There are words that serve only to name things. Others, however, seem to have been created to hold within them the soul of a people. Saudade (the Portuguese longing for what is absent) is one of those words. It does not merely express sadness, absence or remembrance. It is an older, deeper and nobler feeling. It is memory, love, fidelity, distance and hope. It is the spiritual presence of what the eyes can no longer behold, but which the heart refuses to forget.
Perhaps no other word expresses so perfectly the Portuguese way of feeling life. Saudade holds the murmur of the sea, the bell of the village church, the family home, a mother's voice, a father's counsel, the worn hands of grandparents, the smell of bread fresh from the oven and the memory of those who went before us. It holds the childhood that does not return, the land left far behind and the time when a man's word was worth more than any signed document.
Saudade is therefore far more than a feeling. It is a spiritual inheritance.
The Portuguese carry saudade with them as they carry the family name, the faith of their forebears and the love of the land where they were born. They may cross oceans, learn other languages, come to know other peoples and build a prosperous life in distant lands. They may attain fortune, recognition and standing. Yet there will always be a part of their soul that stayed by the door of the house where they grew up, in the shade of the church where they were baptized, or before the sea that first taught them the greatness and the smallness of man.
The emigrant understands this truth better than anyone. He leaves because necessity or legitimate ambition calls him. He leaves with courage, often with little money, but carrying with him the upbringing he received at home, respect for work, the fear of God and the hope of providing a better life for his family.
He works when others rest. He saves when others waste. He sacrifices the present to build the future. And even when he succeeds, he never wholly forgets the place he came from.
I know that condition well. I have lived in the United States for more than three decades. It was in this great Nation that I built an important part of my life, and for that I owe it gratitude, respect and loyalty. Yet I never ceased to be Portuguese. The passing of the years did not weaken the bond to my Pátria (the homeland). On the contrary, it made the value of my origins clearer.
I was born on the island of Pico, in the Azores, a land raised between the ocean and the sky, under the majestic watch of the highest mountain in Portugal. Those born on an island learn early that the sea can divide as readily as it can join. They learn that every departure holds a promise, and that every return brings with it an emotion that words can hardly explain.
Perhaps that is why saudade is so deeply engraved on the Azorean soul. For generations, our men and women took leave of their families and set out into the unknown. Many left without knowing when they would return. Some never returned. But they took Portugal with them, in the way they worked, prayed, raised families, respected their elders and honoured the commitments they had made.
They did not carry the Pátria in their suitcases. They carried it engraved in their character.
Saudade is not weakness. It is not an ailment of the soul, nor an invitation to resignation. It is, above all, a proof of fidelity. True saudade is felt only by those who have loved deeply, who have truly belonged, and who recognize that there are affections, principles and places that no material progress can replace.
In a time when almost everything has become provisional, saudade reminds us of what ought to endure.
We live in an age in which tradition is frequently presented as backwardness, authority as oppression, discipline as cruelty, faith as ignorance and patriotism as a cause for embarrassment. The family, which for centuries was the moral foundation of society, is subjected to relentless attack. A person's word loses its value. Respect for the elderly disappears. Duties are forgotten, while rights are proclaimed without measure and without responsibility.
Faced with this moral disorder, saudade may amount to a silent form of resistance.
A people that loses its memory ceases to understand the present
To feel saudade for a Portugal that is more dignified, more respectful, more disciplined and more conscious of its History does not mean rejecting the future. It means wishing that the future not be built on the ruins of everything we once were. A tree that scorns its own roots may keep its leaves for a while, but it will inevitably wither.
The same is true of Nations. Portugal was not born yesterday. It was built by the sacrifice of generations, by the courage of navigators, soldiers, missionaries, farmers, fishermen, mothers and fathers. It was carried to the four corners of the world by men who faced the sea without the certainties and comforts of our time. We owe them not merely respect, but gratitude.
A people that loses its memory ceases to understand the present and becomes incapable of deserving the future. When a Nation is ashamed of its History, scorns its symbols, abandons its language and allows others to define its identity, it begins to disappear, even if its borders remain drawn on the maps.
Saudade protects us from that disappearance.
Portugal does not exist only in the mainland territory and the islands. It exists in every Portuguese community scattered across the world. It exists in every emigrant who speaks Portuguese to his children. It exists in the mother who prays a prayer learned from her grandmother. It exists in the flag flown with pride before a distant house. It exists at the table where the flavours of our land are never missing. It exists in the man who, after a lifetime abroad, still says with conviction: I am Portuguese.
The Pátria is not merely the soil we tread. It is the memory we carry, the blood that binds us, the language in which we pray and the body of duties we accept towards those who came before us and those who will come after.
At times it is necessary to live far away in order to understand truly the worth of what was left behind. Distance erases the details of no importance, but it makes essential the memories that define who we are. An emigrant may own two houses, respect two flags and love two Nations, without ever confusing the place where he lives with the land where his roots began.
Saudade does not command us to return to the past. It teaches us not to arrive empty at the future.
It is the flame that stays lit when everything else seems distant. It is the voice of those who have gone. It is the silence of the old house. It is the sea contemplated from afar. It is the childhood that walks on beside us, though it can no longer be reached. It is Portugal turned into feeling.
As long as there is a Portuguese who keeps in his heart the memory of his land, Portugal will never be truly absent. As long as there is a son of Portugal who teaches his descendants the language, the History, the faith, respect for the family and love of the Pátria, our identity will not disappear.
Saudade is not merely the pain caused by an absence.
It is the love that remained after the departure.
It is the fidelity that withstood time.
It is the root that crossed the ocean.
It is the certainty that certain places, certain people and certain values may cease to stand before our eyes, but will never cease to live within us.
And perhaps that is the most beautiful definition of Portugal.
César DePaço
Businessman and Philanthropist
Consul ad honorem of Portugal from 2014 to 2020
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Summit Nutritionals International Inc.®
Founder and Chairman of the Board of The DePaço Foundation
Unwavering Defender of Law Enforcement and Conservative Principles