Rosie Schaap

“A long mile southeast of the village of Glenarm, on the Antrim Coast Road, in the province of Ulster, there stands by the sea a monument to grief. . . .It is a natural formation of stacked limestone boulders, something like an archway, with a large aperture near its center. A local landmark, it's known as the Madman's Window.

This is the story I have heard: Long ago, a woman died at sea, in the waters onto which the window gives view. There was a man who loved her, who would not accept that she was dead. From the day she went missing until his own death, he gazed through that stony window every day, hoping he would catch sight of her out there on the sea, alive, alive and calling for him. And when he saw her, he would jump into those cold waters, and bring her back to shore, back to him.

It was against reason, an act of wishful thinking. An act of grief wanting to be something other than grief. There were many deaths at sea in this part of the world. Everyone else knew that the woman he loved was dead, and they believed he had gone mad. If he was a madman, it is because loss had led him to despair. It is because without the one he loved, he could not be whole, could not even imagine it. Because grief, I know can drive us mad.”
― Rosie Schaap, The Slow Road North: How I Found Peace in an Improbable Country