| | [這篇文章最後由陳順勝在 2013/03/09 08:05pm 第 2 次編輯]
※ 文章編號 - NO.006：【My Story - When They're Grown, the Real Pain Begins】
※ 文章編號 - NO.006：「我的故事 - 當他們長大，真正的痛苦才開始！」
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/booming/when-theyre-grown-the-real-pain-begins.html?src=me&ref=general
When I was 24 years old, I brought my firstborn son, 3-week- old Jacob, to my childhood home on the Eastern End of Long Island to meet his grandparents. When I arrived, an old family friend and neighbor, Cora Stevens, happened to be sitting in my parents’ kitchen. Cora, a mother to five grown children and grandmother to seven, grabbed tiny Jake, put her face right up to his and started speaking loud baby talk to him. Then, as she bounced him on her knee, she turned to me and said, “When they're little they sit on your lap; when they're big they sit on your heart.”
在我 24歲時，我帶著3週大的長子雅各，回到長島東端我童年的老家去見他的祖父母。當我到達時，科拉-史蒂文斯太太正巧坐在我父母的廚房，她是家族的老朋友也是老鄰居。科拉有五個成年子女和七個孫子女。她一把抓握著小傑克，將她的臉龐碰觸到他的臉龐，然後響亮地與他喃喃兒語。然後，當她在膝蓋上拍彈小傑克時，她轉過身來對我說：「當他們還小時，他們坐在你的腿上；當他們長大後，他們坐在你的心窩裡。」
Oh, how right she was. Now that Jake is 28, and his brothers are 25 and 19, I can say without a doubt that this is way harder than having little kids. When my children were growing up, I groped my way through stormy nights, chaotic dinner hours, endless mess, nail-biting basketball games, tortured term papers, bad dates and the agony of college admissions.During all those wild ups and downs in the back of my head was the calming thought: once my children get into college, my work will be done. In retrospect, having little kids was a breeze. As long as you hugged them a lot and made good food, things seemed to be, for the most part, O.K. You could fix many problems, and distract them from others. Your home could be a haven from all that might be painful and difficult in the world beyond.
喔，她說得是如此的正確啊！現在，傑克是 28，他的兄弟是 25和 19，我毫無疑問地說，更難於小孩時期了。當我的孩子漸漸長大，我摸索著經歷：暴風雨之夜、混亂的晚餐時間、無止盡的一團糟處境，扣人心弦的籃球比賽、折磨人的學期報告、令人不悅的艱苦日子、極度苦惱的高校招生。然而在這失控般地跌宕起伏於後腦勺的是我平靜的想法：一旦我的孩子考上大學，我的工作就會告一段落。現在回想起來，有小孩是一件輕而易舉的事。只要你多一些擁抱，做出滿意的食物，在大多數情況下，事情似乎是「可以」的。你可以解決很多問題，並轉移其他人對他們的注意力。你的家可以是遠離世界上痛苦和困難的一個避風港。
All of that changes when they are grown. They fall in love, break their hearts, apply for jobs, leave or lose the jobs, choose new homes, can't pay the rent for those new homes and question their choice of profession. They forge their way, all just outside of your helping reach. Then, when bad things happen, they need you like crazy, but you discover that the kind of help you've spent 25 years learning how to give is no longer helpful.
當他們長大成人，所有的這一切也都隨著改變了。他們戀愛，他們傷心，申請工作，離職或者失去了工作，選擇新的家園，不能支付這些新家園的租金，並對他們所選擇的職業產生了懷疑與困惑。他們開拓自己的路，遠超出您能幫助範圍之外。然後，當不好的事情發生時，他們如瘋了般地需要你時，你卻發現你已經花了 25年時間所學如何給與什麼樣的幫助，卻再也不能夠有所幫助的了。
Last year, one of my sons went through a series of devastating setbacks. Almost everything bad that could happen to a young person happened to him.He had a catastrophic accident at work that permanently damaged one of his fingers. He will never use it again, though almost everything he loves to do requires the precise and flexible use of his hands.He endured a devastating break-up with a longtime girlfriend.And he got fired from a job he cared about, without any warning or rationale.He seemed just about as broken as a young man can be.
去年，我的一個兒子經歷了一連串災難性的挫折。幾乎可能發生在年輕的人的所有壞事，在他身上也都發生了。在工作中有一次災難性的事故，造成他的手指永久性損壞。他永遠都不會再使用它，儘管他喜歡做的所有的事，幾乎都需要精確和靈活使用雙手。他忍受了與交往多年的女友徹底地分手。他所關心的工作，卻毫無預警或理由地被解僱了。他似乎是如同一般年輕人一樣的垮掉了。
I too had been through a tough year — my brother killed himself, one of my best friends died a slow death from cancer, and I had a serious setback in my work life. But all of that was mild compared to the agony of watching my handsome, vigorous son kicked to the ground. I didn't know how to help him, and I didn't know how to handle my own nearly unbearable feeling of pain.I wanted to be by his side constantly, I wanted to go out and hurt those who had hurt him, arrange new work for him, bring beautiful women to my home (where he had come to live) and yet I wanted to get as far away as possible, just to avoid the pain his pain was causing me.
我也歷經艱難的一年：「我的兄弟自殺身亡、我最好的朋友之一因癌症而慢慢死亡、我的工作生活遭遇嚴重的挫折」。然而對照於目睹英俊瀟灑，充滿活力的兒子踢倒在地，我所感受的極度痛苦而言，這一切的痛苦都是相對較溫和的痛苦。我不知道該如何幫助他，我也不知道該如何處理我自己幾乎難以承受的疼痛的感覺。我想時時刻刻都陪伴在他身邊，我想走出去傷害那些使他受傷害了的人們，為他安排新的工作，帶來漂亮的女人來我家（在那裡他曾經生活...），但是我希望走得越遠越好，只為了避免他的痛苦也是造成我的痛苦。
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2012/12/22 04:34am 
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