Patria amada, Brasil.

I know it hasn't been long since I blogged, but I just got hit hard by an intense longing and yearning for Brazil. This happens every once in awhile, and it never gets any easier to deal with.

I was copying all my documents from my external hard drive to my MacBook, and I saw a folder called "Letter" that caught my eye. I opened it and it contained a letter that was written to my parents by a family from the last area I served in while a missionary in Brazil. The author of the letter, Patricia, was the wife and mother of the only family that I was able to teach and baptize in Jose Bonifacio, a small city of about 35,000 people. I came to love Patricia, her husband Odair, and their three beautiful daughters under the age of five with all my heart. When my two years of missionary service ended, I was excited to return to the States but heartbroken to leave my dear friends behind. I was lucky to be able to return to Brazil in November 2005 to visit this family along with some others in a different city. Leaving the second time was even harder. As I drove my parents and our rental car back toward Sao Paulo, I was nearly overcome with a yearning to stay, but I knew that my place was back in the U.S. of A.

Anyway, I saw this letter that Patricia had written to my parents, which I had then translated for them, and I quickly reread the letter. That was probably not the best idea if I had wanted to retain some of my emotional tranquility for the evening. Even before I finished, I was hit with saudade, a Portuguese term for longing. Instead of the action of missing someone or something, saudade is a noun; it's like the longing or yearning is an actual object within you. I really like the distinction, the difference between the ways different languages express a similar reality. Anyway, this saudade hit me very hard tonight. I haven't communicated with Odair and Patricia for awhile, and that causes me great sadness. I constantly miss my Brazilian friends, and I am ashamed that I have not done more to keep in contact with them. It is one of the great regrets I have, that and not keeping up with my Portuguese the way I should. I'm just amazed every time this saudade hits me. I mean, it's not like I don't think about those people frequently. Just last night Jared and I were at Carl's Jr and our conversation eventually ended up on this same subject.

I'm constantly reminded of Brazil and my friends. I see Brazil in so many things. I can hear it, smell it, touch it, and feel it all the time. It really assumed a place in my soul; that's the only explanation I can give for its continued and unmistakable presence in my life, despite the tremendous physical distance between my favorite South American nation and me. I think this saudade is just something I'm going to have to deal with, as difficult as it may be, because the only way to get rid of it would be to completely forget all the people I came to love so much, and I would rather suffer with my saudade than enjoy the numbness of oblivion and forgetfulness.