Derek K. Miller 的最後一章

"The world, indeed the whole universe, is a beautiful, astonishing, wondrous place." 
─ Derek K. Miller


[news]罹癌男子死前貼文　三百萬網友閱讀
2011/05/10 06:25

加拿大一名罹患癌症男子，死前在部落格留言，跟這個世界告別，吸引3百萬網友爭相閱讀。

這名已婚男子叫米勒，41歲，2007年被診斷罹患大腸直腸癌後，一直寫部落格，把病情和自己如何跟癌症奮鬥的過程，都詳細紀錄下來。5月4號，米勒過世當天，他也發出最後一篇文章，題目是（最後po文）。這篇文章很感人，吸引3百萬網友瀏覽，還有140多人留言。

（米勒的網站是 penmachine.com）

照片來源 vancouver.openfile.ca

看了網路新聞而去找到了這篇原文，
這位加拿大男子全名為 Derek K. Miller。
當我讀完這篇文章後，
對於米勒(Miller) 樂觀看待生命與世界的人生態度感到敬佩。

曾經有人說過，
治療疾病最有效的不是藥物而是樂觀的態度，
尤其是罹癌病患需要花很多時間與病魔對抗，
沒有樂觀的人生態度是很難熬過的。
雖然作者的病逝讓人感到遺憾，
但他積極、正面的人生觀，
確實令人敬重且值得看齊。


因此我花了一點時間翻譯了這篇文章，
希望大家從中得到正面的力量。

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The last post

最後一章

By Derek on May 4, 2011 7:51 AM

由 Derek 於2011年5月4日 上午7時51分

Here it is. I'm dead, and this is my last post to my blog. In advance, I asked that once my body finally shut down from the punishments of my cancer, then my family and friends publish this prepared message I wrote—the first part of the process of turning this from an active website to an archive.

現在，我已經死了，而這是我最後一篇發佈在我部落格的文章。不久前，我要求我的家人和朋友，一旦我的身體受到癌症的懲罰最後被擊倒，就要將我預先寫好的這則訊息發佈 ─ 將這些文章從活動網站整理為資料庫(存檔)是過程的第一部分。

If you knew me at all in real life, you probably heard the news already from another source, but however you found out, consider this a confirmation: I was born on June 30, 1969 in Vancouver, Canada, and I died in Burnaby on May 3, 2011, age 41, of complications from stage 4 metastatic colorectal cancer. We all knew this was coming.

如果在現實生活中你完全了解我，你可能已經從其他來源得到消息，但無論如何你得知了，就把這(文章)看作是個確認：我在1969年6月30日出生於加拿大溫哥華(Vancouver)，而我41歲，因癌症第四階段轉移性大腸直腸癌的併發症，在2011年5月3日死於伯納比(Burnaby)。我們都知道這一天遲早會到來。

That includes my family and friends, and my parents Hilkka and Juergen Karl. My daughters Lauren, age 11, and Marina, who's 13, have known as much as we could tell them since I first found I had cancer. It's become part of their lives, alas.

知道的包括我的家人和朋友，和我的父母 Hilkka 和 Juergen Karl。還有我的兩個女兒，11歲的 Lauren 和13歲的 Marina，將所有我們能夠說的都告訴了她們。這(癌症的事)儼然成為他們生活的一部分，唉。

Airdrie

Of course it includes my wife Airdrie (nee Hislop). Both born in Metro Vancouver, we graduated from different high schools in 1986 and studied Biology at UBC, where we met in '88. At a summer job working as park naturalists that year, I flipped the canoe Air and I were paddling and we had to push it to shore.

當然，還有我的妻子Airdrie (娘家姓Hislop)。我們都出生於溫哥華(Vancouver) 的Metro，1986年畢業於不同高中，但都就讀於哥倫比亞大學(UBC)的生物學，認識在1988年。那年暑假，我在公園裡打工擔任博物學家，划獨木舟時翻了船，讓Air (小名，原名Airdrie)和我不得不把船推上岸。

We shared some classes, then lost touch. But a few years later, in 1994, I was still working on campus. Airdrie spotted my name and wrote me a letter—yes! paper!—and eventually (I was trying to be a full-time musician, so chaos was about) I wrote her back. From such seeds a garden blooms: it was March '94, and by August '95 we were married. I have never had second thoughts, because we have always been good together, through worse and bad and good and great.

我們分享了一些課程內容，之後就沒了聯絡。但幾年後，在1994年，我當時還在校園裡工作。Airdrie 打聽了我的名字並給我寄了一封信 ─ 沒錯！是郵寄，不是Email！ ─ 最後，(我想成為一位全職的音樂家，如此混亂) 我回信了。愛的種子就從這般花園中盛開：那是1994年的3月份，我們在1995年8月結婚。我從來沒有猶豫過，因為我們在一起時，一直都過得很好，一起經歷了酸甜苦辣。

However, I didn't think our time together would be so short: 23 years from our first meeting (at Kanaka Creek Regional Park, I'm pretty sure) until I died? Not enough. Not nearly enough.

然而，我不認為我們在一起的時間該是這麼短暫：從23年前我們第一次見面(我很確定地點是在Kanaka Creek Regional Park) 直到現在我死去？23年了還不夠？當然不夠。

What was at the end 

盡頭在哪

I haven't gone to a better place, or a worse one. I haven't gone anyplace, because Derek doesn't exist anymore. As soon as my body stopped functioning, and the neurons in my brain ceased firing, I made a remarkable transformation: from a living organism to a corpse, like a flower or a mouse that didn't make it through a particularly frosty night. The evidence is clear that once I died, it was over.

我從未到過天堂或地獄，從未去過任何地方。因為我已經不存在了。只要我的身體一停止運作，我的大腦神經細胞就會停止作用。我做了明顯地轉變：從一個活著生命體，變成一具屍體。就像一朵花或一隻鼠沒能熬過嚴寒的夜晚。這很清楚地證明了我的死亡，一切都結束了。

So I was unafraid of death—of the moment itself—and of what came afterwards, which was (and is) nothing. As I did all along, I remained somewhat afraid of the process of dying, of increasing weakness and fatigue, of pain, of becoming less and less of myself as I got there. I was lucky that my mental faculties were mostly unaffected over the months and years before the end, and there was no sign of cancer in my brain—as far as I or anyone else knew.

我從不畏懼死亡 ─ 不畏懼死亡的那一刻，和死亡之後。死亡並不代表什麼。我始終認為，我若是有那麼一點害怕垂死的過程，所帶來的虛弱、疲勞、痛苦和漸漸失去的自我，就會隨之增加，直到我真正死去。但很慶幸是，直到我死前，我的精神官能並沒有因為時間的流逝而受到影響，腦部也沒有受到癌細胞侵襲的痕跡 ─ 就我自己或其他人的了解。

As a kid, when I first learned enough subtraction, I figured out how old I would be in the momentous year 2000. The answer was 31, which seemed pretty old. Indeed, by the time I was 31 I was married and had two daughters, and I was working as a technical writer and web guy in the computer industry. Pretty grown up, I guess.

小時候，當我第一次學會(數學的)減法，我算出自己到了最重要的西元2000年會是幾歲。答案是31歲，似乎挺老的。的確，31歲時我已經結婚了，而且擁有兩個女兒。當時是電腦產業的網路科技作家。已相當地成熟，我自己認為。

Yet there was much more to come. I had yet to start this blog, which recently turned 10 years old. I wasn't yet back playing drums with my band, nor was I a podcaster (since there was no podcasting, nor an iPod for that matter). In techie land, Google was fresh and new, Apple remained "beleaguered," Microsoft was large and in charge, and Facebook and Twitter were several years from existing at all. The Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity were three years away from launch, while the Cassini-Huygens probe was not quite half-way to Saturn. The human genome hadn't quite been mapped yet.

可是，很多事紛紛地發生。從我還沒啟用這個部落格，直到轉眼過了10年。我還是沒有回到以前的樂團打鼓，更沒有成為一個播客(Podcaster)(因為當時還沒有Podcasting，更沒有iPod這東西)。在當時的科技領域，Google的出現讓人耳目一新，Apple仍然處於"困境"之中，Microsoft是最大的科技龍頭。而Facebook和Twitter是在近幾年才崛起。火星探測器靈魂號(Spirit)和機遇號(Opportunity)在三年從太空船內脫離，而Cassini-Huygens探測器登入火星卻沒那麼成功。在人類基因還沒被勘測到以前。

The World Trade Center towers still stood in New York City. Jean Chrétien remained Prime Minister of Canada, Bill Clinton President of the U.S.A., and Tony Blair Prime Minister of the U.K.—while Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak, Kim Jong-Il, Ben Ali, and Moammar Qaddafi held power in Iraq, Egypt, North Korea, Tunisia, and Libya.

世界貿易中心大樓依然佇立於紐約市。柯提昂(Jean Chrétien)仍然是加拿大的總理，比爾柯林頓(Bill Clinton)是美國總統，東尼布萊爾(Tony Blair)是英國總理。同時，海珊(Saddam Hussein)、穆巴拉克(Hosni Mubarak)、金正日(Kim Jong-Il)、班阿里(Ben Ali)和格達費(Moammar Gadhafi)分別在伊拉克、埃及、北韓、突尼西亞和利比亞各掌政權。

In my family in 2000, my cousin wouldn't have a baby for another four years. My other cousin was early in her relationship with the man who is now her husband. Sonia, with whom my mother had been lifelong friends (ever since they were both nine), was still alive. So was my Oma, my father's mom, who was then 90 years old. Neither my wife nor I had ever needed long-term hospitalization—not yet. Neither of our children was out of diapers, let alone taking photographs, writing stories, riding bikes and horses, posting on Facebook, or outgrowing her mother's shoe size. We didn't have a dog.

我的家族在2000年時，我表弟(妹)四年都沒有小孩，另一個表妹很快就交男友並成為了他現在的丈夫。Sonia是我母親一輩子的朋友(從他們九歲開始)，現在都還健在。而我的奶奶，也就是我父親的母親Oma已經90歲了。我的妻子和我都不需長期住在醫院─當時還沒。更不用說，我們的孩子已經不需要包尿布了，她們拍獨照、寫故事、騎單車和騎馬，發佈在Facebook，長得比媽媽的鞋子尺寸還快。我們沒有養狗。

And I didn't have cancer. I had no idea I would get it, certainly not in the next decade, or that it would kill me.

而當時的我還沒有罹患癌症。我也完全沒料到我會罹癌，更沒料到會在未來的十年，還我奪走我的生命。

Missing out
遺失

Why do I mention all this stuff? Because I've come to realize that, at any time, I can lament what I will never know, yet still not regret what got me where I am. I could have died in 2000 (at an "old" 31) and been happy with my life: my amazing wife, my great kids, a fun job, and hobbies I enjoyed. But I would have missed out on a lot of things.

為什麼我會提到這些？因為我發覺到，在任何時候，我可以悲嘆我不知道事，但我仍不後悔自己會是現在這樣。我本來可能在2000年(31歲的"老")，伴隨著我美滿的生活死去：我美麗的妻子、乖巧的孩子、有趣的工作和我享受的愛好。但我就會錯過了很多事。

And many things will now happen without me. As I wrote this, I hardly knew what most of them could even be. What will the world be like as soon as 2021, or as late as 2060, when I would have been 91, the age my Oma reached? What new will we know? How will countries and people have changed? How will we communicate and move around? Whom will we admire, or despise?

而且有很多事，將在沒有我的時候發生。正如我所寫，我幾乎不知道未來將會變得如何。不知道2021年的世界是什麼樣子，或遲至2060年，那時我已經91歲，我的奶奶曾經也達到這年紀？我們將會得到什麼樣的新知？國家和人民將會有何改變？人類會如何溝通和行動？誰將遭受是人們欽佩或是鄙視？

What will my wife Air be doing? My daughters Marina and Lolo? What will they have studied, how will they spend their time and earn a living? Will my kids have children of their own? Grandchildren? Will there be parts of their lives I'd find hard to comprehend right now?

我的妻子Air (小名，原名Airdrie) 未來會做些什麼？我的女兒Marina和Lolo(小名，原名Lauren)呢？她們未來會讀什麼？她們未來該如何謀生？我的孩子會有她們自己的孩子嗎？孫子女？她們將來的生活那部分我現在很難了解？

What to know, now that I'm dead  

必須知道的是…我已經不在了

There can't be answers today. While I was still alive writing this, I was sad to know I'll miss these things—not because I won't be able to witness them, but because Air, Marina, and Lauren won't have me there to support their efforts.

這些問題是現在沒辦法回答的。雖然在我還活著時寫下這篇文章，我知道自己會為失去的一切感到難過 ─ 不是因為我將無法親眼目睹這一切(妻子、女兒的未來)，也不是因為Air、Marina和Lauren未來將沒有我在身旁支持她們的努力。

It turns out that no one can imagine what's really coming in our lives. We can plan, and do what we enjoy, but we can't expect our plans to work out. Some of them might, while most probably won't. Inventions and ideas will appear, and events will occur, that we could never foresee. That's neither bad nor good, but it is real.

事情證明，任何人都無法想像我們的生活將會發生什麼樣的事。我們可以對自己喜愛的事物作計劃並執行，但我們不能期望我們的計劃會成功。某些計劃可能會成功，但大部分的計劃可能會失敗。我們永遠不會預見的發明和構想都會出現，不能預言的事件也會發生。這既不是件壞事，也不是件好事，但這就是事實。

I think and hope that's what my daughters can take from my disease and death. And that my wonderful, amazing wife Airdrie can see too. Not that they could die any day, but that they should pursue what they enjoy, and what stimulates their minds, as much as possible—so they can be ready for opportunities, as well as not disappointed when things go sideways, as they inevitably do.

我認為也希望，兩個女兒能夠從我的疾病和死亡中得到啟發。而我的美好，美麗的妻子Airdrie 也都能夠了解。這道理並不是闡述她們可能死亡於任何一天，而是她們應該盡其所能地追求自己所喜愛並能夠激發心靈的事物 ─ 如此一來，她們便可以做好準備以等待機會，也不會因為挫折而感到沮喪，因為她們必然如此。

I've also been lucky. I've never had to wonder where my next meal will come from. I've never feared that a foreign army will come in the night with machetes or machine guns to kill or injure my family. I've never had to run for my life (something I could never do now anyway). Sadly, these are things some people have to do every day right now.

而我是如此地幸運。我從來都不需要擔心自己是否會挨餓。我也從未害怕外國軍隊會在入夜後，以刀械或機槍殺害我的家人。我更不需為了生計而日夜奔波(從今開始更不必擔心)。但令人難過的是，世界上還是有部分的人，每天都在面對這些。

A wondrous place 

令人驚奇的世界

The world, indeed the whole universe, is a beautiful, astonishing, wondrous place. There is always more to find out. I don't look back and regret anything, and I hope my family can find a way to do the same.

這個世界，甚至是整個宇宙，是個既美麗、為人驚嘆又不可思議的地方，總是有不一樣的事物讓我們去探索。我從不後悔過去的任何事，我希望我的家人也能夠如此看待這一切。

What is true is that I loved them. Lauren and Marina, as you mature and become yourselves over the years, know that I loved you and did my best to be a good father.

是什麼原因讓我如此深愛著我的家人？Lauren和Marina，多年後當妳們逐漸成熟了，希望妳們能了解我是多麼地愛妳們，並盡全力成為一個好父親。

Airdrie, you were my best friend and my closest connection. I don't know what we'd have been like without each other, but I think the world would be a poorer place. I loved you deeply, I loved you, I loved you, I loved you.

親愛的Airdrie，你曾是我最好的朋友，也是我的摯愛。我不知道沒有彼此的生活會變成怎樣，但我知道我的世界會因此而枯竭。我過去一直深愛著妳，真的很愛妳，很愛妳，我愛妳。

●文章來源：penmachine.com 

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得先跟大家說聲抱歉，
或許某些部分翻譯得不太好 (因為本人不是讀英文系的)，
為了整篇文章的流暢度，
有在詞彙上做了一些修飾，
翻譯內容如有錯誤，
懇請多給予糾正和指教。