Hiraeth
Demography: "The statistical study of human populations ... examines the size, structure, and movements of populations over space and time ... [using] methods from history, economics, anthropology, sociology, and other fields ... as a means of analyzing and predicting social, cultural, and economic trends related to population."
According to the Population Reference Bureau, roughly 117 billion human beings (including the planet's current population of almost 8 billion) have lived and died on Earth since 190,000 BCE.
We have no record and have never heard of most of these people.
Today, on this second Sunday in Lent 2024, I found myself wondering, how many of them noticed (or have noticed if still living) things like
A mourning dove singing the day awake
A drop of water from a leaky faucet musically plunging into a half-filled bowl
The shadow under a half-empty coffee mug resting in the late morning sun
The feathers of trees stroking an indigo blue late-dusk moon-lit sky
The clumsiness of aging hands and the fireworks and ashes in aging eyes, especially one's own
--without writing a word about it?
Jesus didn't write a book, or magazine articles or blog posts.
He didn't write letters or epistles or revelations.
He simply lived.
Yes, he used words, to preach and tell stories, to small groups, and to crowds.
But he didn't write and publish anything.
His life, and death and life-after-death, spoke for him.
It was others who wrote about him, or about the idea of him, as they, we, still do.
In the past few years I've discovered much more about where my own ancestors came from than I ever imagined. But not enough.
I've learned some of their names, such as
Aulls
Calhoun
Crickemer
Derrick
Duckworth
Eggleston
Fletcher
Kendall
Kynaston
Morris
Potter
Russell
Simons
Titcombe
Trimble
Vaughn
Yost
and the names of places they lived, such as
Armagh
Baden-Wuerttemberg
Breconshire
Caernarfon
Carrigallen
Hampstead Norris
Hilversum
Londonderry
Noord-Holland
Poppenweiler
Renfrewshire
Skanderborg
Staffordshire
Thueringen
Uppsala
Westerwald
Whalley
to list just a few.
I've learned dates that, mostly, I've yet to put into context with what else was happening locally and in the world at that time. I’ve had enough trouble doing that with my own life and times. But the older I get and the less time I have and the harder it gets for these hands and eyes to function as they used to, the more I ache to catch up on what I was too busy, too distracted, and sometimes too afraid to discover, inside and outside this person I call me.
Beyond a generation or two, I know little more than before I started exploring. But my hunger to know more than names, places, and dates has increased like frost on a suddenly cold night.
Hiraeth: “an untranslatable Welsh word” that itself felt like home when I first heard it some years ago, and still does whenever I hear it or see it or write it. "A blend of homesickness, nostalgia and longing ... a pull on the heart that conveys a distinct feeling of missing something irretrievably lost," according to the BBC. I’ve heard and read other attempts at clarification as well.
Hiraeth, and all that it means, sayable and not, sits in my heart like it's home there. We’re all just passing through here anyway, so maybe that’s enough.
Or not.
My name is aleady on more than one Ancestry.com “family tree.” In 50 years, in 100 years, or more, if my name and connections are still on such a tree somewhere (if all such sources are not destroyed by some “natural” or humanmade conflagration) and someone searching for their ancestors finds it—what if that’s not enough for them? Will they feel like I do now? Can I help keep that from happening? Should I try?
Or is it more important how I live the present moments of what’s left of my time here? To be simply one of the billions who made a difference when and where needed—like a small but solid link in a very long chain—but whose name it will not be necessary to remember?
On the other hand, what if writing words is how I solidify my link?
This is a question I can only ask, not answer.
Because only time will tell.