I felt cheated. All my life I had wondered whether my dad cared for me and loved me – I doubted it. Just as I got proof that he did, he passed away.
我有種受騙的感覺。迄今為止，我一直在質疑父親是否關心我、愛我。而當我剛剛得到答案時，他卻離我而去了。

My parents split up when I was two years old and, while I had monthly contact with my dad, my bitter stepmother and my father's old-fashioned stiff upper lip meant we never became close. In fact, I used to dread the visits to see him and count the hours until I could go home again.
在我兩歲時父母離婚了，之后每個月我都會和父親見次面，而我那位尖刻的后母以及父親那老式而僵硬的話語注定了我們永遠無法親近彼此。事實上，我一直很怕跟父親見面，每次都數著時間盼著能早點回家。

When I was very little the weekends at my father's house felt cold and unfriendly. During my teens the trips to a hostile house became a dread on the horizon for weeks beforehand. Each stay culminated in an uncomfortable peck on the cheek from Dad as he said goodbye – a moment I cringed about for hours in advance.
當我還很小的時候，那些在父親家度過的周末讓人感到冷淡而不友好。而在我青少年時期，去拜訪那個不友好的家就意味著在那之前提早來臨的幾個禮拜的擔心和恐懼。每次父親和我道別時都會在我臉頰留下匆匆一吻，那讓人不舒服，因而每每在此之前幾小時我就開始害怕。

And yet standing beside the hospital bed watching the life ebb from my sleeping father was painful. I felt like a little girl at his bedside, unable to talk to him yet again. I became fixated with his fingers – fat and soft, lying gently curled beside him. Slowly they transformed from plump sausages to stone – white and immovable. It was his fingers that told me he had gone from this life, not the bleeping of monitors or the bustling of nursing staff.
然而，站在醫院的病床邊看著沉睡的父親生命垂危，這讓我痛苦不已。我覺得自己像個小姑娘，在他的床邊，卻無法再次和他說話。我注視著他的手指 - 肥厚而柔軟，卷曲著放在他身旁。慢慢地，它們的顏色由紅潤轉為蒼白，并且不再動彈。這告訴我他已離開了人世，而此刻監視器的嘈雜聲響和護士的忙亂已不能再說明什么。

Losing a father whom you have no recollection of ever living with is difficult. Grieving is tricky; I didn't have any obvious close father-daughter memories to cling to and mull and cry over. Most of my memories were of stilted meetings and uncomfortable times together. But I desperately missed him being alive.
若你連絲毫和父親一起生活過的記憶都沒有，那么失去他必定很煎熬。悲痛讓人難以捉摸；父親和我之間沒有什么親密相處的記憶讓我留戀、冥想或慟哭。我的大多記憶是一些讓人別扭的碰面和不自在的共處時光。然而現在我是多么懷念他在世的日子啊。