The Word
I thought, going into 2022, I was going to avoid writing this sort of thing, because I really wanted to lighten the mood this year. But talk about elephants and rooms. This one is hard to avoid. So, here goes. Several weeks back, I was returning home from Houston. As I drove through Bastrop, I looked over at the Best Buy. The look generated a memory of the day in 2010 when I picked up a pair of outdoor speakers to go on the back porch of our newly built home. The memory in turn created a little spasm in my abdomen which was accompanied by a deep sense of loss, as I remembered the newness of the home, the promise of the music, and all that was subsequently lost with the death of my wife ten years later.
I was curious about that feeling because I’ve felt it a lot recently and I’ve felt it before. The most intense episode I can remember was in 1962. We were moving to Texas. I was in the middle of my junior year in high school. At a Knights of Columbus dance in Portsmouth, a girl kissed me goodbye. A good kiss. It was all I could think about as we left the town and moved away. Turns out there are words for how I felt then and now, and isn’t there always? The first is desiderium. It means, an ardent desire or longing, especially a feeling of loss or grief for something lost. The second is saudade, meaning a deep emotional state of nostalgic, or profound melancholic, longing for something or someone that one cares for and/or loves. I’ll take the second word for $200.
Anyway, knowing that the feeling has a name, and I’m only missing a description of the physiological response, it occurs to me I also know it will pass, with time, because I’ve had other kisses since, and it’s going on a year and a half since my wife died and those little twinges come less often. I suppose that’s what they call healing, although the feeling isn’t entirely unpleasant so it’s possible, I could let it hang around as long as I want and be nostalgic for the one I loved, longing for her touch, which is pretty much what I do when the world I currently inhabit starts spinning out of control.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale