失去与放手

人生即失去与放手，尤其是父母与孩子之间。正如龙应台所说："所谓的父女母子一场，只不过意味着，你和他的缘分就是今生今世不断地在目送他的背影渐行渐远。你站立在小路的这一端，看着他逐渐消失在小路转弯的地方，而且，他用背影默默告诉你：不必追。"

So, there are many kinds of tears. Perhaps we weep at a sad song about children growing up partly because we perceive the process as tragic. But they may also be tears of the recognition of beauty, because this changing is profound, and brings us most closely into touch with the heart of life itself.

In any case, the idea that we are losing love as our children grow is not true. The love I feel for my two eldest daughters, in their 20s now, is undiminished with the passing of time. I don't get to express it so much, and they don't feel the need to. They are independent. And that is a job well done as far as I am concerned. Yet when I look at them sometimes, I feel exactly the same emotion I felt when they were barely walking, and helpless.

We do not lose our children—not unless we are very unlucky, or very bad parents, or they are very atypical children. If our desires to hold on to our children really took root, and were acted out, it would be a disaster. This is doubtless the fate of many over-parented children. Such children could not emotionally leave home, ever.

We must let go, and then let go and then let go. And eventually they, too, must let go, as their parents pass out of this life, at first gradually then entirely and finally. I have already "lost" my children many times—as babies, as toddlers, as infants. They are always being made anew—and yet are always, at some deep level, the same. Parallel changes are happening to me, too, if I am doing it right. That is, I am always losing my children only in the sense that I am always losing myself.

For if I am static as a fully grown adult, then I am doing something wrong. I am holding on to myself too tightly, just as some parents hold on to their children too tightly. Life, yes, is loss and letting go. But without that loss and letting go, it would be like a plastic flower. Indestructible, but ultimately valueless.

Vocabulary

1. resonant: 回响的，引起共鸣的。

2. 看着孩子渐渐消失，或者猛地意识到他们已消失不见，就是发现你正在失去生命中曾经的，也是未来永远的最爱。

3. inverted: 反转的，反向的。

4. mourn: 悼念，感到悲痛；impermanence: 短暂，倏忽无常；mortality: 生命的有限。

5. 伴随着孩子的成长，我们也在哀悼自己作为必要保护者的角色的逝去——曾经那份被需要的、玫瑰色的热切的爱，只有孩子和热恋中的爱人才能给予。indispensable: 不可或缺的；tint: 色调；infatuated: [ɪn'fætʃuetɪd] 热恋的。

6. Abba: 阿巴乐队，是瑞典的流行组合，于1982年解散；Van Morrison: 范•莫里森（1945— ），是北爱尔兰摇滚奇人、爱尔兰近代民谣革命运动代表之一及摇滚的精神宗师。

7. Nanci Griffith: 南西•葛瑞芬（1954— ），美国歌手，被誉为"山地民谣女王"；reduce sb. to tears: 使某人流泪。

8. court: v. 招致，酿成。

9. be entwined with: 与……有着紧密的联系，与……交织在一起。

10. transience: 短暂，无常。

11. evanescence: /ˌɛvəˈnɛsn's/ 消失，消散。