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Hiraeth

1
I’m standing at the baggage carousel of a busy airport waiting for our car seats to emerge. I’m with one of our four year old twin boys while my husband plays ‘hide and seek’ with the other one somewhere nearby. My one is lying on the bottom of the luggage trolley with his little pipe-cleaner legs pointed skywards wresting his feet against the bit where you put your handbag.
To pass the time, I lean over and look into his bright, mischievous little eyes and I start to tickle him, ever so gently. Light fingertips on his little belly, up his ribs
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and chest, into the little crevasse between his neck and chin, around his cheeks, through his thick blonde hair. He squeals, giggles and belly laughs out loud with delight, totally uninhibited. I end up laughing along with him and the two of us are lost in our own little world.
I glance up to see if there’s any sign of our car seats and realize we have an audience keenly watching our little ‘ticklefest’. Three men in their 60’s who look like they are returning from a golfing weekend. A young mum with a small baby in a pram. A couple in their
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70’s who look like grandparents, and a woman in her 50’s, standing on her own and looking at us in a way that stops me in my tracks.
While everyone else is laughing along or pleasantly smiling at us, her face is different. It’s like there’s a tinge of sadness there. I’m usually quite good at reading expressions but for a moment hers throws me. And then I place it. It’s a look I’ve given when I see a mother experiencing a moment that I once knew but will never experience again. A tiny newborn hand tightly grasping an adult finger, a little
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head resting on a muslin cloth draped over a shoulder as it’s back is gently burped, wobbly first steps winding their way through a playground.
When you’re lost in the fog of parenthood these moments are normal, humdrum, expected. But slowly time creeps past, everyone gets a bit older and these little gems evaporate into thin air. If you’re lucky, every now and again you’ll witness something that transports you back to the happy moment, but then just as you try and breathe it in deeper you realize it’s gone forever. 
My husband once told me
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about the Welsh word ‘hiraeth’. It can’t be translated directly into English but it means a bittersweet memory of missing something while being grateful for its existence. That’s what that woman is feeling as I tickle my son.
Part of me feels lucky that over the next few years I’ll be making more and more of those moments to one day breath in again. But I also know that those moments, when they return, will come wrapped in hiraeth – and that’s just the way life is.
Myself and the lady knowingly smile at each other and I spot our car seats
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emerging onto the baggage belt.
 
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- 27 Feb 19

I’m standing at the baggage carousel of a busy airport waiting for our car seats to emerge. I’m with one of our four year old twin boys while my husband plays ‘hide and seek’ with the other one somewhere nearby. My one is lying on the bottom of the luggage trolley with his little pipe-cleaner legs pointed skywards wresting his feet against the bit where you put your handbag.

To pass the time, I lean over and look into his bright, mischievous little eyes and I start to tickle him, ever so gently. Light fingertips on his little belly, up his ribs and chest, into the little crevasse between his neck and chin, around his cheeks, through his thick blonde hair. He squeals, giggles and belly laughs out loud with delight, totally uninhibited. I end up laughing along with him and the two of us are lost in our own little world.

I glance up to see if there’s any sign of our car seats and realize we have an audience keenly watching our little ‘ticklefest’. Three men in their 60’s who look like they are returning from a golfing weekend. A young mum with a small baby in a pram. A couple in their 70’s who look like grandparents, and a woman in her 50’s, standing on her own and looking at us in a way that stops me in my tracks.

While everyone else is laughing along or pleasantly smiling at us, her face is different. It’s like there’s a tinge of sadness there. I’m usually quite good at reading expressions but for a moment hers throws me. And then I place it. It’s a look I’ve given when I see a mother experiencing a moment that I once knew but will never experience again. A tiny newborn hand tightly grasping an adult finger, a little head resting on a muslin cloth draped over a shoulder as it’s back is gently burped, wobbly first steps winding their way through a playground.

When you’re lost in the fog of parenthood these moments are normal, humdrum, expected. But slowly time creeps past, everyone gets a bit older and these little gems evaporate into thin air. If you’re lucky, every now and again you’ll witness something that transports you back to the happy moment, but then just as you try and breathe it in deeper you realize it’s gone forever. 

My husband once told me about the Welsh word ‘hiraeth’. It can’t be translated directly into English but it means a bittersweet memory of missing something while being grateful for its existence. That’s what that woman is feeling as I tickle my son.

Part of me feels lucky that over the next few years I’ll be making more and more of those moments to one day breath in again. But I also know that those moments, when they return, will come wrapped in hiraeth – and that’s just the way life is.

Myself and the lady knowingly smile at each other and I spot our car seats emerging onto the baggage belt.

 

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