The Language Of Loss with Órla Ryan

The relationship between language and loss is something that we have we have covered in the past, and it’s also something that has proven to be divisive. How direct and frank should someone be, when the conversation is about an impending death? This week’s guest is the Journal.ie’s Orla Ryan, who sadly lost her father to esophageal cancer in 2012. It wasn’t until a nurse told Orla “A week in your dad’s life is a long time” did she realise just how little time she had left with him.

In the interview Orla and Sasha discuss how we discuss grief and the words that we choose to use. Orla has done incredible work in the past speaking about her own grief, most notably the article 'Then everyone died': I lost four people I loved in 14 months. In the article orla describes at length her beautiful relationship with her father, and how in the 14 months following her death she also suffered the loss of two grandparents and a close friend.

Speaking to Sasha about the longer term effects of successive loss like this, she said “It was this familiar thing that somebody else that you loved is gone. Talking about ‘the surreal period’ after a death, and if then there is a few more deaths in the space of just over a year, then ‘the surrealness’ can last for over another year as well.

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Music by: Nctrnm

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