神奇的馈赠 Dear Mom

克丽斯汀·古尔德/Christine Goold

After thirty years, I am finally beginning to appreciate the mother you have been to me. Although Jana is only ten months old, I feel I have learned more about you in the short time since her birth than in all my years of growing up and breaking away.

As I go about my new life of caring for Jana, I constantly wonder, how on earth did you do it?You, who raised not one, not two, but six children. I’m still feeling shock waves from the change and upheaval one child has made in my life, and I know that what I have experienced so far is only a glimpse, the barest hint, of all you went through raising us.

“You learn to sacrifice when you have children.”was one of your stock phrases when I was growing up. To you, sacrifice was a necessary virtue, an accepted part of parenthood. But I didn’t go for that. I considered sacrifice not only unnecessary, but unfashionable and downright unappealing as well.

Well, Mom, what can I say?I’m learning.

Lately, I’ve begun to look on motherhood as an initiation into“real life.”I don’t think I realized until Jana’s birth that the life I’d led previously-relatively free, easy, and affluent-is not the life led by most people-past or present. By becoming a mother, I seem to have acquired automatic membership into a universal club made up of uncertainties and vulnerabilities, limitations and difficulties, and sometimes, unsolvable problems. Of course, the club has its benefits, too.

When Jana wakes from her afternoon nap and, so happy to see me, gives me her radiant full-face smile, I smile back and feel on my own face the smile you used to give me when I woke up in the morning. Or, when Jana does something particularly cute, I’ll glance up at Gary, and in the look we exchange I see the one I remember crossing between you and Dad at opposite ends of the dinner table. It was a look full of feelings I never knew until now.

When I hold Jana close to me and look down to see my hand tight across her chest, or when I tuck a blanket around her while she sleeps and touch the skin of her cheek, I see your hands（those hardworking hands with their smooth oval nails, steady and capable and caring）doing the same things. Then I feel as if some of the love and security you gave to me through those hands is now in mine, as I pass that love on to Jana.

The other day Jana fell asleep against my arm. I must have spent fifteen or twenty minutes staring at her, marveling at the wheat color of her hair, the suppleness of her skin, her perfect tiny red mouth, moving now and then in sleep. What a rush I felt, of love and wonder, of care and luck, and more. I suddenly remembered something I saw on your face last summer, when I was home on a visit shortly after Jana’s birth.

We were sitting on the glider swing in the backyard. It was a lovely morning, cool there in the shade, and the air was full of fragrance from your rose garden. I was holding Jana, who seemed to enjoy the gentle movement of the swing.

But I wasn’t enjoying anything just then. I’d had a rough night. Jana was six weeks old and had been up every few hours. I, fretful and nervous as only a new mother can be, had been having trouble falling back to sleep between her feedings. I was cranky and tired, and not feeling cheerful about this motherhood business at all.

Sitting on the glider, we talked-or rather, I talked, letting loose my load of anxiety and frustrations on you. And out of the blue, you reached over to touch my hair.

“It’s so pretty,”you said, an odd expression on your face.“The way the sun is hitting it iust now……I never noticed you had so many red highlights before.”

A little embarrassed, preoccupied with other thoughts and problems, I shrugged off your comment. I don’t know what I said, something short and dismissive, no doubt, as I waved away the compliment. But your words affected me. It had been a long time since someone had seen something truly beautiful in me, and I was pleased.

It has taken me this long to realize that the look you gave me that day is the same look I give her almost daily. And it makes me wonder:Is it possible that you still see the miracle in me that I see in Jana?Does the magic continue even when your children are grown and gone and parents themselves?Will I look at Jana in thirty years and still feel the same rush of love for her that I do now?

It almost hurts to think of that kind of love. It’s too vulnerable, too fragile. I know well the barriers that spring up between parents and their children over the years, the frictions, the misunderstandings, the daily conflicts and struggles, the inevitable pulling away and final break for independence. I ache to think that someday Jana will grow up and wave away my tentative words of love as I did yours.

What happens to that first, strong rush of love?Is it lost somewhere along the way, buried beneath the routine practicalities of caring for a growing child?Or is it there all along, unvoiced and unexpressed, until, perhaps, a new child is born and a mother reaches out to touch her daughter’s hair?

That, it seems to me, is the real miracle:the way a mother's love is rediscovered, repeated, passed on again and again-as it has been handed down in our lives from you to me, from me to Jana, and from Jana, perhaps, to her own children. It is a gift in itself.

I guess what I’ve been meaning to say all along is, thanks, Mom.

30年后，我终于开始体会到妈妈的苦心了。尽管我的女儿嘉娜才只有10个月大，但我还是觉得，她出生后不久我便更加了解您的艰辛了，比我在您身边长大和离开您之后的所有日子里都更加了解。

当我开始自己照看嘉娜的新生活时，我就一直在想，您到底是如何做到这一切的？您抚养的不是我这一个孩子，也不仅是两个孩子，而是六个孩子。我至今还在震惊于一个孩子带给我生活的巨变，而且我知道，此刻我所经历的，相对于您抚养我们的艰辛而言，才只是冰山一角，微乎其微。

“等你有了自己的孩子，就会懂得牺牲。”在我成长的过程中，您一直这样跟我说。在您看来，牺牲是为人父母的一个必备的美德，是必须接受的一部分。但是，在那时，这一观点我是不认同的。我认为，牺牲精神并不是必需的，也不是时尚的，毫无吸引力可言。

可是，妈妈，我能说些什么呢？此刻我正学习着这一切。

最近，我已经开始将“为人之母”作为是“真正生活”的开始了。我想，在嘉娜出生前，我并没有意识到我先前的生活——相对来说，是自由的、轻松的、丰富多彩的——无论是在过去还是在现在，都不是大多数人们所过的生活。当我成为一位母亲的时候，我似乎在无意识中加入到了一个由无常和弱点、限制和困难组成的大环境中，有时，这其中还有不可解决的难题。当然，这个大环境也自有它的乐趣。

当嘉娜从午睡中醒来，很开心地看着我，向我露出灿烂的笑容时，我也会朝她微笑，又似乎看到了以前我清晨醒来时您对我的微笑。而且，当嘉娜有什么特别可爱的举动时，我就会看一眼加利，和他交换一下眼色。这让我想起了您和坐在餐桌对面的爸爸那会心的相视。直到现在，我才明白其中饱含的深厚情感。

当我把嘉娜拥在身边时，低头看见我的手紧紧地揽在她的胸前，或是在她睡觉时，我用毯子裹在她的身上，轻轻抚摸她的脸颊时，我看到了您的双手（那双不辞辛劳的双手，长着光滑的椭圆形指甲，它们坚定有力、体贴能干）也做着同样的事情。之后，似乎有某种爱和安全感顺着您的双手传达给我，此刻归我所有，我也将这份爱传给嘉娜。

还有一天，嘉娜在我的臂弯里睡着了。我目不转睛地足足盯着她看了15～20分钟，为她那淡黄色的头发、柔滑的皮肤惊叹不止，她那完美的小红嘴，在睡梦中偶尔动来动去。我感到一股激动之情掠过全身，那是爱与赞叹、关心与幸运，以及更多的情感复杂地交织在一起。我突然想起去年夏天回家看望您和父亲时，您脸上的神情，那时嘉娜还刚出生不久。

那是一个阳光明媚的清晨，阴凉处凉爽宜人，空气里弥漫着来自您的玫瑰园的芳香。我们坐在后院的秋千上，我怀抱着嘉娜，似乎她很喜欢秋千晃动的感觉。

可是，我对一切都提不起兴趣。昨天夜里我累得要死。嘉娜才六个星期大，睡几个小时就要哭闹一次。作为一个初为人母的妈妈，我只能又烦躁又紧张，喂过奶后也很难入睡。我又累又烦躁，对做妈妈这事一点儿也高兴不起来。

我们坐在秋千上聊着——或者更确切地说，我说着话，向您释放自己的焦虑和挫败感。突然间，您伸手抚摸了我的头发。

“真美。”您说，在您脸上浮现出一丝特别的表情。“太阳刚好照在上面……先前我从没有注意到你有这样一头红得发亮的头发。”

有些尴尬又思考着其他问题的我，对您的评价只是耸耸肩了事。我不知道自己都说了些什么，不过毫无疑问的是，都是些简洁却不屑的话，同时回绝了您的赞美。但是，您的话影响了我。真的好久没有人看到我身上的美丽了，所以我很高兴。

很长时间之后我才意识到，那天您看我的神情，正是我几乎每天看嘉娜的眼神。这让我情不自禁地想到：您现在还可能从我身上看到我在嘉娜身上发现的奇迹吗？在自己的孩子长大成人、离家出去闯**、为人父母后，这种神奇的力量还会延续吗？等嘉娜长到30岁后，我还会像现在一样感觉到对她涌动的爱意吗？

想到这种爱，几乎会令人心痛。它太脆弱、太容易被伤害了。多年的相处中，孩子与父母之间会产生斗争、摩擦和误解，会每日发生冲突和争斗，孩子会不可避免地脱离家庭，最终获得独立，这一切的一切我都太了解了。想到有一天，嘉娜会长大成人，会回绝我试探性的爱的表白，一如我不屑地回绝您一样，我的心就会痛。

起初的那股强烈的爱的冲动是怎么了？是被遗失在走过的路上吗？还是被埋藏在抚养孩子长大的日常生活中？或者，它们还在一路与我们同行，只是当女儿有了自己的孩子，母亲伸手抚摸女儿的头发时，这种感觉才被发现、被表达出来。

在我看来，这是一个真正的奇迹：母亲关爱孩子的方式被再次发现，被重复，被一次又一次地传递下去，就像爱在我们的生活中由您传递给我，由我传递给嘉娜，或许还会由嘉娜传递给她自己的孩子。因为它本身就是一种馈赠。

我想，我一直想要说的就是：妈妈，谢谢您。

心灵小语

亲情是永远无法替代的，一朝失去，回忆中有一丝遗憾，都会让你疼痛一生。

词汇笔记

sacrifice['s?r?,fais]n.牺牲；舍身；献祭；祭品

例 They killed a sheep as a sacrifice.

他们宰了一只羊作为祭品。

virtue['v?tju:]n.美德；良好习惯；优点

例 The desk has the virtue of being adjustable.这种书桌有可调节的优点。

frustration[fr?'stre??]n.挫折；令人懊丧的事物

例 The failure made his heart burn with frustration.这次失败使他极度灰心丧气。

tentative['t?nt?iv]adj.试探性的；不确定的；踌躇的

例 We can draw up a tentative plan now.

我们现在可以先草拟一个临时方案。

小试身手

当我开始自己照看嘉娜的新生活时，我就一直在想，您到底是如何做到这一切的？

译________________________________________

在我看来，这是一个真正的奇迹。

译________________________________________

我想，我一直想要说的就是：妈妈，谢谢您。

译________________________________________

短语家族

I know that what I have experienced so far is only a glimpse.

so far：到目前为止；只在有限范围内

造________________________________________

I know well the barriers that spring up between parents and their children over the years.

spring up：跳起；迅速成长

造________________________________________