Saudade

remembrance of first love

The Portuguese have a word for it. Saudade--from their love poetry describing loss, lack, distance and love. For me it has always

described the longing that people with dementia feel what experts title sundowning, exit-seeking, an aching desire to go home. I have been

blessed with a long, rich life: marriage, friends, children and grandchildren, a fulfilling nursing career. My doctor tells me I am in the early

stage of dementia--very mild short-term memory loss. I am preparing for this longest walk to an inevitable end and will soon be moving to

a life care community. I am beginning to do what the Swedish call death clearing, sorting through all my precious stuff, deciding what to keep,

what to cast away. Short term memories will be the first to fade, long-term memories are more tenacious.

I am sorting through a trunk of old letters and photographs. I have Reis' guitar piece Eterna Saudade playing in the background.

Toward the bottom of the trunk I unearth a fading fifty-year old photograph. Old Polaroids fade just as memories do. The photo was taken in

Ibiza. In 1974 my best friend read Frommer's "Europe on Five Dollars a Day", and she decided we would go. We started in Amsterdam,

moved on to Paris and then to Barcelona and a ferry from there to Ibiza. Cheap hotels, the Mediterranean Sea. There were many students

traveling as we were, on a budget and no fixed destination. I met Paco, my first real love there. But this photo is not of him but the little dive

bar that we went to every night to dance, to listen to music, to fall in love. The cast of musicians changed nightly--a few local musicians,

many itinerants merely passing through, a polyglot of languages and music. Paco's favorite line was that we didn't need five star hotels and

restaurants because we had the thousand stars above us. When I returned home Paco and I exchanged letters for a time, but life slipped in

and we lost touch. This photo brought it all back in a rush of nostalgia. Saudade. I am one of those people that gives names to my cars and

my homes. I know that on the door to my apartment at Glades Memory Care, I will hang a sign with one word, Saudade.