There is a Scottish Gaelic word that has followed me around for months now. Cianalas.
It is often translated as homesickness, but that doesn’t quite capture its meaning. It is deeper than that. It is a longing for home, yes, but also a yearning for people, places, memories and moments that seem just out of reach. It is nostalgia wrapped in sadness, hope mixed with ache.
I didn’t know the word until recently.
Yet I have been living it since October.
When I was diagnosed with brain tumours last October, I thought I was embarking on another chapter in a journey that has already contained more twists than I could ever have imagined.
What I didn’t know was that following successful treatment of those brain tumours, I would have a recurrence of my spinal tumour which then in February would lead to total paralysis. I didn’t know that something as simple as getting home would suddenly feel almost impossible.
For months now, Scotland has felt both close and impossibly far away. I have cried for home more times than I care to admit. Not because I don’t appreciate where I am. Not because I am ungrateful for the care, support and opportunities around me. But because there is something primal about wanting to be home when life becomes difficult.
When we are children and frightened, we instinctively seek home. As adults, we pretend we have outgrown that need. Then illness, injury or uncertainty arrives and reminds us that we haven’t.
Home is not just a place on a map. Home is familiarity. Home is comfort. Home is belonging. Home is the people who understand your silences without needing explanations.
Last week, I found myself watching the World Cup from my hospital bed in my living room. Scotland v Haiti. Flower of Scotland, the national anthem began to play and the opening notes drifted through the air. Suddenly, I could feel tears running down my face. I wasn’t expecting it. I wasn’t trying to be emotional. But there it was.
Hundreds of miles from Scotland, hearing those familiar words, something deep inside me cracked open. For a few minutes, I wasn’t thinking about hospitals, rehabilitation or uncertainty. I wasn’t thinking about what I could or couldn’t do physically. I was simply thinking about home. I watched videos of street scenes in Boston with the sound of bagpipes seemingly everywhere. Around corners. Across squares. Through crowds. Every note felt like a reminder.
A reminder of where I come from.
A reminder of what I miss.
A reminder of what I am fighting to get back to.
It is strange how absence can sharpen appreciation.
There are things about Scotland I took for granted for years. The landscape. The humour. The weather, even. The feeling of stepping off a plane and knowing every voice, every accent and every familiar sight belongs to a place that helped shape who you are.
Distance has a way of revealing what truly matters. The longer I have been away, the stronger that feeling has become.
Perhaps cianalas is not simply about longing for a place. Perhaps it is also about longing for a future that feels uncertain.
Right now, I am still unable to move as I once could. Rehabilitation lies ahead. There are challenges I cannot yet see and questions nobody can fully answer. Yet beneath all of that uncertainty sits a simple hope.
To get home.
Not just geographically, but emotionally and physically. To walk – or wheel – through familiar places again. To feel Scottish rain on my face. To see family and friends without oceans between us. To return to the country that has become far more precious to me during my absence than it ever was during my presence.
I think many of us spend our lives chasing what is next. The next goal. The next promotion. The next trip. The next achievement. Then something happens that forces us to stop. And suddenly we realise that what we wanted most was not ahead of us at all. It was behind us. Waiting patiently.
Home.
The beauty of cianalas is that it contains hope alongside sorrow. You only long for something because it matters. You only ache because you love. My longing for Scotland is stronger today than it has ever been. Perhaps that is because I have never been less certain about when I will return.
But rehabilitation is coming. Progress, however slow, is still progress. And while I don’t know exactly what the road ahead looks like, I know where I want it to lead.
Home.
For now, cianalas remains the perfect word.
A word for longing.
A word for memory.
A word for hope.
And a word that reminds me every day that some places never leave us, no matter how far away we travel.
Scotland certainly hasn’t left me.
