Book
3 Unit 6
There
is no easy way to face the death of the beloved. Whether the death is sudden or
the
inevitable result of a long illness, surviving friends and family members are
seldom truly prepared for it emotionally. How much harder is it to bear when a
particular individual is responsible for the death of someone you love, when
death is self-inflicted, or when you see the death could have been prevented?
The authors of the texts in this unit struggle with their grief over deaths they
see as part of larger social issues – alcohol in Texts A and B, and tobacco in
Text C – and beg us to consider how such tragedies can be avoided.
Text
A Every
23 Minutes
My husband
and I went to a funeral a few weeks ago. The man we honored had not been ill and
will never grow old. He was killed in his car on a Sunday night, driving home
along a divided highway .
It was an ordinary evening, no blacker than any other , when a car coming in the
other direction went out of control, broke through the guard rail, and hit two
other cars before smashing head on into his. According to the newspaper, the
driver, who was returning from a wedding, seemed puzzled. “I only had two
bottles of beer and a cocktail,” she is reported to have said .
A wedding.
Followed by a funeral.
I
wish she could have been there to see all the lives her act has changed forever,
the wife, and four children, the extended family , the hundreds and hundreds of
friends who sat in painful silence, listening to words which barely touched the
depths of their grie.
Strange to think that, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, this happens in America every 23 minutes.
Somebody drinks.
Somebody drives.
Somebody dies.
And
other lives are altered forever, though sometimes the changes may be invisible
to a casual observer. By chance, the day before the funeral I ran into a
longtime acquaintance while shopping. He commented on my crutches . I asked if
he had ever broken his leg.
“Uh, I have a long rod in this thigh,” he said, “from a car accident two
weeks after I came back from Vietnam .”
“That's ironic . To leave a war zone and then get injured,” I teased him.
“You're lucky it wasn't worse .”
“Well, my wife was killed in the crash and so was the wife of the driver,”
he said uncomfortably. “We were hit by a drunk.”
I've known this
man for years, yet suddenly realized there was a whole chapter of his life
he'd never mentioned. I asked and discovered he'd remained in the hospital seven
weeks, and that all that time he'd known his wife was dead. It was hard to know
where to go from there, for there are questions you can't put to someone in a
casual conversation -- questions like, “How could you bear it?” or “What
did you do about wanting revenge?”
I wish I knew the answers to those questions. I wish I could offer those answers
to the woman who, overwhelmed by grief, could barely walk as she followed her
husband's coffin from the church.
Every
23 minutes, who dies?
A mother who will never comfort the child who needs her. A woman who will never
know how very much her friends depended on her. A man whose contributions to his
community would have made a difference . A wife whose husband cannot picture the
future without her.
Every 23 minutes, who dies?
A son who involuntarily abandons his parents in their old age. A father who can
never acknowledge his children's accomplishments. A daughter who can never take
back her angry words . A sister who will never be her sister's maid of honor.
Every
23 minutes, who dies?
A brother who will not be there to hold his newborn niece. A friend whose
encouragement is gone forever. A bride-to-be who will never say her vows . An
aunt whose family will fragment and fall apart.
Every 23 minutes, who dies?
A child who will never fulfill his early promise. An uncle who leaves his
children without guidance and support. A grandmother whose husband must now grow
old alone. A lover who never had a chance to say how much he cared.
Every 23 minutes.
A void opens .
Someone looks across the table at a vacant chair; climbs into an empty bed,
feels the pain of no voice, no touch, no love. Where there was once intimacy and
contact, now there is only absence and despair.
Every 23 minutes
A heart breaks.
Someone's pain shatters the confines of her body, leaking out in tears,
exploding in cries, defying all efforts to soothe the despair . Sleep offers no
escape from the nightmare of awakening. And morning brings only the
irreversibility of loss.
Every 23 minutes.
A dream ends.
Someone's future blurs and goes blank as anticipation fades into nothingness .
The phone will not ring, the car will not pull up to the house . The weight of
tomorrow becomes unbearable in a world in which all promises have been broken by
force.
Every 23 minutes.
Somebody wants to run. Somebody wants to hide.
Somebody is left with hate. Somebody wants to die.
And we permit this to go on.
Every 23 minutes.
每23分钟
琳达·韦尔特纳
几个星期前我和丈夫去参加了一个葬礼。我们追悼的那个男人并没有生病也永远不会变老了。他是在一个星期天的晚上沿着一条分隔行驶的公路驾车回家时在自己的汽车里丧生的。
那是一个普通的夜晚，并不比别的夜晚更黑。对面开来的一辆车失去控制，冲过护栏，撞上另外两辆车，然后迎头撞上了他的车。据报纸报道，那个刚参加完婚礼开车回家的司机似乎困惑不解。“我只喝了两瓶啤酒和一杯鸡尾酒，”据报道她这么说。
一次婚礼。
接着是一次葬礼。
我真希望她当时能够在场看到所有因为她的行为而永远改变生活的那些人：死者的妻子和四个孩子，他的亲戚以及许许多多的朋友，他们都默默地痛苦地坐在那儿，听着那些根本无法触及到他们内心深处的悲痛话语。
据国家公路交通安全局报告，这样的死亡事故在美国隔每23分钟就要发生一起，想起来真不可思议。
有人喝酒。
有人开车。
有人死了。
其他人的生活被永远地改变了，虽然有时侯这种改变也许是漫不经心的观察者所看不见的。碰巧在葬礼的前一天，我在购物时偶然遇到一位老熟人。他谈起我的那副拐杖。我便问他可曾摔断过腿。
“啊，我这条大腿里就有一根长长的支撑条，”他说，“我从越南回来两个星期就出了一次车祸。”
“这真是天大的笑话。安然无恙地离开了战场，回来却受了伤，”我跟他开玩笑他说。“你真是不幸之中的大幸。”
“哎，我妻子在车祸中死了，那个开车人的妻子也死了，”他有些不自在地说。“我们是被一个醉鬼撞的。
我认识这个人已经有好几年了，然而我突然意识到他生活中有整整一页他过去从未提到过。我问了一下才知道他在医院里住了七个星期，在此期间他一直都知道他的妻子已经死了。话说到这儿我就不知道该怎么说下去了，因为有些问题你是没法在随意的交谈中向别人提出的----诸如，“你是怎么经受住这一打击的？”或者“你想过什么办法报复吗？”
我要能知道这些问题的答案就好了。我真希望我能把这些答案告诉那位跟随在丈夫灵柩后面从教堂出来时悲痛欲绝，几乎无法行走的女人。
每隔23分钟，是谁死了呢？
一个再也不能安抚需要她的孩子的母亲。一个永远不会知道朋友们多么离不开她的女人。一个原本能对社会作出重要贡献的男子。一个没有了她的丈夫就前途渺茫的妻子。
每隔23分钟，是谁死了呢？
一个并非出于自愿而抛下年迈父母的儿子。一个永远无法笑看子女们成就的父亲。一个永远不能收回气话的女儿。一个永远当不上姐姐的女傧相的妹妹。
每隔23分钟，是谁死了呢？
一个在哥哥或姐姐的女儿出生时不会在场抱她的弟弟。一个永远不再鼓励别人的朋友。一个永远无法盟誓成婚的新娘。一个家庭将会支离破碎的姨母或姑母。
每隔23分钟，是谁死了呢？
一个永远无法实现先前诺言的孩子。一个撇下子女使他们无人教导、无人抚养的叔叔或舅舅。一个丈夫现在只得独自度过暮年的老奶奶。一个从来没有机会吐露衷情的恋人。
每隔23分钟。
有人感到出现一片空虚。
有人望着桌子对面的一把空椅子；有人爬上空荡荡的床，感受没有人说话、没人抚摸、没人爱恋的痛苦。过去有过亲昵和接触的地方，现在只有空缺和绝望。
每隔23分钟。
一颗心破碎了。
有的苦痛冲破她躯体的束缚，伴着眼泪流出，随着哭声迸发，绝望的心情无论如何努力都无济于事。睡眠中逃脱不了醒时的恶梦。清晨带来的只有无法挽回的损失。
每隔23分钟。
一个梦想结束。
有人的期望化为乌有，未来变得渺茫，成为空白。电话不会再响，汽车不会再停在屋前。在一个所有的诺言都被暴力打破的世界里，明天的沉重变得让人无法承受。
每隔23分钟。
有人想跑。有人想躲藏。
有人愤恨不已。有人寻死觅活。
而我们竟允许这一切继续下去。
每隔23分钟。
Copyrights©Awooh2003-2004
All rights reserved!