“I told him he was not the only one who had lost a leg, even if mine was still attached to me. I showed him newspaper clippings of my accident. ‘So if you think I’m going to let you feel sorry for yourself for the rest of your life, think again. There is a whole life waiting for us out there! I don’tintend to be sorry for myself. But I have enough on my plate as it is, so you’d better snap out of it too. And I am not going to carry you-you are going to walk yourself.’” Grandma giggled, a surprisingly girlish sound coming from an old lady with white hair.
“我告诉他，他并不是唯一失去了一条腿的人，尽管我的腿没给截掉。我给他看了关于我发生车祸的剪报。‘所以，如果你觉得我会让你在余生自怨自艾，想都别想。在外面还有全新的生活在等待着我们!我不打算为此而顾影自怜。而眼下我要做的事情已经够多的了，所以你最好也赶紧给我振作起来。而且你可别想我会背你——你要自己向前走。’”祖母咯咯地笑着，这位满头银发的老妇人令人吃惊地发出了少女般的笑声。
“I limped a few steps toward him and showed him what I’d taken out of my pocket. ‘Now show me you are still a man,’ I said, ‘I won’t ask again.’ He bent to take his cane from the ground and struggled out of that wheelchair. I could see he had not done it before, because he almost fell on his face, having only one leg. But I was not going to help. And so he managed it on his own and walked to me and never sat in a wheelchair again in his life.”
“我一瘸一拐地走开了几步，然后让他看我从口袋里掏出的一样东西。‘现在让我看看，你还是个男子汉。我可不会说第二次。’他弯下腰从地上拿起他的拐杖，挣扎着从那副轮椅中站出来。可以看得出他之前从未这样做过，现在只有一条腿的他差点扑倒在地。但我没打算帮他。接着他设法自己站稳了，向我走来，而且在他的后半生里再也没有坐回到轮椅上。”
“What did you show him?” I had to know. Grandma looked at me and grinned. “Two engagementrings, of course. I had bought them the day after he left for the war and I was not going to waste them on any other man.”
“你给他看了什么东西呢?”我一定要知道。祖母看着我咧嘴而笑，说道：“当然是一对订婚戒指了。在他从军参战的第二天我就买了这对戒指，我可不想把戒指浪费在任何其他男人身上。”
I looked at the drawing on the kitchen wall, sketched by my grandfather’s hand so many years before. The picture became distorted as tears filled my eyes. “You are my Joy. I love you with my life.” I murmured quietly. The young woman in the drawing sat on her park bench and with twinkling eyes smiled broadly at me, an engagement ring carefully drawn on her finger.
我看着厨房墙壁上的那幅画像,那是多年前我祖父亲手绘就的。我眼中满含泪水,眼前的画像变得模糊起来。“你才是我的幸福。爱你一生。”我轻声低语道。画像中的年轻女人坐在公园长椅上,眼神清亮,笑容可掬地看着我,她的手指上被精心地画有一枚订婚戒指。
