I was fascinated by the lack of a word for a parent who has lost a child. We have no word in English. I thought for sure there'd be a word in Irish but there is none. And then I looked in several other languages and could not find one, until I found the word Sh'khol in Hebrew. I'm still not sure why so many languages don't have a word for this sort of bereavement, this shadowing.
Colum McCannI was fascinated by the lack of a word for a parent who has lost a child. We have no word in English. I thought for sure there'd be a word in Irish but there is none. And then I looked in several other languages and could not find one, until I found the word Sh'khol in Hebrew. I'm still not sure why so many languages don't have a word for this sort of bereavement, this shadowing.
Colum McCannIโm not interested in blind optimism, but Iโm very interested in optimism that is hard-won, that takes on darkness and then says, โThis is not enough.โ But it takes time, more time than we can sometimes imagine, to get there. And sometimes we donโt.
Colum McCannWords are good for saying what things are, but sometimes they don't function for what things aren't.
Colum McCann