when I would see that stuff on the news, I'd turn it off cause it was too horrible to think, but I would always think "How do they wake up every day? How do they breathe?". But you do it, though. And for just a second, you forget. And then, oh, you remember. And it's like getting that call again and again, every time. You don't get to stop waking up. You have to keep on being a parent even though you don't get to have a child anymore."

— Carole Hudson, Glee

Music

Nothing was harder than sayin' goodbye,

Except watching Chris's father have his turn to cry.

— Adam Sandler, "The Chris Farley Song"

Theatre

"Seated on their tomb she made lament over her dead children."

— A surviving fragment of Aeschylus' Niobe

If you see him in the street,
Walking by her side, talking by her side, have pity...
They are going through the unimaginable.

— "It's Quiet Uptown", Hamilton

A final farewell to you,
Lofty palace,
The cold tomb of my angel!
You are not worthy to protect her!
Oh damn! Oh vile seducer!
And you, Virgin Maria, did you stand by,
While her virginal crown was taken?
Ah! What am I saying? Lunatic!
Ah, forgive me!
The wounded spirit of a sad parent
Was kept in the agony of shame and grief.
Give her, o heaven, a martyr’s garland.
Yield her to the splendor of the angels,
Pray for me, Maria.

— Jacopo Fiesco, Simon Boccanegra

All our pyramids and palaces
Our obelisks and statues
Before my eyes they crumble into sand
Beneath the weight of your tiny, silent body
Our fortresses are fallen,
And we stand on a barren, windswept land.

— Nefertari, The Prince of Egypt, "Heartless"

Video Games

"It seems the will of the Creators that I sing the dirge for those I held in my arms as babes."

— Hahren Paivel, Dragon Age: Origins

Atreus: I don't understand... I know saving her was the right thing, but she seemed all evil at the end.
Mimir: Not evil. You killed her son, lad. Her son. The death of a child is not something a parent gets over easily.
Atreus: But he was gonna kill her!
Kratos: She would have died to see him live. Only a parent can understand.

— God of War (PS4)

Webcomics

Hwajin Na: Do you think Gayoon would be happy about what we’re doing?
Gangseok Choi: Revenge isn’t sought for the sake of the dead! But it’s because the living can’t bear the pain!

— Hwajin and Gangseok while visiting the grave of the latter’s daughter, Get Schooled

"Twenty-five generations of my sons have withered and died before me. I do not expect any of you will achieve much else."

— Solomon David, Kill Six Billion Demons

"Do you want me to pretend to be happy that I'm going to have to bury you before your time? Because that's what happens to Batman's sidekicks, Luke. They die."

— Lucius Fox, speaking to his son Luke Fox, Batman: Wayne Family Adventures, "What You Taught Me (Part 1)"

Web Video

You lost three children while they were still small
TB and scarlet fever: gotta catch 'em all!

—Ash Ketchum to Charles Darwin, Epic Rap Battles of History

Your campaign's like your family: crash and burn!

—Donald Trump to Joe Biden, Epic Rap Battles of History

Western Animation

"Happy birthday, my son. If only I could have helped you."

— Iroh, Avatar: The Last Airbender, "The Tales of Ba Sing Se"

Real Life

"Dead parents are buried in the ground, and dead children in parents' heart."

— A Korean proverb

In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons.

— Herodotus

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