哈佛文書范例

“The first thing my Pap said was ‘Give her a hug, you can’t hurt her now’.”

My kitchen is largely occupied by my old, dirty, warm-brown dinner table.

我的廚房很大程度上被我那張舊、骯臟、暖棕色的餐桌所占據。

It’s seen better days.Every time I sit down, I’m surrounded by splatters of old paint, hot glue and the occasional dab of nail polish (that’s thanks to my older sisters). Whenever I sit at either of our two chairs, I have to be extra careful they don’t fall apart because the legs are held together by a tedious mixture of wood glue, brute force and pure spite.

這個餐桌記錄了我那些美好的時光。每當我坐下來的時候，我都會被油漆、熱膠水和偶爾的指甲油（這要歸功于我的姐姐們）所包圍。當我想要坐在兩把椅子中的任何一把椅子上時，我都必須格外小心它們別壞掉，因為椅子的腿部簡直是由木膠、蠻力和純粹的怨恨混合在一起的。

The kitchen table itself has been the hub of my family for the entire first half of my life. When I was younger, we (my Gram, Pap and two older sisters) would eat a home-cooked meal, courtesy of my Gram, at that old, dirty, warm-brown dinner table at exactly 7 p.m. every single night.

在我整個生命的前半部分，廚房餐桌就是我家的中心。當我小一些的時候，我們（我的祖母、祖父和兩個姐姐）會在每一個晚上7點準時在那個陳舊、骯臟、暖棕色餐桌上吃一頓祖母做的家常菜。

At these family dinners, I would argue with my Pap for fun, watch him get yelled at by my Gram for interrupting me eating my dinner and listen to my sisters either fight or joke; it was always a gamble.

Originally, my kitchen table had five sturdy wooden seats. A couple years later when my oldest sister was 16 years old and I was 8, the chair count lowered to four, as my oldest sister moved out. She fought too much with my Gram and wouldn’t follow the rules, so she left.

在家庭聚餐的過程中，我會和我的祖父爭吵、看著他被我的祖母吼叫說“不要打擾孩子吃晚飯”、和我的姐妹們打架或開玩笑；這總像是一場賭博。

最初，我的廚房桌子圍繞著五個堅固的木制座椅。幾年后，當我的大姐16歲，我8歲時，她搬出去了，于是椅子數減少到4個。她和我的祖母爭吵過太多次，且依然不愿意遵守家里的規則，所以她離開了。

Three years later my grandmother was diagnosed with small-cell lung cancer. That triggered a few more changes to our dinner table routine. First, my other older sister started to skip dinners. Not because of the inevitable food quality decline (cancer messes with your taste buds and overall cooking abilities),but because she was never home. I don’t think that she wanted to be around post-cancer-diagnosis Gram.

三年后，我的祖母被診斷出患有小細胞肺癌。這引發了我們餐桌例程的一些變化。首先，我的另一個姐姐開始不再吃晚餐。這不是因為不可避免的食品質量下降（癌癥會影響你的味蕾與整體烹飪的質量），而是因為她不再回家。我覺得她并不想陪伴在確診癌癥的祖母身邊。

The chair count dropped to three.The dinners themselves after a year or so were much less frequent, not so much because of my Gram, but because my Pap was determined to make Gram rest. She ignored my Pap’s concerns, so it sort of ended up in a middle gray area that I had to live in.

椅子數量下降到了三個。在這之后的一年里，家里晚餐的頻率降低了很多，不是因為我的祖母，而是因為我的祖父決定讓祖母好好地休息。她卻忽視祖父的擔憂，所以最終我落入他們中間的灰色區域。

A year and a half after my grandmother got cancer, she died. It may sound quick in words, but it was pretty dragged out. Don’t get me wrong, I love my grandmother,but people with cancer are usually dead long before they die.

在我的祖母得了癌癥一年半之后，她去世了。雖然聽起來很快，但是這個事情對于我們來說是非常漫長的。不要誤會我的意思，我愛我的祖母，但癌癥患者通常在去世前很早就已經了無生趣了。

I was there when she died, right smack dab in the middle of our living room. I was on one side of the bed, and my Pap was on the other. Her labored breaths slowed and then stopped. It sounds depressing, but it was sort of a happy moment. The first thing my Pap said was “Give her a hug, you can’t hurt her now.” And, despite the phlegmy cancer smell, I did. We only needed two chairs.

她去世的時候我就在旁邊，正好就在我們起居室的中間。我在床的一邊，我的祖父在另一邊，祖母艱難的呼吸緩慢地停止了。這聽起來令人沮喪，但這卻是一個讓我們得到寬慰的時刻。在這之后，祖父說的第一句話是“給她一個擁抱吧，放心你不會傷害到她。”盡管有痰癌的味道，我還是給了她一個擁抱。現在，我們只需要兩把椅子了。

After that, Pap and I, with the remnants of our nontraditional American family, built an extra nontraditional family. It took a while before we stabilized ourselves, because, to be honest, we were low-income before grandma got cancer, but post-cancer was much worse.

在那之后，我的祖父和我，在非傳統美國家庭的殘余下，建立了一個新的非傳統家庭。讓我們自己穩定下來，花了我們一段時間，因為，說實話，我們在祖母得癌癥之前是低收入家庭，并在她得了癌癥后變得更糟糕。

Pap and I cut down on everything.We got rid of our cable, phone and internet. We used less oil, we used less water, we wasted less food, and at times we didn’t have a car because our minivan took up a bunch of gas and liked to break down frequently. But, despite a dreadfully boring WiFi-less and phoneless year, we made it through.

祖父和我開始節省一切吃穿用度。我們停掉了我們的電纜、電話和互聯網。我們使用的油更少，我們用的水更少，我們浪費的食物更少。有時我們沒有可以用的車，因為我們的小型貨車耗油量很大，而且會經常壞掉。但是，盡管沒有網路和電話的日子非常無聊，但我們挺過來了。

I still live in the same house, except now it has Wi-Fi. Our kitchen table is still standing, though we took the center piece of wood out so now it’s the perfect size for just the two of us. We don’t have nightly dinners anymore, but sometimes Pap and I sit on the couch and hang out.

現在我仍然住在同一棟房子里，并且現在有了Wi-Fi。我們的廚房桌子仍然站在那里，我們把中間的木頭拿出來了，所以現在它擁有著適合我們兩個人的完美尺寸。我們不再有家庭晚餐，但有時祖父會和我坐在沙發上閑聊。

Sure, maybe our coffee table chats aren’t the same as our nightly family dinners, and maybe our television doesn’t turn on anymore. Maybe our kitchen has ants, and maybe we have to listen to the Super Bowl on our outdated radio from the ’90s, and maybe, possibly, he is getting sicker now, too.

當然，也許我們在咖啡桌邊的聊天與我們的夜間家庭聚餐不一樣，也許我們的電視機不再打開了。也許我們的廚房里有螞蟻，也許我們不得不聽從90年代購買的過時的收音機里播放的超級碗，也許，他現在身體也變得越來越虛弱。

I don’t care that my new life revolves around a holey old couch, a grumpy old man, a couple of fat cats and a bearded dragon. I’m content with my Pap, and I’m content with the fact that every night at 7 p.m., two empty chairs surround my old, dirty, warm-brown dinner table in the darkness of my kitchen. These days, the lights are on in the living room.

我不在意我的新生活圍繞著一個多孔的舊沙發、一個脾氣暴躁的老人、幾只肥貓和一條留著胡須的龍。我很滿意和祖父一起的生活，我很滿意這樣的現實：每天晚上7點，在廚房的黑暗中，兩把空椅子環繞著那個陳舊、骯臟、暖棕色的餐桌。在這些日子里，客廳里的燈依然亮著。

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