The Deepest Sorrow: Losing the First Love We Ever Knew
In a human life, there are countless meetings and partings, countless arrivals and farewells. Yet parental love is often the earliest and deepest root of feeling. It is a warmth we never had to ask for, yet somehow never lacked. It is a quiet sense of safety that lives between one breath and the next. When that love is suddenly cut off, when those who once watched over us are no longer waiting for our return, the sorrow is more than a passing emotion. It is a nameless weightlessness, spreading inch by inch from the bottom of the heart.
According to Erya and The Book of Rites, Kao refers to one’s deceased father, and Bi to one’s deceased mother. In classical Chinese texts, the four characters Ru Sang Kao Bi give voice to the tearing pain of losing one’s closest kin. In the Canon of Shun from The Book of Documents, it is written: “The emperor passed away, and the people mourned as if they had lost their own father and mother.” This was not the sorrow of one person alone, but a grief shared by all.
When Kao and Bi are placed together, they become among the highest terms of reverence for a deceased father and mother. They also carry the most natural cry of pain when the root of life has been torn away. In ancient China, mourning for one’s parents lasted three years. People remained in mourning clothes day and night, gave little thought to comfort or rest, found no pleasure in food, and grew thin with sorrow. This was not merely an outward ritual, but grief made visible in one’s whole appearance. What began in the heart slowly took the shape of mourning.
The Meaning Widens: From Parental Mourning to a Loss That Shatters the Heart
At first, the idiom was used only to describe the deepest grief of losing one’s parents. But as its meaning changed with time and context, the phrase also came to describe moments of overwhelming sorrow, when the weight of loss is strong enough to unsettle the rhythm of ordinary life. Later, it was used more broadly for the great losses one may suffer in life.
What is lost may not be a parent, yet the pain may still be heavy enough to make the heart feel as though the ground beneath it has given way. When what disappears was once a pillar of one’s life, grief can go beyond ordinary words. At such a moment, to say that someone grieves as if the world has fallen apart is not an overstatement, nor a casual way to make light of the grief. It is language doing its best to trace the outline of pain.
This widening of meaning gives the idiom a deeper emotional range. It shows how the boundaries between language and feeling can shift, and why the same phrase may branch into different uses in different situations. When it is used to speak of an irreplaceable loss, such as the breaking of a family bond, the death of someone dearly loved, or the collapse of a long-held belief, it still stays close to lived truth. It does not cheapen grief. It gives grief a form of dignity.
Where Grief Becomes a Gesture: True Sorrow and Everyday Emotion
In modern life, this phrase is sometimes used as a quicker emotional marker. It may even be shortened into slang expressions that carry a sharp sense of contrast.
For example, the colloquial phrase Ku Ba (or Cao Bay in Taiwanese), literally “crying for one’s father,” echoes the sound and emotional force of Kao Bi. It borrows the gravity of parental mourning, but in many cases it is not speaking of actual death or true bereavement. Instead, it draws on the feeling of extreme sorrow to describe frustration, regret, or disappointment in everyday life.
For example, a student may do poorly on an exam, a salesperson may lose a major order, or someone may have a report sent back, a proposal turned down, or a vacation canceled at the last minute. In such moments, one phrase is enough to announce the emotional weather: they look as if the world has ended. By then, the idiom has already stepped outside the realm of mourning. It has become a swift and vivid gesture of language, letting others understand at once the depth of that person’s regret, frustration, and collapse of spirit.
This drift in meaning reflects an emotional habit of our time. People sometimes use a lighter tone to cover what feels unbearably heavy. They turn to teasing, exaggeration, or slang to handle feelings that are too difficult to face directly. In this sense, the phrase shows one of language’s more curious transformations, and also reveals the honest texture of everyday subculture.
The Shape of Grief: A Cultural Contrast
Eastern culture often values the idea of grieving deeply without falling into disorder. It sees restraint not as the denial of emotion, but as a way to preserve its dignity. Confucius spoke of sorrow that is profound, yet not destructive. Grief may reach the deepest places of the heart, but it should not be allowed to break the order of life itself. Through mourning rites, early Chinese tradition turned emotion into a long act of remembrance, allowing grief to become a quiet companion rather than a force that tears everything apart.
Western culture, by contrast, often places more emphasis on release and expression. In Greek tragedy, people tear their garments and cry aloud, allowing pain to find its own voice. There is a belief that grief must be spoken, that it must pass through the air before the wounded heart can begin to heal. The two paths are different, but they move toward the same end. True mourning is not performed for the eyes of others. It is a way for the heart to mend. The deeper meaning of Ru Sang Kao Bi lies here: to keep one’s dignity within grief, and to recover order within sorrow. True mourning honors what has been lost, and the love that once made it precious.
After Grief, Life Gains Its Depth
The idiom is not merely a lament left inside tears. It is a way of standing in the world after loss. It shows us that even in farewells we cannot change, we may still remember honestly and live bravely. It does not ask us to forget. Instead, it lets memory settle into strength. After pain, we learn to cherish what is still before us. In silence, we slowly grow the courage to keep moving forward.
To lose one’s parents is one of the deepest and most helpless ruptures in human life. While our parents are still here, life still has a place of origin. When they are gone, life seems to face only one remaining road: the road toward its final end. Yet perhaps for this very reason, we learn to love more deeply every person who is still with us, and to walk the rest of our days with greater care. Grief does not have to break a person apart. It can also make the heart more resilient, giving it a deeper weight. That weight is not a burden. It is depth. After we have passed through true sorrow, we come to understand more fully how to love, and how to live.
References
- Ministry of Education Mandarin Dictionary Editorial Office. (2025). “Ru Sang Kao Bi.” Dictionary of Chinese Idioms, National Academy for Educational Research. Accessed April 30, 2026.
https://dict.idioms.moe.edu.tw/idiomView.jsp?ID=777&webMd=2&la=0 - The Book of Documents, “Canon of Shun,” entry 7. Chinese Text Project. Accessed May 2, 2026.
https://ctext.org/shang-shu/canon-of-shun/zh - Erya, “Explaining Kinship,” entry 1: “The father is called kao; the mother is called bi.” Chinese Text Project. Accessed May 2, 2026.
https://ctext.org/er-ya/shi-qin/zh - The Book of Rites, “Qu Li II,” entry 122: “In life they are called father and mother; after death they are called kao and bi.” Chinese Text Project. Accessed May 2, 2026.
https://ctext.org/liji/qu-li-ii/zh - The Analects, “Ba Yi,” entry 20: Confucius said, “The Guan Ju is joyful without being excessive, sorrowful without being harmful.” Chinese Text Project. Accessed May 2, 2026.
https://ctext.org/analects/zh?searchu=哀而不傷
Written by Dr. Yuman Shang
With support from Ms. Mei Hua Hall