The Language of Sighs

Med­ical sci­ence has never fully fig­ured out why we sigh (an aver­age of 9 times per day). The­o­ries have to do with oxy­gen needs, but I think there is far more to it. The sigh is an amaz­ing foot­note to life. Every so often, we take a deep breath. Some­times it sig­nals a change of mood, some­times it just hap­pens. One thing for sure, if you begin to notice them, you will find a door to one of the mys­ter­ies of phys­i­cal and spir­i­tual life.

I know when my dog “Killer” (mina­ture Daschund) is going to sigh. It is right after he gets com­fort­able and is ready for a nap or some sort of long dog-meditation. He sighs with such earnest resolve — like it is the last thing he is going to do for a while.

The Bible only uses this as a metaphor on a rare occa­sion or two. It was said that God “sighed” when he saw the wicked­ness on earth — before Noah’s flood. It was a sigh of almost regret. His most cher­ished part of cre­ation had become self-destructive. I have also noticed that I tend to sigh right after I see a project go down the drain. The sigh clears my head for putting some failed aspect of life to rest.

There are sighs of “oh well” — “let’s begin again” — “wish I had never done this” — “time to relax” — “time to give up” — and even “time to just kick out of gear.” I have also found that I sigh when watch­ing a sun­set. The day is over. I sigh to put it to rest. I sigh right before I go to sleep — prob­a­bly the rem­nant of when I cried myself to sleep as an infant. It is also the punc­tu­a­tion mark between events.

It is almost sum­mer (sigh) and this week will include a trip to my dis­tant child­hood roots (sigh), and then I will return to pick up where I left off (sigh). All is well. These inevitable deep breaths remind me to take the breath of life in fully and let it go with resolve. It is the metaphor for the whole life experience.