wistfully
advEtymology From wistful + -ly.
1
In a wistful manner.
- The difference here is that the protagonists in this collection are, for the most part, at the end of their lives, and so the news of familial drama and divorce and the cocktail parties, barbecues and casual wooings of quotidian life in suburbia is given retrospectively, wistfully, presented in the larger context as memories of lost moments and lost opportunities.2009 June 7, T. Coraghessan Boyle, “The Road Home”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 26 Jan 2021: