Friends, who can help me to give expression (better a phrase) to a feeling about your very favorite and cherished thing when you are losing it? Thank you!
Jessie Xu
windflower, this is a very deep question.
i don't know why, but i can't help thinking of "e lucevan le stelle" from "tosca" where Cavadarossi is just about to be killed by firing squad. at the end he sings "io non ho amato mai tanto la vita": "i have never before loved life so much" (i think). this is not actually english, i just realised.
how about shakespeare from "cymbeline" "fear no more the heat o' th' sun, nor the furious winters' rages; thou thy earthly task hast done, home art gone, and ta'en thy wages."
this is more of a farewell, but it's a beautiful way to say goodbye. not really helping am i!
when you lose something you cherish, there are so many things you can feel. what's that pop song "don't wanna lose you now..."?
i don't even know if it's a person or a thing; i think that makes a difference. there is a beautiful word for remembering something after it's gone: nostalgia.
Windflower--
Welcome to you. The word bittersweet comes to mind--the bitterness of the losing, combined with the sweetness of the memories. This works for people and objects.
william, lovely post - loved the references.
Jackie, bittersweet is good.... I'm reminded of a word in Portuguese "saudade"... sort of a combination of william's 'nostalgia' and Jackie's 'bittersweet.'
Windflower, is there such a word in Chinese?
when I discovered the word "saudade", the example given for usage was the feeling a father gets at his daughter's wedding -- I don't know if the Portuguese would use it this way, but it certainly fills a gap that nostalgia doesn't cover.
would love to know a meaning of suadade!
any of these munificent links on offer?
william
here's my citation:
"The Portugese have a word saudade that means
yearning or longing but, more than that, describes
the mixture of feelings that swim in the heart...
best described through example, what a man feels
at his daughter's wedding."
- Dan Rodricks, Baltimore Evening Sun
I like the word melancholy. Even though it does not have the aspect of yearning needed in the context. The word seems to to denote sweet sadness.
Melancholy: wonderful, Avy!
Nice to have you back.
Hi Jessie,
Since you definitely speak of a THING (not a person), I should suggest that you feel "robbed" in the case of loss.
Wistful might also describe your feeling of melancholy yearning.
chronist
There's a lovely French word for that feeling ... which I am probably not spelling correctly but our French friends will help, I'm sure. Came across it in a French art song I learned years ago "L'heure Exquise" which translates as the exquisite hour meaning that lovely twilight time.
:
tristesse.
I know I said I'd not try non-English without something to copy in front of me but this is too good to let pass by.
Aide moi, mes amis,
wow
"Friends, who can help me to give expression (better a phrase) to a feeling about your very favorite and cherished thing when you are losing it?"
Loss is always bitter. But losing a "thing" can never be as bitter as losing a beloved person. Fond memories may mitigate the pain, but can never erase it. When hope is gone, what is left except courage?
But losing a "thing" can never be as bitter as losing a beloved person. Fond memories may mitigate the pain, but can never erase it. When hope is gone, what is left except courage?
Oh, Darling...blind doggedness, I guess, which is courage in a way. We do what we have to do. I have been rather--taken up--with loss, of one kind or another, in recent times, and I am just overwhelmed with what the human spirit can be dealt yet continue to persevere in some fashion.
<<When hope is gone, what is left except courage?>>
Wonderful Bill,
Enough to make me cry.
Dear Jessie
The sense of having lost something you cared for dearly leaves you feeling bereft.
More commonly, that same root provides us with 'bereavement', the process of greiving for the lost one and, one hopes, eventually coming to terms with it.
I hope you are not bereft for too long.
the sunshine warrior