ABSTRACT
But the younger a baby is, the less a community speaks of the child. With a few, treasured exceptions, people defer to speaking about the parents. This is their anchor. The baby comes to represent not a lost person, a lost present, or even one’s own lost innocence (infancy preceding conscious memory), but an unfullled future, a path not taken. Collective lifetimes steeped in social custom effectively blunt the magic of infants not yet socialized. Guided by the highest of motives, a sympathetic community erases the lost life in order to focus on the bereaved and to wish them the best in moving on.
