Life is about loss and letting go – especially with our children

人生便是不断地失去与放手，尤其是放开孩子们的手（双语）

The most resonant truth about children is that they disappear. Slowly, gradually, but eventually. Children in that sense are clocks, marking the passage of time with each new stage of growth. To see a child disappear – or rather, to become aware in any acute way of their disappearance – is to become aware of losing something you have loved more than anything you have loved in your life before, or will again.

关于孩子最叫人产生共鸣的事实便是孩子会慢慢地渐行渐远，并最终消失不见。这样说来，孩子就像是时钟，每一新阶段的成长都意味着时间的流逝。看着孩子渐渐消失不见，或者说猛地意识到孩子已经消失不见，等同于意识到自己失去了此生挚爱。

Watching our children grow is – in an odd, inverted way – like watching our parents grow old and die. If we mourn both cases it is perhaps because we are also weeping for ourselves – for our own impermanence, for our own mortality. For we also mark time, less visibly, in our own bodies.

看着孩子渐渐长大，就像看着父母老去逝去一样，只是这个过程被不同寻常地反转了过来。我们为这两个过程而感到哀伤，或许是因为我们同时也在为自身，为生命的短暂，为终将终结的命途而感到悲哀。因为，虽然不易察觉，我们自身也是时光流逝的见证。

As our children grow, we are also mourning the passing of a role – of ourselves as protectors, indispensable, loved passionately with the need and rose-colored tints only children and infatuated lovers can offer us.

随着孩子的成长，我们哀悼的还有我们作为保护者这一角色的消亡——这种极度依赖、极度被爱的感觉带着玫瑰般的色彩。这种被需要的感觉只有孩子和热恋中的情人才能给予我们。

(这里有一段英文不能放上去，不知原因，抱歉了。）

想想音乐是如何记录这些悲伤过程的，从Abba的Slipping Through My Fingers All the Time（从指间不停流逝）到Van Morrison的Brown Eyed Girl（棕色眼睛的女孩），再到几乎叫人伤心欲绝的Turn Around（转身）。我个人最喜欢的版本是Nanci Griffith的Turn Around（转身），每每听后都不禁落泪（不是说说而已，这首歌是真的会让我泪流满面）。即使如此，我还是会听上一遍又一遍。这是为什么呢？是什么使我落泪呢？我又是为什么会常常落泪呢？

They are tears, partly, for loss. As such, they are simply sentimental – or at least, unnecessary. Because all life is entwined with loss. Transience is what makes life beautiful and worth living. All that comes and goes away is the heart of beauty. Children are simply the most vivid and meaningful examples of evanescence.

这些眼泪，有的是为逝去的事物而落。因此，它们仅仅只是多愁善感的泪水，或者说至少是无足轻重的泪水。因为人生总是充斥着逝去。生命正是因为转瞬即逝才得以美丽，得以珍贵。美丽的本质便在于来来往往。孩子则是这份瞬逝最鲜活又深刻的象征。

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.

所以说，眼泪有许多种。或许我们会为一首关于孩子成长的伤感歌曲而潸然泪下，部分原因在于我们认为这种长大的过程着实叫人悲伤。但这泪水也有可能是为认识到美之所在而落，因为成长所带来的变化如此深刻，让我们近距离地接触到了生命的本质。

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.

无论如何，认为孩子长大了，我们就失去了心中所爱的这种想法终究是不对的。我的两个大女儿现在都二十来岁，随着时间的流逝，我对她们的爱意始终未变。我并没有时时刻刻向她们表达我的爱意，她们也觉得没有这个必要。她们是独立的个体，在我看来，她们也很好地发挥了自己的独立性。然而有的时候我看着她们，内心的触动和当年她们还是蹒跚学步的无助小孩并无两样。

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.

我们并未真正失去自己的孩子，除非身为父母的我们实在是不走运不称职，又或者说我们的孩子异于常人。我们想要紧抓住孩子不放手，倘若这种想法根深蒂固并付诸于实际的话，将造成一场大灾难。而对于许多受父母溺爱的孩子而言，这场灾难无疑会成为他们的最终命运。这些孩子根本无法在情感上实现独立。

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.

我们必须放手，放手，再放手。而孩子们也会随着父母的逝去，渐渐放手，并最终彻底释然。我已经许多次“失去”了我的孩子——失去了婴儿时期的他们，失去了蹒跚学步的他们，也失去了幼儿时期的他们。他们时常焕然一新，却也时常在内心深处故我依然。我也正经历着同样的改变，我失去了各个阶段的孩子，我也在失去各个阶段的自己，这才是正确的。

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.

如果作为成年人的我始终停滞不前，那才叫大错特错。我把自己抓得太紧了，就像有的父母抓着自己的孩子不放手一样。是的，人生便是不断地失去与放手，否则人生就会像塑料花一样，虽然坚不可摧，最终却是毫无价值。