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死亡和大流行教会我的事My Second Phase of AdulthoodCHARLES M. BLOW2021年4月20日
This weekend I attended my second funeral in about six months. The first was my oldest brother’s. The second was for the mother of a college friend. Neither death was caused by the pandemic, but took place during it.
这个周末，我参加了六个月以来的第二次葬礼。第一次是我大哥的。第二次是一位大学朋友的母亲。两人的死亡都不是由大流行造成的，但是发生在大流行期间。
As I departed to Georgia from Louisiana, as the plane cut a path through the clouds and came to a cruise above them, it occurred to me that I was now fully entrenched in the second phase of adulthood.
我从路易斯安那州出发飞往佐治亚州，当飞机穿过云层，在云层上方飞行时，我突然意识到，我已经彻底进入了成人的第二阶段。
It is that time of life when children begin to graduate from high school or college and leave home. My own children have now all graduated from college, although the oldest is now in medical school. They are grown-up now, apart from me, making their own lives and their own decisions, and I now have to forge a different relationship with them, an adult one.
就是孩子们从高中或大学毕业，离开家庭的那个人生阶段。我的孩子们现在都已经大学毕业，不过年纪最大的那个还在医学院读书。他们现在都已经长大，和我分开，自己生活，自己做决定，而我现在必须和他们建立一种不同的关系，一种成年人的关系。
This idea of developing a friendship with your children is foreign, exhilarating and absolutely necessary. It is a form of releasing them to keep them, of elevating them and respecting them.
同孩子建立友谊的想法是陌生的、令人兴奋而且绝对必要的。这是通过放手留住他们、是对他们的提升和尊重。
It is that time of life when some people’s first marriages die or new marriages are born. I officiated the second marriage of one of my best friends last year. It symbolized to me that rebirth is possible, that starting over is feasible, that not giving up on love is essential.
在人生的这个阶段，有些人的第一次婚姻结束了，或者开始了新的婚姻。去年我主持了我最好朋友之一的第二次婚礼。这对我来说，象征着重生是可能的，重新开始是可行的，不放弃爱是必要的。
But this time of life is also the time when parents — yours and those of your friends and relatives — grow older and slower, get sicker and begin to pass away. At the funeral of my friend’s mother this weekend, he told me that the mother of another of our college friends died a few days ago.
但是，人生的这段时间也是父母——你的父母和亲友的父母——变得苍老迟缓、生病、并且开始去世的时间。这个周末，在我朋友母亲的葬礼上，他告诉我，我们另一个大学朋友的母亲几天前去世了。
One of my oldest friends is dealing with a father on the decline, in a nursing home, and suffering through escalating phases of dementia. Last year one of my best friends lost his mother.
我最年长的一个朋友正在养老院照顾日渐衰弱、失智症不断恶化的父亲。去年，我的最好朋友之一失去了母亲。
This seemingly sudden intrusion of death into your life changes you. At least it is changing me. It reminds me that life is terribly fragile and short, that we are all just passing through this plane, ever so briefly. And that has impressed upon me how important it is to live boldly, bravely and openly, to embrace every part of me and celebrate it, to say and write the important things: the truth and my truth.
I realize that, according to the odds, my life is nearly two-thirds over, that I have more summers behind me than in front of me. This doesn’t mean that I’ve grown fatalistic or even that I feel particularly old. It is just a realization that the math says what the math says. And as such, I have begun to make certain adjustments, to change my perspective on my life.
我意识到，根据概率，我的人生已经过完了三分之二，我身后的夏天要比前面的多。这并不意味着我变得听天由命，甚至也不意味着我觉得自己特别老了。我只是意识到数字上看就是这样了。正因为如此，我开始做出一些调整，来改变我对生活的看法。
I have started to manage my regrets and to reduce them, to forgive myself for foolish mistakes and reckless choices, to remember that we are all just human beings stumbling through this life, trying to figure it out, falling down and getting back up along the way. I have learned to cut myself some slack and get on with being a better person.
我已经开始管理自己的遗憾，并且减少它们，原谅自己愚蠢的错误和鲁莽的选择，记住我们都只是人类，在这一生中跌跌撞撞，在路上跌倒，然后再爬起来。我学会了放自己一马，做一个更好的人。
I must say that the pandemic may also be contributing to all this. I have fundamentally changed during it, been changed by it, like many others I suppose. After I got over the initial shock of it feeling like the world as I knew it was coming to an end, I became incredibly introspective, and I didn’t like some of what I saw. So, I changed it.
我必须说，这场大流行也可能是造成这一切的原因。在这个过程中，我和其他许多人一样，从根本上改变了，被它改变了。在我克服了最初的震惊之后，我觉得我所了解的世界就要结束了，我开始向内心深处审视，我不喜欢我所看到的一些东西。所以，我改变了它。
I decided to be healthier, physically, mentally and spiritually, and I decided that I needed to make my mark on the world, the biggest, boldest mark I was destined to make, while I still had time and energy, but also to be thankful for the road my life had already taken.
我希望在体力、智力和精神上更加健康，我希望在我还有时间和精力的时候，在这个世界上留下我的印记，我注定留下的最大、最勇敢的印记，但同时也对我的人生已经走过的道路心存感激。
I always remember that I’m a poor kid from a tiny town in the American South. I remember the summer when I didn’t wear shoes, the Saturday afternoon trips to the junkyard to scavenge for toys other children had thrown away, the house with the leaky windows through which you could hear the wind howl.
我一直记得我是一个来自美国南部小镇的穷孩子。我还记得那个夏天，我没有鞋穿，总在周六下午去废物站捡其他孩子扔掉的玩具，我记得那个窗户漏风的房子，总能听到寒风呼啸。
As the performer Dorian Corey expounded in the documentary “Paris Is Burning”:
正如演员多里安·科里(Dorian Corey)在纪录片《巴黎在燃烧》(Paris Is Burning)里说的那样:
“我一直希望成为大明星。但是随着年龄的增长，你的目标会降低一些。每个人都想打动别人，在这个世界上留下印记。然后你就会想，你只要熬过去了，有几个人记得你的名字，你就已经在这个世界上留下了印记。你已经留下了印记，你没必要去影响整个世界。我觉得还是好好享受为好。”
I also decided to just enjoy it. I have decided to be more intentional about managing and maintaining personal relationships, to watering those flowers.
我也决定好好享受它。我决定在管理和维护个人关系方面更加用心，去灌溉这些花朵。
When I am gone, and people remember my name, I want some of them to smile.
当我离去时，如果有人记起我的名字，我希望他们当中的一些人能够露出微笑。
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（文：纽约时报/作者：CHARLES M. BLOW/2021-04-21）