I will always wish that my children could have known us and
seen us when Christine and I were young. When Christine walked with long legs
under pleated skirts, with her waspish waist, and confident stride. When she
sat with her cascading brunette hair over her shoulders, and smiled so
infectiously the room became happy. I wish my children could have heard her
sing as she sang in the years before they were born. The young voice, untrained
yet, still finding its way, but with the promise of accomplishment and joy,
striking notes that soared to the highest ceiling. I wish they might have known
her when her faith was still fresh from God’s work in her heart at seventeen
and she was willing to follow God anywhere.
I wonder what my children might have thought of me if they
had seen me as a young man of eighteen, with strong body, legs of power, lean
and muscled torso. Would they have said, “wow” when they watched me on the two hundred-metre
track or rolling over the bar at the high jump pit. I would like to have them
see my hair swept back at the sides and dovetailed behind, held in place by
Brylcream, a curly wisp of hair falling at the forehead. If only they might
have heard me sing when I was sixteen and winning vocal contests as a boy
soprano and then within months singing a resonant baritone song. And what
pleasure they might enjoy to see me baptized at seventeen years of age, and
later at eighteen, attending Urbana Inter Varsity Conference in Illinois and
telling God that I would set a career in art aside to serve Him with my life.
There's a Portuguese word that I just discovered - "saudade" and your thoughts here made me come back to that word. It's a good word that has deep meaning. There's no English equivalent.
ReplyDeleteThank you Doug. I looked it up. Reliable Wiki sources told me "It describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing may never return. A stronger form of saudade may be felt towards people and things whose whereabouts are unknown, such as a lost lover, or a family member who has gone missing." Fortunately, I know where I am going and I hope I will have made it clear enough where my family can find me.
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