Hiraeth
The Untranslatable Ache
They say the Welsh have a word for a kind of longing that doesn’t quite exist anywhere else
They say the Welsh have a word for a kind of longing that doesn’t quite exist anywhere else — hiraeth. It rolls off the tongue like the wind coming down from the hills, a little soft at the start, lingering at the end. It’s often translated as homesickness, but that’s like saying the Ebbw is just “a bit of water.” It’s more than missing a place — it’s missing the whole life you had there, the people, the rhythm, the smell of the air after a rain.
For me, hiraeth isn’t some abstract cultural idea. It’s the ache that hits me when I think about home — mine and Tima’s, her mother’s, the people who used to be close enough for a cuppa on a Tuesday night without planning it weeks ahead. It’s the Valleys themselves, South Wales as it really is, not the postcard version. It’s Risca with its rows of houses clinging to the hillside like they’re not letting go for anyone, the corner shops where they know your name and your gossip, the chip shop queue on a Friday, and the Ebbw winding its way down like it’s got nowhere urgent to be.
I can close my eyes and be back there — Tima’s small hand in mine as we walk past the Co-op, a bag of crisps rustling in her other hand. The familiar nod from the butcher, the damp air that somehow smells of coal dust and bread rolls. There’s a comfort in that memory, but also the sting of knowing it’s all out of reach now. That’s hiraeth — not just missing the place, but missing the life that was woven into it.
And once you’ve felt it, it changes you. It’s like you start carrying a second map inside you — one for the roads you walk now, and one for the ones you can only travel in your mind.
Remembering
It doesn’t take much to set it off.
Sometimes it’s the smell of rain on a certain street — not just any street, but the kind where the pavement still holds a faint memory of coal dust, and the water runs down towards the drains with that quiet hum. In Risca, that smell meant it was time to head for home, maybe with a bag of chips under one arm, steam fogging up the paper. These days, when I catch that scent somewhere else, it’s like I’ve stepped sideways into another life.
Music is another one. There are songs I can’t get through without stopping — not because they’re sad in themselves, but because they were playing once when Tima was laughing, or when we were driving through the valleys with the windows down. The notes carry more than sound; they carry the air of that exact day, and it hits like a stone in the chest.
Then there’s the odd punch of walking past a shop that used to be something else. Back home, shops change, but the bones of the place stay the same. You see the ghost of the old sign in the sunlight, and suddenly you’re buying penny sweets with your mates again, or picking up milk on a rainy night.
But hiraeth doesn’t just belong to the past. It lives in the everyday, in almost everything. In seeing other kids play, in overhearing a mum call her child in from the park, in catching a family’s laughter at a café table. It’s there in the moments I spend with my son now — when we’re talking about his day, or when he’s laughing at something I’ve said. It’s there when I wake up in the night, or in the slow light of the mornings, realizing: this is life now.
It’s heavy. It’s messy. But it’s full of love.
The bigger moments are sharper. Visiting my old street, the lake or our old hikes, I can almost hear Tima’s footsteps on the way back from the park, see her darting ahead to press the button at the crossing. Or catching sight of someone in a crowd who moves just like her mother used to, and for a second, my brain believes.
Hiraeth doesn’t knock politely. It barges in — sometimes with the smell of rain, sometimes with a stranger’s laugh — and you’re left holding the weight of two worlds: the one you’re in, and the one you wish you could return to.
Wandering
Wherever I’ve been in the years since — Japan, South Korea, Sweden, all across Europe — I’ve found that walking has been the thing that helps me most. Not walking to get anywhere in particular, just moving forward, one step at a time. There’s something about the rhythm of it, the way your thoughts can settle or wander as they please. On a city street or a woodland path, walking becomes a kind of quiet companion — a reminder that even in stillness, you can move.
It’s not about “getting over” anything. It’s about making space to breathe inside the ache.
Then there are the things I keep close. When I came home for her 18th birthday to Risca, I went to pick up two of her favourite plushies — Hoppy the hippo and Boe the rabbit. They’d been waiting there all this time, in the same place, as if no time had passed at all.
Bringing them with me was more than just carrying soft toys in a suitcase. It was a shift — a way of saying, “She comes with me now, wherever I go.” Since then, they’ve been with me on trains, on planes, and resting quietly at home. In their own small way, they’ve changed how I live with her absence — she’s not left behind anymore.
These are the quiet anchors. Morning rituals that make space for her in my day. Certain walks that I know will carry the weight without breaking me. Objects that hold a whole world of memory in their fabric.
They don’t erase the longing — but they give it a way to exist alongside everything else.
Marking
Some things I mark without needing to think about them — they’re stitched into the year. Birthdays, certain holidays like St David’s Day. I don’t try to make them grand or spectacular. I want them to be us — what we would have done together. That might be cooking something we loved, walking a familiar route, or putting on the same song we used to sing along to. These are the days where I don’t chase distraction. I sit with her in my mind, let her be part of the day as it unfolds.
Every October, there’s the Wave of Light — a global act of remembrance for babies and children who are no longer with us. On the 15th, at 7pm, people all over the world light a candle, and for 24 hours, a wave of light passes around the globe. I’ve stood in that quiet glow, candle flickering, knowing there are countless others doing the same. It’s a small, still thing, but it feels like connection — a thread between strangers who all know the same absence.
Then there are the remembrance events like the Ribbon Run during Baby Loss Awareness Week. I’ve walked it, not run, because speed has never been the point. It’s the act of moving forward with others, some alone in their thoughts, some talking, all carrying the same kind of love and loss. There’s something grounding about knowing you can take part in your own way — run, walk, push, stroll — and still be part of the shared gesture.
These rituals aren’t about closing chapters. They’re about keeping the book open, letting her name be spoken, her memory be active in the present. They’re small ways of saying: she’s still here, she’s still mine, and the love that made her will always shape the way I live.
Making
Some things I can’t say out loud, not even to the people closest to me. They come out better on paper — in letters I’ll never send, in stories where the names are changed but the heart of it is the same, in poems that start as a scribble on the back of a receipt. Writing gives the ache somewhere to live outside of my chest for a while. It doesn’t matter if anyone else ever reads it — the act of shaping the words is its own kind of relief.
Music is another language for it. Sometimes I find songs that already hold the feeling, and I’ll sit with them like you’d sit with an old friend who understands without needing an explanation. Other times, I create my own — weaving melodies and words together until they sound like the memory they’re meant to carry. The process isn’t tidy. It can take weeks or months to land on something that feels right. But when it does, it’s like I’ve built a place where the ache can rest without being erased.
Art and storytelling give me a way to stretch the edges of memory, to make space for hope alongside the grief. Through drawing, photography, or building a “garden of memory” online, I can hold fragments of her — a favourite colour, a shape she once traced with her finger — and place them in a world I can revisit any time. Stories, whether for adults or children, let me keep her in motion: walking, laughing, discovering new places.
Connecting
The circles we move in — family, friends, neighbours, colleagues — can look close from the outside, but when it comes to this particular kind of loss, the distance often shows. What we need as parents who’ve lost a child isn’t always something the people around us can give, and it’s never exactly the same for each of us.
Sometimes what I’ve needed most is simply someone who sees and hears me without trying to fix anything. That kind of presence — a person who doesn’t shy away, who stays — can feel like solid ground when everything else falls away. I’ve found that in unexpected places: a conversation in an online forum at 2am, a message from someone who’s been there, a quiet moment at a remembrance event where a stranger and I share a nod that says, yes, I know.
Silence plays a complicated role. At first, it can feel like a wall — the silence of those who don’t mention her name, who avoid the subject out of fear or discomfort. But over time, I’ve learned there’s another kind of silence too. The one that happens when someone is simply with you, without needing to fill the air. That kind of silence can be an anchor, a space where grief and love can sit side by side.
Online communities, local remembrance groups, charity events — they’ve all given me places where I don’t have to explain why I’m there. The connection isn’t built on shared hobbies or small talk, but on a deep understanding that words can’t always touch. It’s not about surrounding yourself with people all the time — it’s about finding the ones who will stand with you, in noise or in quiet, when the weight feels too much to carry alone.
Doing
If you’re feeling something like this — the pull of somewhere, someone, some time you can’t get back — the first thing I’d say is: make space for it. You don’t have to rush yourself out of the feeling. Let it sit. Let it be part of the room. It’s not a weakness to let longing have its place.
Find anchors. For me, that’s walks I take without a destination, the quiet weight of Hoppy and Boe on the shelf, lighting a candle on certain evenings. These small, repeated acts create points in the day or year where you know you’ll feel connected. They don’t need to be big — they just need to be yours.
If the places that once mattered are gone or far away, create new ones. A bench in a park you visit often, a tree you pass on your walks, a corner of your own home where you keep certain objects. Meaning can grow anywhere if you give it time and intention.
And use creativity when the words don’t come. Write, paint, sing, photograph — not for anyone else’s eyes or ears, but for your own. It’s a way to say the unsayable, to give the ache a shape you can see and touch.
You can’t bring back what’s gone, but you can carry it forward in ways that make sense for you. These small acts don’t fix the longing, but they help you live with it — and sometimes, even find warmth in it.
-
A faint breeze stirs the morning still,
The whisper of a far-off thrill.
A place once ours, now time’s to claim,
Yet echoes linger, soft, the same.
The path we tread, the winding lane,
The trees, they bow, but not in vain.
Her laughter hung within the breeze,
Now tucked away among the leaves.
"Where did she go, Baba?" she asked,
Her voice a tether to the past.
“She’s here,” I said, my heart unsure,
“In winds, in earth—forever more.”
Hiraeth calls, soft and low,
A pull of things we used to know.
Heretofore, the past may stay,
But love, my star, will find a way.
We crossed the bridge, the creek below,
Its song the same as long ago.
"Did Mama walk here too?" she said,
Her little boots on stones she tread.
“Yes, my love, she walked this trail,
Through rain, through sun, through winter’s gale.”
Her tiny hands held mine so tight,
A lantern glowing in the night.
Hiraeth calls, soft and low,
A pull of things we used to know.
Heretofore, the past may stay,
But love, my star, will find a way.
The winds, they speak, of what’s been lost,
But carry too, what love embossed.
We stood and listened, still and true,
The past is gone, but not with you.
The field we found, her favorite place,
Where flowers danced in quiet grace.
We lay and stared at skies above,
Our hearts alive with endless love.
"Baba," she said, "Do stars forget?"
I smiled and said, "Not one, not yet."
The wind, it kissed her face so kind,
A fleeting touch of time aligned.
Hiraeth calls, soft and low,
A pull of things we used to know.
Heretofore, the past may stay,
But love, my star, will find a way.
The day gave way to twilight’s glow,
We lingered where her garden grows.
The past and present intertwine,
In love, we trace a sacred line.
“Goodnight, my star,” her tiny yawn,
We headed home as dusk withdrew.
The memories stayed, but so did we,
Together, whole, as one and new.
The breeze grew still, the world at rest,
With hiraeth nestled in my chest.
Her voice, her laugh, the echoes play,
But love remains, and finds its way.
Resources
Over the years, I’ve come across books, music, and communities that have met me where I was — sometimes in the rawest parts of grief, other times in the gentler moments where memory feels like a friend. These aren’t recommendations in the “you should” sense, but things that have made a difference for me.
Books
A Heart That Works – Rob Delaney
I’ve read a lot of books on loss, but this one felt like someone was speaking from the same battlefield. Delaney’s story of his son Henry is brutal in its honesty, sometimes darkly funny, and utterly human. He doesn’t sand down the edges of grief — he shows them, and in doing so, makes space for the love that never leaves.Children’s books rooted in Wales
Some of the gentlest connections I’ve felt to home and to Tima have come through Welsh children’s books — especially those that weave in the Mabinogion myths in ways a child could love. Reading them now feels like sharing something timeless with her, even if only in my own head.
Music
The Arcadian Wild
Their harmonies carry a warmth and depth that somehow sit comfortably with both joy and ache. I’ve listened to them on long walks and late nights — music that doesn’t force you to “feel better,” but lets you feel what you feel.
Communities
SAD DADS CLUB – saddadsclub.org
A space where bereaved fathers can talk without needing to explain the basics of their grief. It’s not about constant conversation — sometimes just knowing it’s there is enough. They help fathers find each other, find resources, and keep going when the rest of the world has gone quiet on the subject.
These aren’t cures. They’re touchstones — things and people I’ve returned to, in different seasons, that have helped me carry her memory and this love forward.
Hiraeth as a Journey, Not a Destination
Right now, as I write this, I’m sitting at home with the sound of my son playing Minecraft drifting in from the next room. It’s the sort of background noise you don’t notice at first, but once you do, you realise how alive it is — the little bursts of laughter, the muttered frustration, the quiet concentration.
The ache is here too, as it always is. But it’s not just a wound anymore. It’s a companion — one that walks with me through days like this, where grief and love sit side by side. I’ve stopped trying to push it out of the room. We share the space.
What I’ve learned is that longing doesn’t have to hollow you out. It can also shape you, guide you, even remind you of what’s most worth holding onto. We can weave it into the life we still have — through small rituals, through objects we carry, through walks that lead us nowhere but keep us moving.
Your ways will be your own. They don’t have to be big or visible to anyone else. They only have to be yours — enough to keep the thread of connection alive, enough to remind you that love doesn’t end just because someone is no longer here.
We carry them forward — in memory, in action, in the quiet moments between heartbeats — and in doing so, we carry ourselves too.
