Dear Kate: Living with Grief
O ne morning in early June 2004, I peeked into the room where my 23-year-old daughter, Kate, was still curled up in the white wrought-iron bed she had slept in as a child.
2004 年 6 月上旬的一天早晨，我向房间里望去，我 23 岁的女儿凯特仍然蜷缩在她小时候睡过的白色锻铁床上。
I paused for a moment and gazed at her lovely face, framed by wild, curly hair that spread out like seaweed across the pillow.
我停顿了一会儿，凝视着她可爱的脸庞，周围是狂野的卷发，像海藻一样散布在枕头上。
Standing there, I said to myself, as I sometimes did, I could not draw another breath if anything happened to this child.
站在那里，我对自己说，就像我有时做的那样，如果这个孩子出了什么事，我就无法再呼吸了。
Five months later in Bloomington, as Kate drove to Indian Creek High School to teach freshman English, a 45-year-old man high on opiates and cocaine crashed into her Honda Civic.
五个月后，在布卢明顿，当凯特开车去印第安河高中教新生英语时，一名吸食阿片类药物和可卡因的 45 岁男子撞上了她的本田思域。
In the emergency room, a nurse snipped off two tangled locks of her chestnut hair for me.
在急诊室，一名护士为我剪掉了两绺乱七八糟的栗色头发。
Two days later, when I gently washed them in our bathroom sink, the water turned pink with her blood.
两天后，当我在浴室水槽里轻轻清洗它们时，水因她的血而变成了粉红色。
Yet I did draw another breath.
但我确实又吸了一口气。
And one after that.
之后还有一张。
And one after that.
之后还有一张。
On Kate’s first birthday after her death, I wrote her a long letter.
在凯特去世后的第一个生日那天，我给她写了一封长信。
I planned to burn it and put the ashes in the stone wall my husband, Steve, was building in her memory at our cottage in Maine.
我打算把它烧掉，然后把骨灰放在我丈夫史蒂夫在缅因州小屋里为纪念她而建造的石墙上。
But at the last minute I decided to make a copy.
但在最后一刻我决定复印一份。
Every birthday since then, I’ve written her another letter, telling her about births and deaths, marriages and breakups, kindnesses and disappointments—but also about everyday things like a new kind of Friendster called Facebook, the YouTube honey badger, and the antics of her little Lab mix, Lola.
从那以后的每个生日，我都会给她写另一封信，告诉她出生和死亡、婚姻和分手、善良和失望，还有日常事务，比如一种名为 Facebook 的新型 Friendster、YouTube 上的蜜獾，以及她的实验室混血儿 Lola 的滑稽动作。
Ten years have passed since I last brushed Kate’s hair from her cheek.
距离我上次拨开凯特脸颊上的头发已经过去十年了。
I’m not the same person I was then, and I know now I never will be.
我不再是以前的我了，现在我知道我永远也不会了。
But I do the best I can with the life I have now.
但我会尽力利用现在的生活。
A year after her death, I wrote about my daughter’s too-short life in “Kate’s Story” in Indianapolis Monthly .
她去世一年后，我在《印第安纳波利斯月刊》的《凯特的故事》中写到了我女儿短暂的一生。
I had “no brilliant insights on healing and hope,” I said then.
我当时说，“我对治愈和希望没有什么绝妙的见解”。
Nine years later, I’m sharing the story of what I’ve learned since, along with passages from those birthday letters to Kate.
九年后，我将分享我从那时起学到的故事，以及写给凯特的生日信中的段落。
If my experience helps someone better understand the loss of a child, if it offers hope to those facing challenges of their own, then Kate’s life continues to have meaning.
如果我的经历可以帮助人们更好地理解失去孩子的痛苦，如果它为那些面临挑战的人带来希望，那么凯特的生活仍然有意义。
And that is a gift I can still give her.
这是我仍然可以送给她的礼物。
“‘Magical’ is a word we often use to describe you.
“‘神奇’是我们经常用来形容你的一个词。
Not that you were a saint.
并不是说你是圣人。
You smoked, you could be stubborn, and you liked having things your way.
你抽烟，你可能很固执，而且你喜欢按自己的方式做事。
But your capacity for giving and accepting love, for appreciating the beauty in small things, for making people laugh, was truly magical.
但你给予和接受爱的能力、欣赏小事之美的能力、让人们开怀大笑的能力，真的很神奇。
There was a brightness about you that was visible to the eye.
你身上有一种肉眼可见的光辉。
I loved that you were so astonishingly beautiful, but I loved who you were inside more.
我喜欢你如此美丽，但我更喜欢你内心的样子。
It’s that inner light that I miss the most.” —July 2005
我最怀念的是内心的光芒。” ——2005 年 7 月
This is the terrible truth about losing a child: In many ways, the second and third years are even harder than the first.
这就是失去孩子的可怕真相：在很多方面，第二年和第三年甚至比第一年更艰难。
When your child dies, your life changes in an instant, forever.
当你的孩子去世时，你的生活瞬间发生了永远的改变。
The blow is so profound that you go into a numbing, emotional shock.
这种打击如此深远，以至于你陷入麻木的情感震惊中。
Less than an hour after being told of Kate’s death, I sat in the ER waiting room and asked a colleague about her classes that semester.
在得知凯特去世的消息后不到一个小时，我坐在急诊室候诊室，向一位同事询问她这个学期的课程。
I didn’t shed a tear at Kate’s funeral.
在凯特的葬礼上我没有流一滴眼泪。
I was back in my journalism classroom at Indiana University a week later.
一周后，我回到了印第安纳大学的新闻教室。
For months, I felt encased in a giant invisible bubble.
几个月来，我感觉自己被包裹在一个巨大的看不见的泡沫中。
I could see and hear what people did and said and respond in a way that was mostly appropriate.
我可以看到和听到人们做了什么、说了些什么，并以最合适的方式做出反应。
But I wasn’t part of their world.
但我不属于他们的世界。
That numbness begins to fade about the same time people around you move on with their lives.
当你周围的人继续他们的生活时，这种麻木感开始消失。
The flood of calls and notes becomes a trickle.
大量的电话和短信变成了涓涓细流。
You see a neighbor duck into the next grocery aisle to avoid you.
你看到一个邻居躲进隔壁的杂货店过道来避开你。
You catch a note of impatience in a colleague’s voice.
你从一位同事的声音中听出了一丝不耐烦。
Emails often say “Let’s get together soon” but rarely mention a time or day.
电子邮件经常说“我们很快见面吧”，但很少提及具体时间或日期。
Writer Anne Morrow Lindbergh described the struggle like this: “It isn’t for the moment you are struck that you need courage, but for the long uphill climb back to sanity and faith and security.”
作家安妮·莫罗·林德伯格（Anne Morrow Lindbergh）这样描述这场斗争：“你需要勇气的不是那一刻，而是为了恢复理智、信念和安全感。”
And that climb is exhausting.
而且这样的攀爬是很累人的。
Keeping up an appearance of normalcy in the early years required constant vigilance.
早年要保持正常的外表需要时刻保持警惕。
I’d often slip into the women’s restroom at work, and my face would crumple as the door safely latched.
我经常在工作时溜进女洗手间，当门安全锁上时，我的脸会皱起来。
I’d take long walks in the woods where no one could see me cry or hear me talking to Kate.
我会在树林里散步很长时间，这样没人会看到我哭泣，也不会听到我和凯特说话。
One evening we were playing cards with friends when their son called.
一天晚上，我们正在和朋友打牌，他们的儿子打来电话。
The father rolled his eyes in mock protest at the interruption and said he’d call him back tomorrow.
父亲翻了个白眼，假装抗议这样的打扰，并说他明天会给他回电话。
A sudden longing swept over me.
一种突然的渴望席卷了我。
I left the room and braced my arms on the bathroom vanity.
我离开房间，将双臂撑在浴室梳妆台上。
I would have traded every day of the rest of my life for that 30-second call.
我愿意用余生的每一天来换取那个 30 秒的电话。
But I returned with a smile to finish the game.
但我笑着回来完成了游戏。
No one was the wiser.
没有人比他更明智。
Sometimes, though, the grief broke through unexpectedly.
然而，有时悲伤会出乎意料地爆发。
Three years after Kate’s death, I went to an open house for a friend’s daughter and couldn’t stop crying.
凯特去世三年后，我去参加朋友女儿的开放日活动，忍不住哭了。
Steve made our apologies, and we slipped away.
史蒂夫向我们道歉，然后我们就溜走了。
At a concert with some friends, I broke into sobs when Iris Dement sang about the prospect of an afterlife in “Let the Mystery Be.” I never saw the woman sitting next to me again.
在与一些朋友的一场音乐会上，当艾丽斯·德门特在《Let the Mystery Be》中唱到来世的前景时，我突然抽泣起来。我再也没有见过坐在我旁边的那个女人。
Goodbyes of any kind were the worst.
任何形式的告别都是最糟糕的。
Just before one friend’s departure, I went upstairs to compose myself.
就在一位朋友离开之前，我上楼让自己平静下来。
“You can do this,” I told myself.
“你可以做到的，”我告诉自己。
But I couldn’t.
但我不能。
As soon as I started to speak, I fell apart.
我一开口说话，我就崩溃了。
For years, I blamed myself for driving away friends with these “lapses.” Then one day I thought, It’s a miracle you haven’t taken a baseball bat and smashed every window in the house.
多年来，我一直责怪自己因为这些“失误”而赶走了朋友。然后有一天我想，你没有拿着棒球棒砸碎房子里的每一扇窗户真是个奇迹。
If you’ve made people uncomfortable, if they think you’re a little psychotic, so what?
如果你让人们感到不舒服，如果他们认为你有点精神病，那又怎样？
Do you believe they would manage one bit better if the situation were reversed?
你认为如果情况逆转的话他们会处理得更好一些吗？
The sorrow and anger that followed Kate’s death, however, pale next to the terrible yearning.
然而，凯特去世后的悲伤和愤怒与可怕的渴望相比显得苍白无力。
“Sometimes I feel panic sweeping over me,” I wrote to a friend, “and I’m so overwhelmed with yearning for Kate that I don’t know how I’ll manage.”
“有时我感到恐慌席卷了我，”我写信给一位朋友，“我对凯特的渴望如此强烈，以至于我不知道该如何应对。”
I searched for “yearning” and “grief” on the Internet and found a Harvard Medical School study that concluded yearning after a loss is far more debilitating than sadness or depression.
我在互联网上搜索“渴望”和“悲伤”，发现哈佛医学院的一项研究得出的结论是，失去亲人后的渴望比悲伤或抑郁更让人衰弱。
The study included people who had lost a husband or wife, a parent, or a brother or sister.
这项研究的对象包括失去丈夫或妻子、父母或兄弟姐妹的人。
I wrote the author, Dr. Holly Prigerson at Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, to ask why parents who had lost children weren’t included.
我写信给作者、波士顿达纳法伯癌症研究所的 Holly Prigerson 博士，询问为什么失去孩子的父母没有被包括在内。
Losing a child, she told me, is so many “orders of magnitude worse” that it couldn’t be meaningfully compared to other losses.
她告诉我，失去一个孩子的后果“要严重几个数量级”，与其他损失相比没有任何意义。
On his third birthday without Kate, Steve and I were standing in our kitchen, crying, when he choked out these words: “It’s not that I want her back.
在他没有凯特的三岁生日那天，史蒂夫和我站在厨房里哭泣，当时他哽咽着说：“我并不是想要她回来。
It’s not that I need her back.
并不是我需要她回来。
It’s that I have to have her back.”
我必须让她回来。”
But that was impossible.
但那是不可能的。
So we slogged through each day by breaking it into parts: This is how we’ll get to noon; this is how we’ll get to a beer and a glass of wine at 5; this is how we’ll get to bedtime.
因此，我们把每一天分成几部分，艰难地度过：这样我们就能到达中午；这就是我们的生活。这就是我们在 5 点喝一杯啤酒和一杯葡萄酒的方式；这就是我们睡觉的方式。
We avoided crowds, loud noises, or anything that could add to our stress.
我们避开人群、大声喧哗或任何可能增加我们压力的事情。
Steve, a Colts fan, found he could no longer go to games at Lucas Oil Stadium.
小马队球迷史蒂夫发现他无法再前往卢卡斯石油体育场观看比赛。
When we went for rides on a friend’s boat, we had to ask him to putter along at a “No Wake” speed.
当我们去朋友的船上兜风时，我们不得不要求他以“无唤醒”的速度行驶。
I took Xanax for anxiety and Ambien to sleep.
我服用 Xanax 治疗焦虑，服用 Ambien 入睡。
I hoarded the pills, always asking the doctor for a few more than I needed.
我囤积了药片，总是向医生索取比我需要的更多的药片。
The yearning came in waves, and when it was at its worst, when I wasn’t sure I wanted to go on, I repeated these lines: “This is how you feel now.
渴望一波又一波地袭来，当最糟糕的时候，当我不确定自己是否想继续下去时，我重复了这些台词：“这就是你现在的感受。
But just hang on and see how you feel tomorrow.” Somehow, things always seemed a bit better the next day.
但坚持住，看看明天你感觉如何。”不知何故，第二天事情似乎总是好一点。
Oddly, the only time I felt what I might call relief in those first years came when I jumped in an ice-cold lake after a hike in Maine.
奇怪的是，在最初的几年里，我唯一一次感到可以称之为解脱的是当我在缅因州徒步旅行后跳进冰冷的湖里时。
The water drove away every other sensation—the weight, the sadness, the anger, even the yearning.
水驱走了所有其他感觉——重量、悲伤、愤怒，甚至渴望。
And, for a few brief seconds, I remembered what life had felt like before.
在短短的几秒钟里，我记起了以前的生活感觉。
“I feel so close to despair so often …
“我常常感到如此接近绝望……
What I need most is the strength to look beyond my sorrow and not judge others too harshly.
我最需要的是超越悲伤的力量，不要太严厉地评判别人。
I’ll be more accepting of people for who they are.
我会更加接受人们本来的样子。
I’ll show more courage.
我会表现出更多的勇气。
And I will do everything I can to see that your memory stays alive.” —July 2006 and 2007
我会尽我所能，让你的记忆永存。” ——2006 年 7 月和 2007 年
Six months after Kate was killed, Steve got a call from a friend in New York City he hadn’t seen or spoken to for more than a decade.
凯特被杀六个月后，史蒂夫接到纽约市一位朋友的电话，他已经十多年没有见面或交谈了。
On a whim that day, he had Googled Steve’s name and found the news stories of Kate’s death.
那天一时兴起，他在谷歌上搜索了史蒂夫的名字，找到了凯特去世的新闻报道。
He called and told Steve he was flying to Indianapolis.
他打电话告诉史蒂夫他要飞往印第安纳波利斯。
If all Steve could do was to meet him at the airport for a drink, that was fine.
如果史蒂夫能做的只是在机场接他喝一杯，那就很好了。
He’d turn around and catch the next plane back.
他会转身搭乘下一班飞机回来。
He ended up staying with us for a few days, and we’ve been close friends with him and his wife ever since.
他最终和我们一起住了几天，从那时起我们就和他和他的妻子成了亲密的朋友。
Every bereaved parent I know has stories like this.
我认识的每一位失去亲人的父母都有这样的故事。
A casual acquaintance or a friend from the past steps up and becomes a lifeline.
一个偶然的熟人或过去的朋友挺身而出，成为救命稻草。
Sadly, the opposite is true as well.
可悲的是，事实恰恰相反。
Every parent loses good friends they believed would always be a part of their lives.
每个父母都失去了他们认为永远是他们生活一部分的好朋友。
When a child dies, your circle of friends fractures and eventually re-forms in a new way.
当一个孩子去世时，你的朋友圈就会破裂，并最终以新的方式重新形成。
One of Steve’s longtime friends gave a reading at Kate’s funeral.
史蒂夫的一位老朋友在凯特的葬礼上朗诵了经文。
But when Steve didn’t bounce back as he expected, they argued and parted ways.
但当史蒂夫没有像他预期的那样恢复健康时，他们发生了争执并分道扬镳。
A mother whose daughter died nine years ago says her close—now former—friend has never acknowledged that anything happened.
一位女儿九年前去世的母亲说，她的亲密朋友（现在是前朋友）从未承认发生过任何事情。
Another mother told me one day that her friends had grown impatient with her grieving.
另一位母亲有一天告诉我，她的朋友们对她的悲伤感到不耐烦。
“They seem to want me to get better for their sakes,” she said.
“他们似乎希望我为了他们而变得更好，”她说。
Some casual friends drifted away in those early years because we were hard to be around.
早年一些普通的朋友因为我们很难相处而渐行渐远。
We were the cautionary tale—a walking reminder that they were just one phone call away from being us.
我们就是一个警示故事——一个行走的提醒，告诉我们只要一个电话，他们就会成为我们。
To be fair, we were sometimes the ones who pulled away.
公平地说，我们有时是那些抽离的人。
We didn’t want to listen to advice or religious counsel.
我们不想听建议或宗教劝告。
And we sometimes took offense at things people said.
有时我们会对人们所说的话感到生气。
Shortly after Kate’s death, a woman wrote to tell me her husband’s prostate surgery was a success.
凯特去世后不久，一位女士写信告诉我，她丈夫的前列腺手术很成功。
God had guided the surgeon’s hands, she said, so her husband wouldn’t be incontinent.
她说，上帝引导了外科医生的双手，所以她的丈夫不会失禁。
I know she didn’t mean it this way, but for me, the implication was that God hadn’t guided the hands of the man who crushed Kate’s car on the highway.
我知道她不是这个意思，但对我来说，这意味着上帝没有引导那个在高速公路上撞毁凯特汽车的人的手。
When bereaved parents get together, we often share the odd things people say to us.
当失去亲人的父母聚在一起时，我们经常分享人们对我们说的奇怪的话。
“I know how you feel—my grandfather died last year.” (Yes, that’s sad, but it’s not in the same universe as losing a child.)
“我知道你的感受——我的祖父去年去世了。” （是的，这很悲伤，但这与失去孩子不是同一个宇宙。）
“I always tell my kids not to drive on that road.” (So, my daughter would be alive today if I had done the same?)
“我总是告诉我的孩子不要在那条路上开车。” （那么，如果我也这么做的话，我的女儿今天还能活着吗？）
If I was going to survive without my daughter, I had to find the will to do that within myself.
如果我要在没有女儿的情况下生存，我必须找到自己的意愿。
“Everything happens for a reason.” (It would be nice if that were true, but it’s no comfort whatsoever.)
“一切发生的原因。” （如果这是真的就好了，但这一点也不让人感到安慰。）
Most people who say thoughtless things just blunder into it.
大多数说出轻率言论的人只是犯了错误。
And saying anything—even if it’s unwittingly hurtful—is better than saying nothing.
说任何话——即使是无意中造成的伤害——也比什么都不说要好。
When someone avoids the subject entirely, you feel even more isolated.
当有人完全回避这个话题时，你会感到更加孤立。
“Just give me my five minutes,” Steve says.
“给我五分钟时间，”史蒂夫说。
“I’ll ask about your children and listen to stories about their jobs and homes and families.
“我会询问你孩子的情况，听听他们的工作、家庭和家庭的故事。
But then give me a chance to tell you something about my daughter.”
但请给我一个机会告诉你一些关于我女儿的事情。”
One day at work eight or nine years ago, I got a call from an Indianapolis dentist who had lost her own daughter a decade before.
八九年前的一天，我接到印第安纳波利斯一位牙医的电话，她在十年前失去了自己的女儿。
The dentist was divorced and told me she’d realized soon after her daughter’s death that she had to decide: She could talk about her daughter or she could have friends—not both.
这位牙医离婚了，她告诉我，她在女儿去世后不久就意识到她必须做出决定：她可以谈论她的女儿，还是可以拥有朋友——但不能两者兼而有之。
No mother should have to make that choice , I thought.
我想，任何母亲都不应该做出这样的选择。
And I would never choose friends over talking about my daughter.
我永远不会选择朋友而不是谈论我的女儿。
Yet we have made adjustments.
但我们已经做出了调整。
Some dear friends can listen to almost anything, no matter how painful, and we try not to take advantage of their generosity.
有些亲爱的朋友几乎可以倾听任何事情，无论多么痛苦，我们尽量不利用他们的慷慨。
Others don’t want to hear about the sorrow but are okay with happy Kate stories.
其他人不想听到悲伤的事情，但对凯特快乐的故事很满意。
And we also have friends who seem to panic at the mention of her name.
我们也有朋友一提到她的名字就显得惊慌失措。
Now I realize that, for them, seeking us out, knowing there is a chance we’ll bring her up, is a gesture of compassion.
现在我意识到，对他们来说，找到我们，知道我们有机会抚养她，是一种同情的表现。
It’s hard to pin down what separates people who step up from those who disappear.
很难确定是什么将崛起的人和消失的人区分开来。
We’ve found no correlation between empathy and a person’s age, gender, education, religious beliefs, or even whether they have children.
我们发现同理心与一个人的年龄、性别、教育程度、宗教信仰，甚至是否有孩子之间没有任何关联。
These people do share what Steve describes as a secular “grace”: the courage to reach out to grieving parents on their own terms, to listen without changing the subject or giving advice, and to bring up a child’s name—the most wonderful gift of all.
这些人确实分享了史蒂夫所描述的世俗“恩典”：有勇气以自己的方式向悲伤的父母伸出援手，在不改变主题或提供建议的情况下倾听，并提出孩子的名字——这是所有礼物中最美妙的礼物。
After Kate was killed, two longtime friends hauled a trailer to her house in Bloomington and packed up her belongings the week before Christmas.
凯特被杀后，两个老朋友把一辆拖车拖到她位于布卢明顿的家，并在圣诞节前一周收拾了她的物品。
A casual friend at Steve’s school brought him lunch every day for a year.
史蒂夫学校里的一位普通朋友一年来每天都给他送午餐。
An attorney friend sat with us through every criminal hearing as the offender was convicted of DWI causing death in Monroe County District Court.
当罪犯在门罗县地方法院被判酒后驾车致人死亡时，一位律师朋友陪着我们参加了每次刑事听证会。
Three years ago on Kate’s birthday, we stopped at a wildlife rehabilitation center in Alaska.
三年前，凯特的生日那天，我们在阿拉斯加的一个野生动物康复中心停留。
We struck up a long-distance friendship with a veterinary student there whose sense of humor and love of animals reminded us so much of Kate.
我们与那里的一位兽医学生建立了远距离友谊，他的幽默感和对动物的热爱让我们想起了凯特。
This May, she asked us to join her for graduation, because she knew it would be meaningful to us.
今年五月，她邀请我们一起参加毕业典礼，因为她知道这对我们来说很有意义。
That, Steve says, is grace.
史蒂夫说，这就是恩典。
Not everyone who reached out to us in the past decade is still in our lives.
并非所有在过去十年中向我们伸出援手的人仍然存在于我们的生活中。
Time and distance and life’s complications have intervened.
时间、距离和生活的复杂性都介入了。
But I keep a special place in my heart for those who’ve helped us make it this far.
但对于那些帮助我们走到这一步的人，我在心里保留着一个特殊的位置。
“Dad and I are still in a holding pattern with our lives.
“爸爸和我的生活仍然处于停滞状态。
We get through each day with the terrible heaviness in our hearts.
我们每天都怀着无比沉重的心情度过。
I know you wouldn’t want that, and I’m trying to do some new things.
我知道你不会想要这样，我正在尝试做一些新的事情。
But our longing for you just gets more intense even as we know others are moving on with their lives.
但即使我们知道其他人正在继续他们的生活，我们对您的渴望却变得更加强烈。
People say how strong we are and they’re glad we’ve ‘gotten through it,’ but nothing could be further from the truth.” —July 2008
人们说我们有多强大，他们很高兴我们‘渡过了难关’，但事实并非如此。” ——2008 年 7 月
By the fifth year after Kate’s death, we had sunk into a routine with fewer towering waves of grief but little happiness.
到凯特去世后的第五年，我们已经陷入了一种惯例，悲伤的浪潮减少了，但幸福却很少了。
We stayed close to home in the evenings.
晚上我们住在离家很近的地方。
In the summers, we spent 10 weeks at our cottage in Maine, finding some peace in the power of the ocean and the changing of the tides.
夏天，我们在缅因州的小屋里度过了 10 个星期，在海洋的力量和潮汐的变化中找到了一些平静。
I threw myself into projects in Kate’s memory.
我全身心投入到凯特记忆中的项目中。
I scanned photographs and made slideshows.
我扫描照片并制作幻灯片。
I learned Final Cut Pro so I could edit the videos she’d taken with her grandfather’s camera.
我学习了 Final Cut Pro，这样我就可以编辑她用她祖父的相机拍摄的视频。
I sewed quilts for friends who had done so much for us, always using a few scraps of Kate’s clothing.
我为那些为我们做了很多事情的朋友缝制被子，总是使用凯特的一些衣服碎片。
Surviving took so much of our energy that we had little reserve for the everyday bumps and bruises of life.
生存消耗了我们太多的精力，以至于我们几乎没有能力应对生活中的日常颠簸和瘀伤。
I had lunch one day with a young mother whose 6-year-old son had died several years earlier.
有一天，我和一位年轻的母亲共进午餐，她 6 岁的儿子几年前去世了。
“I wish I could wear black for 10 years,” she told me, “so people would know to treat me gently.”
“我希望我能穿黑色衣服十年，”她告诉我，“这样人们就会知道要温柔地对待我。”
At the very least, we hoped people would recognize the playing field wasn’t level.
至少，我们希望人们能够认识到竞争环境并不公平。
Once, we welcomed a close friend and his new girlfriend into our home for a visit.
有一次，我们接待了一位好朋友和他的新女友到我们家做客。
Three weeks later, they sent us a list of what we, the bereaved parents, had done wrong and what we needed to do to make them feel more comfortable.
三周后，他们给我们发了一份清单，上面列出了我们这些失去亲人的父母做错了什么，以及我们需要做什么才能让他们感到更舒服。
We tried to patch things up, but the friendship was over.
我们试图修补关系，但友谊结束了。
Even the smallest irritations—spilled coffee, a burned-out lightbulb, a dresser drawer that sticks—could put us on edge.
即使是最小的烦恼——洒出的咖啡、烧坏的灯泡、梳妆台抽屉粘住——也会让我们紧张不安。
And major setbacks shattered whatever relief we found in routine.
重大挫折粉碎了我们在日常生活中找到的任何安慰。
My mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in the spring of 2009 and died that summer.
我的母亲于 2009 年春天被诊断出患有卵巢癌，并于当年夏天去世。
When my visiting-professor contract ended, I lost my full-time status, along with my health benefits, for two years.
当我的客座教授合同结束时，我失去了两年的全职身份以及健康福利。
Mistakes in the sentencing of the man who killed Kate meant that the case had to be reopened.
对杀害凯特的凶手的判决错误意味着案件必须重新审理。
One day we were making progress, and the next we were back in the early throes of grief.
有一天我们取得了进展，第二天我们又回到了悲伤的早期阵痛中。
Certain days are always harder than others.
某些日子总是比其他日子更艰难。
Birthdays become more—not less—important after a child’s death.
孩子去世后，生日变得更加重要，而不是变得不那么重要。
Milestone ages, like 21 or 30, take on added meaning, just as they do for the living.
里程碑年龄，如 21 岁或 30 岁，具有额外的意义，就像它们对活着的人一样。
This is the day you hope others will pause and recall your son or daughter.
在这一天，您希望其他人停下来回忆您的儿子或女儿。
As one mother whose child was killed 14 years ago told me, “Every year I ask myself: ‘Is this the year when no one remembers my daughter’s birthday?’”
正如一位 14 年前孩子被杀的母亲告诉我的那样，“每年我都会问自己：‘今年是不是没人记得我女儿的生日？’”
Steve and I did the best we could at family and holiday gatherings.
史蒂夫和我在家庭和节日聚会上尽了最大努力。
Our son, Daniel, had lost not only the sister he loved, but the parents he had known.
我们的儿子丹尼尔不仅失去了他所爱的妹妹，还失去了他所认识的父母。
We worried how Kate’s death would affect him now that he was an only child.
我们担心凯特的死会对他产生怎样的影响，因为他是独生子。
So we wrapped presents and put up a tree and baked a turkey.
所以我们包装了礼物，竖起一棵树，烤了一只火鸡。
But we all knew the table was missing a chair.
但我们都知道桌子上缺少一把椅子。
Weddings seemed unthinkable at first and still evoke conflicting emotions; you’re happy for the couple, but at the same time you mourn for what your child will never know.
婚礼一开始似乎是不可想象的，但仍然会引发矛盾的情绪。你为这对夫妇感到高兴，但同时你也为你的孩子永远不会知道的事情感到悲伤。
One mother who attended the wedding of her daughter’s boyfriend told me she spent most of the service in the bathroom.
一位参加过女儿男友婚礼的母亲告诉我，她大部分时间都是在浴室里度过的。
Just last summer, I watched Steve choke back sobs as a father walked his daughter down the aisle.
就在去年夏天，当一位父亲陪着女儿走上红毯时，我看到史蒂夫强忍着抽泣。
“Funerals are a lot easier,” a bereaved father told us recently.
“葬礼容易多了，”一位失去亲人的父亲最近告诉我们。
At a funeral, everyone is sad.
在葬礼上，每个人都很悲伤。
At a wedding, you’re the only one whose heart is breaking.
在婚礼上，你是唯一一个心碎的人。
As you would expect, the anniversary of the moment that forever divides your life into “before” and “after” is the worst.
正如你所料，将你的生活永远分为“之前”和“之后”的那一刻的周年纪念日是最糟糕的。
An ache settles into your heart weeks before, and the days leading up to it are actually worse than the anniversary itself.
几周前，一种疼痛就会在你的心中扎根，而疼痛发生之前的日子实际上比周年纪念日本身更糟糕。
When that day is over, you breathe again, knowing you have another full year before it returns.
当那一天结束时，你再次呼吸，知道在它回来之前你还有一整年的时间。
But some emotional jolts come without warning.
但有些情绪波动是毫无征兆的。
Once, as I was checking out a book, the librarian pulled up Kate’s account instead of mine.
有一次，当我在借书时，图书管理员调出凯特的账户而不是我的账户。
Steve had the TV news on one morning while he was grading papers, and Kate’s face flashed up on the screen—a promo for a news segment later that week.
一天早上，史蒂夫在批改论文时看到了电视新闻，凯特的脸出现在屏幕上——那周晚些时候新闻片段的宣传片。
Not long ago, I called home from my cell phone, and a young woman’s voice said, “Hello, you’ve reached the Comiskeys …” It was Kate.
不久前，我用手机给家里打电话，一个年轻女子的声音说：“你好，你已经到了科米斯基一家……”是凯特。
Somehow our answering machine had lost power, and the greeting defaulted to a forgotten phone in the basement.
不知何故，我们的答录机断电了，问候语默认为地下室里一部被遗忘的电话。
What hurt most was it took me a few seconds to recognize my daughter’s voice.
最让我伤心的是我花了几秒钟才认出我女儿的声音。
A friend calls these moments “grief bursts.” We know we’ll feel emotional at holidays and birthdays and weddings, but the unexpected reminders of what we’ve lost still take us by surprise.
一位朋友称这些时刻为“悲伤爆发”。我们知道在节日、生日和婚礼上我们会感到情绪激动，但意想不到的提醒我们失去了什么仍然让我们感到惊讶。
But, as painful as these bursts are, none of us wants them to stop.
但是，尽管这些爆发令人痛苦，但我们谁也不希望它们停止。
They connect us with our child.
他们将我们与孩子联系起来。
“I don’t think you would have liked the idea of turning 30.
“我认为你不会喜欢 30 岁的想法。
But I know you would be lovelier than ever.
但我知道你会比以前更可爱。
You touched so many lives in your 24 years, and I know they remember you even if they don’t always think to tell us.
在你的 24 年里，你感动了很多人，我知道他们记得你，即使他们并不总是想告诉我们。
I can promise you this: You will be in my thoughts and my heart every hour of whatever life remains to me.
我可以向你保证：无论我的生命还剩下什么，你都会在我的思想和心里。
Your name will be the last word I say and your beautiful face will be the last thing I see.” —July 2010
你的名字将是我最后说的一句话，你美丽的脸庞将是我最后看到的东西。” ——2010 年 7 月
A mother I know sees a psychiatrist whose own son died 24 years ago.
我认识的一位母亲去看了一位精神科医生，她的儿子已于 24 年前去世。
He told her that grief is different for every parent, but you must accept two universal truths: One, no one who hasn’t lost a child will ever fully understand how you feel, and two, if you expect people to respond in a certain way, you will be disappointed.
他告诉她，每个父母的悲伤都是不同的，但你必须接受两个普遍真理：第一，没有失去孩子的人永远不会完全理解你的感受，第二，如果你期望人们以某种方式回应，你会失望的。
It took me far too long to learn that second lesson.
我花了太长时间才学到第二课。
When hope came, it was not in sudden epiphanies or flashes of light.
当希望来临的时候，它并不是突然顿悟，也不是灵光一闪。
It was a slow awakening.
这是一个缓慢的觉醒。
After Kate’s death, I thought friends, colleagues, and even strangers would know how I was feeling and what I needed them to do and say.
凯特去世后，我以为朋友、同事，甚至陌生人都会知道我的感受以及我需要他们做什么和说什么。
It was almost as if I wrote a script, didn’t show it to them, and then got upset when they didn’t know their lines.
这几乎就像我写了一个剧本，没有给他们看，然后当他们不知道台词时感到不安。
I looked to Kate’s friends most of all to fill some of the terrible emptiness.
我主要指望凯特的朋友来填补一些可怕的空虚。
They were Kate’s age and knew her in ways that we, as parents, didn’t.
他们和凯特同龄，对她的了解是我们作为父母所不了解的。
Being with them was as close as we could get to being with her.
和他们在一起是我们和她在一起最亲密的时刻。
They wrote to us and visited.
他们写信给我们并拜访了我们。
They took trips in Kate’s memory with money we gave them from her insurance.
他们用我们从凯特的保险中给他们的钱进行了纪念凯特的旅行。
Three asked us to take part in their weddings, and one gave her daughter the middle name Kate.
其中三个邀请我们参加他们的婚礼，其中一个给她女儿取了中间名凯特。
I knew they were more important to us than we were to them.
我知道他们对我们来说比我们对他们更重要。
That’s the nature of the bond between all parents and children.
这就是所有父母和孩子之间纽带的本质。
But I believed they would always be a part of our lives.
但我相信它们将永远是我们生活的一部分。
So I wrote to them often and made sure they had cards on their birthdays.
所以我经常给他们写信，并确保他们在生日时收到贺卡。
At times, I’d send small gifts, something I couldn’t do anymore for Kate.
有时，我会送一些小礼物，但我不能再为凯特做这些了。
If they heard from me, I reasoned, they would think of her.
我推断，如果他们听到我的消息，他们就会想到她。
In 2007, we went with several of Kate’s friends on a service trip to Botswana, where another friend was in the Peace Corps.
2007 年，我们和凯特的几位朋友一起去博茨瓦纳进行服务旅行，另一位朋友在和平队服役。
In the months before we left, I imagined every detail.
在我们离开前的几个月里，我想象了每一个细节。
During the day, we’d help rehab a community center for children.
白天，我们会帮助儿童社区中心康复。
Then we’d gather in the evening to share stories about Kate.
然后我们会在晚上聚在一起分享有关凯特的故事。
By this time, Steve and I were starved to talk about our daughter.
这时，史蒂夫和我已经迫不及待地谈论我们的女儿了。
But days passed after we arrived, and we hadn’t heard any stories, or even her name.
但我们到达后几天过去了，我们没有听到任何故事，甚至没有听到她的名字。
Kate’s friends stayed together with other volunteers in an apartment, and we were in a hotel in town.
凯特的朋友和其他志愿者住在一间公寓里，我们住在镇上的一家酒店里。
They were always kind and invited us to join them, but we began to feel that the trip really wasn’t about Kate.
他们总是很友善并邀请我们加入他们，但我们开始觉得这次旅行真的不是为了凯特。
The next year, Steve and I organized a reunion at our home.
第二年，史蒂夫和我在家里组织了一次聚会。
We viewed the day as a kind of memorial and put together a video of the trips Kate’s friends had taken in her memory.
我们将这一天视为一种纪念，并制作了一段视频，记录凯特的朋友们在她的记忆中进行的旅行。
Two of her friends traveled from as far as Arizona and Wyoming to be there, but others had to work late or leave early or miss the gathering altogether.
她的两个朋友从遥远的亚利桑那州和怀俄明州赶来，但其他人要么工作到很晚，要么提早离开，要么干脆错过聚会。
It wasn’t what we’d anticipated.
这不是我们所预期的。
Still, our spirits continued to rise and fall based on what other people did—or didn’t—say or do.
尽管如此，我们的情绪仍会根据其他人的言行而起伏。
I saw a grief counselor and told her how devastated we felt as people moved on with their lives and left us behind.
我见到了一位悲伤咨询师，告诉她当人们继续他们的生活而把我们抛在后面时，我们感到多么悲痛。
“I’m just desperately trying to keep Kate’s memory alive,” I told her.
“我只是拼命地想保留凯特的记忆，”我告诉她。
When she pointed out I had used the word “desperately,” I realized how telling that was.
当她指出我用了“绝望”这个词时，我意识到这是多么有说服力。
Looking back, I see that my expectations were unrealistic.
回想起来，我发现我的期望是不切实际的。
Kate’s friends from various points in her life were now in their late twenties, moving to new places and starting new jobs; their adult lives were just beginning.
凯特一生中不同时期的朋友现在已经二十多岁了，搬到了新的地方，开始了新的工作。他们的成年生活才刚刚开始。
While they missed Kate deeply, their initial grief had eased.
虽然他们深深地想念凯特，但他们最初的悲伤已经减轻了。
I understood for the first time, then, that if I was going to survive without my daughter, I had to find the will to do that within myself.
于是我第一次明白，如果我要在没有女儿的情况下生存下去，我必须找到自己内心这样做的意愿。
I could hope that people would keep her in their hearts, but I couldn’t expect them to express it in a scripted way.
我可以希望人们把她留在心里，但我不能指望他们用脚本的方式表达出来。
In his novel Hannah Coulter , Wendell Berry writes about the subtle difference.
温德尔·贝里（Wendell Berry）在他的小说《汉娜·库尔特》（Hannah Coulter）中描述了这种微妙的差异。
“You have got to have hope.
“你必须有希望。
But maybe you must learn, and it is hard learning, not to hope out loud …
但也许你必须学习，这是很难学习的，而不是大声希望......
You must not let your hope turn into expectation.”
你一定不能让你的希望变成期待。”
I still write notes to Kate’s friends on their birthdays and keep up with their lives on Facebook.
我仍然会在凯特的朋友生日时给他们写留言，并在 Facebook 上了解他们的生活。
I’m always happy to see or hear from them, but I don’t worry so much if I don’t.
我总是很高兴见到他们或听到他们的消息，但如果我没有看到他们或收到他们的消息，我也不会太担心。
And we’ve become even closer to some of her friends in a quiet, natural way.
我们以一种安静、自然的方式与她的一些朋友变得更加亲密。
Last November, Steve and I were having pizza in Bloomington.
去年十一月，史蒂夫和我在布卢明顿吃披萨。
When he handed his credit card to the waitress, she looked at his name for a moment.
当他将信用卡递给女服务员时，她看了他的名字一会儿。
Then she asked, “Did you know Kate Comiskey?” When Steve said he was Kate’s father, the young woman’s eyes filled with tears, and she threw her arms around him.
然后她问：“你认识凯特·科米斯基吗？”当史蒂夫说他是凯特的父亲时，这位年轻女子的眼里充满了泪水，她张开双臂拥抱着他。
She was one of Kate’s students, she said, and had been thinking about Kate that week.
她说，她是凯特的学生之一，那周一直在想着凯特。
After nine years, she still remembered the date Kate died.
九年后，她仍然记得凯特去世的日期。
Her words reminded us that even if we don’t always know it, Kate is remembered by those whose lives she touched.
她的话提醒我们，即使我们并不总是知道这一点，凯特仍然被她所影响的人们所铭记。
“We’ve made more new friends this year who have also lost children …
“今年我们结识了更多新朋友，他们也失去了孩子......
This group is so comforting to us.
这个团体给我们带来很大的安慰。
(I think you would have thought Debbie and Greg’s son Adam was quite a catch.) They have helped us even though we’re ‘ahead’ of many of them in our grief.
（我想你会认为黛比和格雷格的儿子亚当是一个相当吸引人的人。）尽管我们在悲伤方面“领先”他们中的许多人，但他们还是帮助了我们。
It makes me feel stronger just to write about these wonderful people.” —July 2010 and 2011
写下这些优秀的人让我感觉更坚强。” ——2010 年 7 月和 2011 年
For a long time after Kate’s death, we had only occasional contact with other mothers and fathers who had lost children.
凯特去世后的很长一段时间里，我们只是偶尔与其他失去孩子的父母联系。
We went to a support group for bereaved parents at an Indianapolis church, but didn’t feel comfortable.
我们去了印第安纳波利斯教堂的一个为失去亲人的父母提供支持的小组，但感觉不舒服。
Then we got a call from a couple in Columbus who had read “Kate’s Story” a few weeks after their daughter drowned in Belize.
然后我们接到哥伦布一对夫妇的电话，他们的女儿在伯利兹溺水身亡几周后，他们读了《凯特的故事》。
We started having dinners together, finding solace in our shared loss.
我们开始一起吃饭，在共同的损失中寻找安慰。
A year later, we met a couple in Bloomington whose 20-year-old daughter had died in a car accident.
一年后，我们在布卢明顿遇到了一对夫妇，他们 20 岁的女儿在一场车祸中丧生。
They organized a quiet pitch-in dinner for six couples at a nearby park.
他们在附近的一个公园为六对夫妇组织了一场安静的参与晚宴。
That gathering changed our course of grief.
那次聚会改变了我们的悲伤历程。
At first glance, we are a motley group.
乍一看，我们是一个杂七杂八的团体。
We are Baptists and Buddhists and nonbelievers.
我们是浸信会教徒、佛教徒和非信徒。
Among us are artists, teachers, administrators, a real-estate agent, a minister, and a crisis counselor.
我们当中有艺术家、教师、行政人员、房地产经纪人、部长和危机顾问。
But we share a powerful bond: All of us lost our children just as they were blossoming into young adults.
但我们有着紧密的联系：我们所有人都失去了正在成长为年轻人的孩子。
From that first meeting, we felt an overwhelming sense of ease.
从第一次见面开始，我们就感受到了一种压倒性的轻松感。
We didn’t have to be careful about what we did or said—we could share terrible thoughts and know no one would flinch.
我们不必小心我们所做或所说的事情——我们可以分享可怕的想法，并且知道没有人会退缩。
They understood.
他们明白了。
Sometimes the group has deep conversations about the nature of death and loss, and sometimes we talk about the Colts or the latest YouTube cat video.
有时，小组会深入讨论死亡和损失的本质，有时我们会谈论小马队或最新的 YouTube 猫咪视频。
We help each other through the inevitable setbacks and celebrate the small pleasures.
我们互相帮助度过不可避免的挫折，并庆祝小小的快乐。
We talk about our children freely and joyfully.
我们自由而快乐地谈论我们的孩子。
Everyone listens.
每个人都听。
No one gives advice or proselytizes.
没有人提供建议或劝说。
Instead, we share what works for us.
相反，我们分享对我们有用的东西。
Surprisingly, we laugh a lot.
令人惊讶的是，我们经常笑。
A mother who drove from north of Indianapolis to join us wrote this the next day: “When I’m with parents who have gone through the same experience, I can laugh, and they understand that it’s okay.
一位从印第安纳波利斯北部开车来加入我们的母亲第二天写道：“当我和有过同样经历的父母在一起时，我可以笑，他们明白这没关系。
When other people see me on a ‘good’ day, enjoying life and laughing, they think that I must be ‘over it.’ They get confused when they see me again and I’m back to my normal self.”
”
While the core group remains intact, we have expanded our circle to include other mothers and fathers.
虽然核心群体保持不变，但我们已经扩大了我们的圈子，以包括其他母亲和父亲。
When we meet newly bereaved parents, we try to be honest about what lies ahead but hopeful some relief will come.
当我们见到刚失去亲人的父母时，我们会尽力诚实地面对未来的情况，但希望能有所缓解。
Most importantly, we all have the comfort of knowing we are not alone.
最重要的是，我们都感到安慰，因为我们知道自己并不孤单。
“I finally unpacked all your clothes and washed and dried and hung them neatly in the closet that would have been in your room at our Brown County house.
“我终于把你所有的衣服拆开，清洗、烘干，然后把它们整齐地挂在衣柜里，这个衣柜本来应该放在我们布朗县的房子里你的房间里。
I thought it would be sad, but it was strangely comforting.
我以为这会很悲伤，但奇怪的是，这令人感到安慰。
I was washing your clothes again, just as I had for years.
我又在洗你的衣服了，就像我多年来那样。
I couldn’t bring myself to wash a few items that still had a trace of your scent, and it struck me that I can’t see you or touch you or hear you on earth, but I can still smell your scent.
我无法让自己去洗一些仍然带有你气味的物品，而且我突然意识到，我在地球上看不到你，摸不到你，听不到你的声音，但我仍然能闻到你的气味。
What a powerful idea!” —July 2011
多么强大的想法啊！” ——2011 年 7 月
After a child dies, you don’t know for weeks, months, or even years what will be precious to you, what will connect you with your child’s memory.
孩子去世后，你在几周、几个月甚至几年内都不知道什么对你来说是珍贵的，什么会把你和你孩子的记忆联系起来。
Every night, I sleep with a little pillow Kate made shortly before her death.
每天晚上，我都会抱着凯特去世前不久制作的小枕头入睡。
On his bedside table, Steve keeps a dish of shells Kate bought us for our 15th anniversary.
史蒂夫的床头柜上放着凯特为我们结婚 15 周年纪念日买的一盘贝壳。
I drove my 2001 Honda Accord for nine years and 170,000 miles after Kate died because it was the last car we sat in together.
凯特去世后，我开着我的 2001 款本田雅阁九年，行驶了 170,000 英里，因为这是我们一起坐的最后一辆车。
But few things evoke more powerful memories than your child’s clothing.
但没有什么比孩子的衣服更能唤起人们强烈的记忆了。
Steve and I packed up Kate’s clothes on a bleak December day just five weeks after her death.
凯特去世五周后，一个阴冷的日子，史蒂夫和我收拾了凯特的衣服。
We grimly put everything she owned into plastic bins, loaded them onto a trailer, and hauled them back to our home where they stayed for six-and-a-half years.
我们冷酷地把她拥有的所有东西放进塑料箱，装上拖车，然后拖回我们的家，在那里他们住了六年半。
Occasionally, I’d sort through a box to find a skirt or sweater I could wear.
偶尔，我会翻箱倒柜寻找我可以穿的裙子或毛衣。
Sometimes, when I was overwhelmed with grief, I’d just breathe in the air around her clothes, hoping for a hint of her Jean Paul Gaultier “Fragile” perfume.
有时，当我沉浸在悲伤之中时，我只是呼吸她衣服周围的空气，希望能闻到她让·保罗·高提耶 (Jean Paul Gaultier) “脆弱”香水的味道。
Otherwise, her things remained sealed away.
否则，她的东西就一直被封存起来。
Then, on a balmy May afternoon in 2011, I decided Kate’s clothes had been stored in the dark long enough.
然后，在 2011 年五月一个温暖的下午，我认为凯特的衣服已经在黑暗中存放了足够长的时间。
I broke open the bins and pulled out pieces one memory at a time.
我打开箱子，一次一件地拿出一些记忆。
The cabbage-rose skirt she wore to her teaching interview.
她在教学面试时穿的卷心菜玫瑰色裙子。
The strapless black linen dress she wheedled her dad into buying at Banana Republic.
她说服父亲在香蕉共和国购买了那件无肩带黑色亚麻连衣裙。
The funky skirt she and I made from an old pair of Abercrombie & Fitch jeans.
她和我用一条旧 Abercrombie & Fitch 牛仔裤制作的时髦裙子。
Lacy Victoria’s Secret underthings, sky-blue flannel pajamas with puffy white clouds, enough black tank tops to outfit a Zumba studio.
维多利亚的秘密蕾丝内衣、带有蓬松白云的天蓝色法兰绒睡衣、足以搭配 Zumba 工作室的黑色背心。
Some pieces still had price tags attached.
有些作品还贴有价格标签。
I set aside those few things on which a trace of her scent lingered—a pale-blue bridesmaid dress, an ivory mohair cowl-neck, a cropped denim jacket.
我把那些残留着她气味的几件东西放在一边——一件淡蓝色的伴娘礼服、一件象牙色马海毛高领衫、一件短款牛仔夹克。
Then I washed, dried, and folded the other items.
然后我清洗、干燥并折叠其他物品。
I bleached a white nightgown that had yellowed with time.
我漂白了一件随时间泛黄的白色睡衣。
I sewed up tears and tightened loose buttons.
我缝合眼泪并拉紧松散的纽扣。
I hung the dresses, blouses, and skirts on hangers in a walk-in closet.
我把裙子、衬衫和裙子挂在步入式衣柜的衣架上。
I stacked the lingerie in tissue on shelves layered with lavender sachets.
我把内衣用纸巾堆放在架子上，上面放着薰衣草香袋。
I wrote an email about the day to our parents’ group, and their responses stacked up minutes later.
我给我们的父母小组写了一封关于这一天的电子邮件，几分钟后他们的回复就堆积如山。
“I wear anything I can fit into—age appropriate or not—right down to her underwear,” said one mother.
“我穿任何我能穿的衣服——无论是否适合年龄——甚至包括内衣，”一位母亲说。
A father told us he was dieting, seven years after his son’s death, so he could fit into his shirts again.
一位父亲告诉我们，在他儿子去世七年后，他正在节食，这样他就可以再次穿上他的衬衫。
A mother said she slips her son’s Phish T-shirt into her pillowcase each night.
一位母亲说，她每天晚上都会把儿子的 Phish T 恤塞进枕套里。
Another mother found a pair of her daughter’s flip-flops in a closet.
另一位母亲在衣柜里发现了一双女儿的人字拖。
“They had her toe prints,” she said.
“他们有她的脚趾印，”她说。
When she put them on and walked around the house, she heard her daughter’s footsteps.
当她穿上它们在房子里走来走去时，她听到了女儿的脚步声。
I know some people might think it was strange or creepy to do laundry for a child who has died.
我知道有些人可能会认为为死去的孩子洗衣服很奇怪或令人毛骨悚然。
But when I finished Kate’s laundry that afternoon, when I wrapped myself in those freshly washed memories in cotton, silk, and Lycra, I felt surrounded by Kate’s presence.
但那天下午，当我洗完凯特的衣服，当我用棉花、丝绸和莱卡把自己包裹在那些刚洗过的记忆中时，我感觉自己被凯特的存在包围了。
It made me happy.
这让我很高兴。
“Sometimes now I look in the mirror and wonder what you would think if you saw me.
“现在有时我看着镜子，想知道如果你看到我会怎么想。
Would I look terribly old to you?
我在你眼里会显得很老吗？
Would you be embarrassed by the things I’ve done and said?
你会对我所做的和所说的事情感到尴尬吗？
I think you’d be proud of my strength and disappointed in my lack of patience.
我想你会为我的力量感到自豪，并为我缺乏耐心而感到失望。
But we are making progress ...
但我们正在取得进展......
You will not be forgotten.
你不会被忘记。
I was so lucky to be your mother.” —July 2013
我很幸运能成为你的母亲。” ——2013 年 7 月
Shortly before Kate died, we bought her a mandolin she never had the chance to play.
凯特去世前不久，我们给她买了一把曼陀林，她从未有机会演奏过。
When my husband left Warren Central High School, the other teachers gave him a guitar.
当我丈夫离开沃伦中央高中时，其他老师给了他一把吉他。
Both instruments sat in closets for years, all but forgotten.
这两种乐器在壁橱里放了很多年，几乎被遗忘了。
Then one day, we decided to learn to play them.
然后有一天，我们决定学习演奏它们。
It seems a small thing, but it was a turning point.
这看起来是一件小事，但却是一个转折点。
You don’t take music lessons for yesterday or even for today.
你昨天甚至今天都没有上音乐课。
You take them for tomorrow.
你把它们带到明天。
And that was a new way of thinking.
这是一种新的思维方式。
With the help of a music teacher, we found some other people learning to play guitar, fiddle, banjo, and mandolin, and we became a band.
在音乐老师的帮助下，我们找到了一些人学习弹吉他、小提琴、班卓琴和曼陀林，我们组成了一支乐队。
We get together twice a month to play and sing, and we make up in enthusiasm what we lack in talent.
我们每个月聚在一起弹唱两次，用热情弥补了才华的不足。
“It’s okay,” says one member, “because we’re all pretty good at something else.” Kate was not a gifted musician, but that never stopped her from singing her heart out with the radio or the ’70s turntable she salvaged from our garage.
“没关系，”一位成员说，“因为我们在其他方面都非常擅长。”凯特并不是一位有天赋的音乐家，但这并没有阻止她用收音机或她从车库里抢救出来的 70 年代转盘唱出自己的心声。
Now I imagine her laughing with us when her dad belts out “Galway Girl.”
现在，我想象着当她爸爸大声唱出“戈尔韦女孩”时，她和我们一起大笑。
Novelist Louise Penny describes the moment despair turns to hope as a tiny point of light—“more imagined than real”—in the darkness of regret and betrayal and loss.
小说家路易丝·潘妮将绝望转变为希望的那一刻描述为后悔、背叛和失落的黑暗中的一个微小的光点——“更多的是想象，而不是真实”。
For me, that light seemed infinitesimal in the early years after Kate’s death.
对我来说，在凯特去世后的最初几年里，这种光芒似乎微乎其微。
We found purpose and eventually meaning in scholarships and donations and other things we did in Kate’s memory.
我们在奖学金、捐赠以及我们在凯特记忆中所做的其他事情中找到了目的和最终的意义。
But hope was elusive.
但希望渺茫。
When it came, it was not in sudden epiphanies or flashes of light.
当它到来时，它并不是突然顿悟或灵光一闪。
Hope, for us, was a slow awakening to the possibility of happiness.
对我们来说，希望是对幸福可能性的缓慢觉醒。
Almost from the beginning, I found purpose in teaching—I often tell people it saved my life.
几乎从一开始，我就找到了教学的目的——我经常告诉人们它救了我的命。
If I was going to stand up in front of college students every day, I had to be prepared.
如果我要每天站在大学生面前，我就必须做好准备。
When I prepped for class or graded assignments or talked with students, I had to focus on something besides how I could live another day without Kate.
当我准备上课、批改作业或与学生交谈时，除了如何在没有凯特的情况下度过另一天之外，我还必须专注于其他事情。
Teaching also brought me closer to her.
教学也让我和她更加亲近。
Kate taught school only a little over a year, but she was a natural like her father.
凯特只在学校教了一年多一点的时间，但她和她父亲一样有天赋。
She could make each student feel like the most important person in the room.
她可以让每个学生感觉自己是教室里最重要的人。
When I lead a good class, I feel I’m honoring her memory.
当我带领一堂好课时，我觉得我是在纪念她。
Now, I look forward to the beginning of each new semester.
现在，我期待着每个新学期的开始。
Like Kate, my students will always be in their early twenties, with life’s possibilities ahead of them.
像凯特一样，我的学生永远都是二十岁出头，人生的可能性就在他们面前。
In a sense, teaching is a way of suspending time.
从某种意义上说，教学是一种暂停时间的方式。
For Steve, meaning came from building Kate a stone wall like the ones she loved in Ireland and New England.
对于史蒂夫来说，意义在于为凯特建造一堵石墙，就像她在爱尔兰和新英格兰喜爱的石墙一样。
The project at our Maine cottage became a mental, physical, and spiritual exercise.
我们缅因州小屋的项目成为了一次精神、身体和精神上的锻炼。
Over nine years, Steve fitted 30 tons of stones into place by hand, often laboring from sunup until dark.
九年来，史蒂夫手工将 30 吨石头安装到位，经常从日出一直工作到天黑。
Friends and family brought us pebbles, shells, and coins to tuck between the rocks.
朋友和家人给我们带来了鹅卵石、贝壳和硬币，塞在岩石之间。
Today, the wall contains mementos from all seven continents.
如今，这堵墙里收藏着来自七大洲的纪念品。
A piece of tile from Ipanema Beach, rubble from the Great Wall of China, a stone from a Tibetan monastery, sand from the beaches at Normandy, and a rock from a dogsled trek across Antarctica.
一块来自伊帕内玛海滩的瓷砖、来自中国长城的碎石、一块来自西藏修道院的石头、来自诺曼底海滩的沙子，以及来自狗拉雪橇穿越南极洲的一块岩石。
Kate’s ashes are there, too, along with those of her dog, Lola, who died in my arms last year.
凯特的骨灰也在那里，还有她去年死在我怀里的狗洛拉的骨灰。
Our ashes will be there one day as well.
有一天我们的骨灰也会在那里。
Even as some contentment crept back into our lives, seeing Kate’s friends settle down, marry, and have children was bittersweet.
尽管一些满足感重新回到了我们的生活中，但看到凯特的朋友安定下来、结婚生子还是苦乐参半。
But three summers ago, a couple brought their baby to stay with us in Maine.
但三年前的夏天，一对夫妇带着他们的孩子来到缅因州和我们住在一起。
For four days, I carried and cradled that little boy, took him on walks around town, and rocked him to sleep.
四天来，我抱着那个小男孩，带他在城里散步，摇着他入睡。
I thought how happy Kate would have been to see it.
我想凯特看到它一定会很高兴。
Our son had not yet met his wife, so no grandchildren were on the horizon for us.
我们的儿子还没有见到他的妻子，所以我们还没有孙子孙女。
But I realized that even if I never had grandsons or granddaughters of my own, I could take delight in this new generation.
但我意识到，即使我从来没有自己的孙子或孙女，我也可以为新一代感到高兴。
That acceptance made what was to come all the more wonderful.
这种接受让接下来的事情变得更加美好。
A little over a year later, Daniel married a kind, bright, lovely woman, and he is now the proud father of two sons.
一年多后，丹尼尔娶了一位善良、聪明、可爱的女人，现在他是两个儿子的骄傲的父亲。
We are besotted with “the boys,” and they have opened up a new future for us.
我们迷恋“男孩们”，他们为我们开辟了新的未来。
We’re buying toys, playing with them in a sandbox, and daydreaming about taking them on hikes in Brown County or building a treehouse in the old crabapple in our yard in Maine.
我们买玩具，在沙箱里玩它们，梦想着带它们去布朗县徒步旅行，或者在缅因州院子里的老海棠里建一座树屋。
When they visit us there, we will show them the stone wall their grandfather built.
当他们拜访我们时，我们将向他们展示他们祖父建造的石墙。
And we’ll tell them stories of the short but magical life of their beautiful Aunt Kate.
我们将为他们讲述美丽的凯特阿姨短暂而神奇的一生的故事。
When I reread my letters to Kate for the first time this spring, I felt glad I was no longer in as dark a place as I was in those early years of grief.
今年春天，当我第一次重读写给凯特的信时，我很高兴自己不再像早年悲伤时那样处于黑暗之中。
But I was also envious of how viscerally “near” to me Kate had seemed then.
但我也很羡慕凯特当时看起来与我有多么“亲近”。
Relief, it seems, comes with a price.
看来，缓解是有代价的。
Yet I know I’m a different and, in some ways, better person than I was 10 years ago.
但我知道，与十年前相比，我已经不同了，而且在某些方面，我变得更好了。
I’ve accepted some problems can’t be solved and some relationships can’t be salvaged.
我已经接受了有些问题无法解决，有些关系无法挽救的事实。
I’m a better listener.
我是一个更好的倾听者。
I’m more empathetic and less likely to judge.
我更有同理心，不太可能做出判断。
I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, and I’ve learned if you look for something not to like about a person, you will always find it.
我试着让人们从怀疑中受益，而且我了解到，如果你寻找一个人不喜欢的东西，你总会找到它。
I know how much a small gesture—a word of encouragement, a note on a birthday, a shared memory—can mean.
我知道一个小小的举动——一句鼓励的话、一张生日祝福、一段共同的回忆——可以带来多大的意义。
And I’m more appreciative of life’s small joys: a whippoorwill’s call at dusk, a warm hug from a friend, lifting a slippery grandson out of his bath like a baby seal.
我更欣赏生活中的小乐趣：黄昏时惠普尔威的叫声、朋友温暖的拥抱、像小海豹一样把滑溜溜的孙子从浴缸里抱起来。
This month, we will reach the 10-year milestone of our daughter’s death.
这个月，我们将迎来女儿去世十年的里程碑。
It seems both a lifetime ago and yesterday that I last held her in my arms.
我最后一次将她抱在怀里，仿佛是上辈子的事了，又像是昨天的事。
We will mark the day as we always do, walking in the woods, watching her videos on TV, leaving flowers at the tree her friends planted on campus.
我们将像往常一样纪念这一天，在树林里散步，在电视上观看她的视频，在她的朋友们在校园里种的树上留下鲜花。
Then we will continue our journey.
然后我们将继续我们的旅程。
The sadness and yearning are always with us, and we have good days and bad.
悲伤和思念总是伴随着我们，我们有好日子，也有坏日子。
But for the first time since Kate’s death, we can look to the future without despair.
但自凯特去世以来，我们第一次可以不绝望地展望未来。
In “Kate’s Story,” I wrote that I lost all fear of death when she died.
在《凯特的故事》中，我写道，当她去世时，我失去了对死亡的所有恐惧。
That’s still true, but now I’m in less of a hurry to get there.
这仍然是事实，但现在我不那么急于到达那里了。
IU professor Douglas Hofstadter, in his book I Am a Strange Loop , suggests that when you die, you remain as “a set of afterglows, some brighter and some dimmer,” in the minds of those who loved you most.
印第安纳大学教授道格拉斯·霍夫施塔特（Douglas Hofstadter）在他的著作《我是一个奇怪的循环》（I Am a Strange Loop）中指出，当你死后，你在那些最爱你的人的心中仍然是“一组余辉，有些更亮，有些更暗”。
I remember so vividly the light that surrounded Kate in life.
我清楚地记得生活中围绕着凯特的光芒。
Whatever I do and wherever I go in the years to come, that glow will always be in my mind and heart.
在未来的岁月里，无论我做什么，无论我去哪里，那种光芒将永远在我的脑海和心中。
Thank you.
谢谢。
November 13, 2005 is the day I got a similar phone call.
2005年11月13日，我接到了类似的电话。
My daughter was 5 months old.
我女儿5个月大了。
While no two families have exactly the same experience, reading this today was the first time in 9 years that I did not feel alone in my feelings that followed daughter’s death.
虽然没有两个家庭有完全相同的经历，但今天读到这篇文章是九年来我第一次对女儿去世后的感受感到不孤单。
Thank you for your openness and your honesty.
感谢您的开放和诚实。
Thank you for so eloquently putting into words feelings that I’ve been unable to name.
谢谢你如此雄辩地表达了我无法形容的感受。
Thank you.
谢谢。
Thank you!
谢谢你！
I just read this article which was sent to me by a friend that knows I’ve been struggling….I lost my son on July 30 2012 from a heart attack.
我刚刚读了一篇朋友发给我的文章，他知道我一直在挣扎……2012 年 7 月 30 日，我因心脏病发作失去了我的儿子。
He was my 1st born & only 30 years old.
他是我的第一个孩子，只有 30 岁。
I am still at the point where I get up & go to work….going through the motions.
我仍然处于起床去上班的阶段……走过场。
When I get home I crawl into bed because I’m exhausted from the day of putting that I’m ok act on!
当我回到家时，我爬上床，因为那天我已经筋疲力尽了，我可以继续行动！
Its 2 am & I’m reading this article & I’m hearing the same emotions that I’m going through….someone gets it!
现在是凌晨 2 点，我正在读这篇文章，我听到了和我正在经历的同样的情绪……有人明白了！
I like you have another child which I worry constantly about.
我喜欢你还有一个我一直担心的孩子。
She has lost her only sibling….I can’t understand her grieving process & she cannot understand mine.
她失去了她唯一的兄弟姐妹……我无法理解她的悲伤过程，她也无法理解我的。
We have had 3 family weddings in the last year.
去年我们举办了 3 场家庭婚礼。
Very happy for the couples & their families but my tears were for the loss of my family & our future family.
为这对夫妇和他们的家人感到非常高兴，但我的眼泪是因为失去了我的家人和我们未来的家庭。
Reading this article gives me some hope that my husband, our daughter & I can move forward & find a New normal.
读这篇文章给了我一些希望，我的丈夫、我们的女儿和我可以继续前进并找到新常态。
Thank you
谢谢你
This article will help a lot of ppl, my Mum got killed by a drug driver just after Kate did.
这篇文章会对很多人有帮助，我的妈妈在凯特之后就被毒贩杀害了。
We lost her for a few years earlier when my teenaged neighbour died and she became main support to his mother nextdoor.
几年前，当我十几岁的邻居去世时，我们失去了她，她成了隔壁他母亲的主要依靠。
We rarely saw her for 3 or so years, child loss is equal to a nuclear bomb drop.
我们已经三年左右很少见到她了，失去孩子就等于落下一颗核弹。
It affects whiole communities more than you know.
它对整个社区的影响比你想象的还要大。
ppls discomfort or distancing does not mean unaffected.
人们的不适或疏远并不意味着不受影响。
I cut off from bens loss, but it had major effects the boy next door dying that I didn’t realise till 20 yrs on when I cried for him on reading Richard bachs running from safety.
我切断了本斯的损失，但这对邻家男孩的死亡产生了重大影响，直到20年后，当我读到理查德·巴赫的逃离安全的故事时，我为他哭泣时，我才意识到这一点。
a childs death impacts far and wide in ways you cant know as u don’t know wat passed between them and others – its not length of time spent sometimes just magical moments, my granddad had a little friend (no sons only daughters) in the holiday times at a bach, he fell off a swing and died at about 6, he was not spoken about but he was not forgotten by granddad who held grief for the casual ?acquaintance for 50 years.
孩子的死亡影响深远，你无法知道，因为你不知道他们和其他人之间发生了什么——这不是度过的时间长度，有时只是神奇的时刻，我的祖父在假期里有一个小朋友（没有儿子，只有女儿）在海滩上，他从秋千上摔下来，六岁时去世，他没有被谈论，但祖父并没有忘记他，他为这个偶然的相识悲伤了 50 年。
Your words re yearning got my attention, that its not a want or need but a have to have and also the impossibility, this is how I feel about my partner and dog even 15 years on, cant get no satisfaction of it…
你的渴望的话引起了我的注意，这不是想要或需要，而是必须拥有，也是不可能的，这就是我对我的伴侣和狗的感觉，即使15年过去了，也无法得到满足......
not present re my mother maybe as despite her death being grotesque we do expect to see parents out.
我母亲不在场，也许是因为尽管她的死很怪异，但我们确实希望能送父母出去。
yes many ppl will have their worst fears conjured by contact with parent loss, they want safety.
是的，许多人会因为失去父母而产生最严重的恐惧，他们想要安全。
OMG, my Tierney had the same sky-blue flannel pajamas with puffy white clouds that your Kate had!
天哪，我的蒂尔尼和你的凯特穿着同样的天蓝色法兰绒睡衣，上面有蓬松的白云！
What a small world.
世界多么小啊。
You article is absolutely amazing and descriptions of how we deal/don’t deal so very appropriate.
你的文章绝对令人惊叹，并且对我们如何处理/不处理的描述非常恰当。
I, too, have a surviving son who doesn’t seem even the slightest bit interested in getting married, much less having children, but I have come not to expect that from him because when I lost my only daughter at 19, my husband of 30 years walked out on me and my son two months later, not wanting to have anything to do with us (most especially, financially); the last 10 years of our marriage were quite dysfunctional (to say the least).
我也有一个幸存的儿子，他似乎对结婚没有丝毫兴趣，更不用说生孩子了，但我已经不再对他抱有这样的期望，因为当我19岁时失去了我唯一的女儿时，两个月后，我结婚30年的丈夫抛弃了我和我的儿子，不想与我们有任何关系（尤其是在经济上）；我们婚姻的最后十年非常不正常（至少可以这么说）。
May God bless all who have lost a child.
愿上帝保佑所有失去孩子的人。
My son died in a car accident in 2007.
2007年，我儿子因车祸去世。
Some days are better than others but the pain is always just beneath the surface.
有些日子比其他日子好，但痛苦总是隐藏在表面之下。
Its more difficult around the holidays and his birthday.
假期和他的生日前后就更困难了。
His friends are now married and a few have children.
他的朋友现在已经结婚了，其中一些已经有了孩子。
He was my only child, the best part of me.
他是我唯一的孩子，是我最好的部分。
I miss him every day.
我每天都想念他。
I am lucky that I have his artwork, his paintings, the self portrait that I found after his death.
我很幸运，我有他的艺术作品、他的画作、我在他死后发现的自画像。
He was only 21 years old.
他当时只有21岁。
My daughter, Mande died in 2012 due to hospital negligence.
我的女儿曼德 (Mande) 于 2012 年因医院疏忽去世。
She was our only child.
她是我们唯一的孩子。
I find comfort, and support on Facebook with other Mom’s on Facebook who have lost their only child, or children.
我在 Facebook 上与其他失去唯一孩子的妈妈们一起在 Facebook 上找到了安慰和支持。
Grieving Mom’s without surviving children.
没有幸存的孩子的妈妈感到悲伤。