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The Day I Met My Mother
我遇見母親的那天
by Faith L. Mahaney
費思·L·馬哈尼
Mine was, at times, a lonely childhood. Born in Chungking, China, of missionary parents, I lost my mother at birth. I was two months old when my father sent me to Mother's favorite sister in Morgantown , West Virginia. There I grew up in the house where Mother had spent her girlhood.
我的童年常常充滿孤寂。我出生在中國重慶，父母是傳教士，母親生下我便去世了。父親把我送到西弗吉尼亞州摩根敦我母親最喜歡的姐妹那兒時，我才兩個月大。在那兒，我在母親曾度過她少女時代的屋子里長大。
When Aunt Ruth was at home, I was surrounded by love. But she was our sole breadwinner and worked in an office six days a week. Left with a procession of hired girls, I felt the loneliness of the big, old house.
只要魯思姨媽在家，我總是生活在愛的懷抱之中。可她是唯一養家活口的人，每周六天去辦公室上班。我便由一個又一個先后雇來的女孩照料著，呆在那座古老的大宅里，感到十分寂寞。
In the evenings, before Aunt Ruth came home, I often sat on the floor beneath a picture of my mother—a sweet-faced young woman of 20, with dark eyes and black curly hair. Sometimes I talked to the picture, but I could never bear to look at it when I'd been naughty. There was one question always in my mind: What was my mother like? If only I could have known her!
每當黃昏，魯思姨媽還沒回家的時候，我常常坐在地板上，我母親的一幅畫像下面—一個面容可愛的20歲的年輕女子，有著黑眼睛和卷曲的黑頭發。有時我對著畫像說話，可淘氣的時候，我從不敢正視畫像。我腦子里老想著一個問題：我母親是怎樣一個人呢？我要是對她有所了解該多好啊！
Twenty years passed. I had grown up, married and had a baby, named Lucy for her grandmother—the mother I'd so longed to know.
20年過去了。我長大了，成了家，還有了一個孩子，叫露西，取這名字是為了紀念她的外祖母—我一直渴望著能有所了解的母親。
