Tsakoun

[I didn't finish this post when I first started writing it 3 years ago. I'll wrap it up for the sake of publishing it at last:]

I recently read The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold because I heard that it was written from the viewpoint of a young woman who had died, and I was interested in reading someone's perspective of, well, heaven. The depiction of that place in the sky seemed realistic, I feel weird saying.

I had to pause and think when Susie, the narrator, said she hadn't heard her mother say her pet name out loud. I haven't heard my mother say Alice's pet name, Tsakoun, out loud since she died, either. Meaning "my youngling," it was a word my mom said to Alice only.  She never used it in the third person.

I miss hearing my mom speak it, and hearing Alice reply.