我的名字是瑞秋。我永远都是赫什·戈德堡-波林的母亲。赫什永远是我最年长的孩子，也是我唯一的儿子；他的年龄，永远停留在23岁。
My name is Rachel. And I will always be the mother of Hersh Goldberg-Polin. Hersh will always be my eldest child. Hersh will always be my only son. And Hersh will always be 23-years-old.
作为全球数百万失去孩子的父母中的一员，我仿佛被时间永远定格在了那个痛苦的瞬间……10月7日，那个日子永远刻在我的记忆里——我的儿子赫什就是在一场号称倡导和平、爱与团结的音乐节上被绑架的。他被囚禁了328天，期间遭受了种种折磨与饥饿的煎熬；最终，绑匪在加沙地带的隧道里将他与其他五名年轻人一起杀害。
As one of the millions of parents around the world who have tragically and chokingly buried a child, I am stuck in time. I always will be. Oct. 7 is approaching. That date upon which my son, Hersh, was stolen from a music festival advertised as being for peace, love, and unity. Hersh was held hostage for 328 sickening, agonizing, and starving days until his captors executed him with five other young and luminous people in a tunnel underneath Gaza.
赫什那曾经充满活力的身体，如今被装在一个袋子里交还给我——只剩下骨架，身上布满伤痕；他的左前臂在绑架过程中被炸飞，身上还有六处枪伤。每天醒来，我都不得不面对这个残酷的现实……我仿佛被时间牢牢束缚住，动弹不得。
His majestic body, that I carried in my body many moons ago, was returned to me in a bag, skeletal, bearing signs of torture, filthy, missing his left forearm that had been blown off during his abduction, and with six bullet wounds. I awake every day to the confusion of this truth. I am glued to time's flypaper of stickiness. I cannot move.
人们都很关心我们，希望我和我的家人能够在情感、心理、精神等方面逐渐恢复过来。他们真心希望我们能够“好起来”。有人告诉我，这种经历与9·11事件中失去亲人的家庭相似：在那个充满痛苦与困惑的世界里，人们会得到他人善意的安慰与支持。
People care about us and want my family and me to improve—emotionally, psychologically, mentally, spiritually, and otherwise. They desperately want us to get... better. I am told this is similar to the way people who lost loved ones on 9/11 encounter well-meaning comforters, in the quarter century since they lost someone core to their identity, in this layered and puzzling place called life.
我清楚地记得2001年9月11日的早晨，我在加利福尼亚州伯克利的家中醒来。我的丈夫乔恩正在洗澡；当时大约是早上6点半，我能听到11个月大的赫什在隔壁房间的婴儿床里轻轻哼唱着。时钟收音机还开着……当我迷迷糊糊地从睡梦中醒来时，突然听到广播里传来消息：“有一架飞机撞上了纽约的世界贸易中心……”我冲进浴室，在淋浴时对乔恩说：“快点，快来，有可怕的事情正在纽约发生。”美国每一个人都有他们那天发生的故事。
I remember waking up on Sept. 11, 2001, in our house in Berkeley, California. My husband Jon was already in the shower. It was around 6:30 in the morning, and I could hear baby Hersh, just 11 months old, cooing in his crib in the room adjacent to mine. The clock radio (remember those?) was on. In my fuzzy moments of waking, I shot up in bed when I heard the announcer say something about an airplane flying into the World Trade Center in New York. I ran into the bathroom and said to Jon in the shower, “Hurry up and come quickly, something terrible is happening in New York.”Everyone in the United States has their tale of what happened that day.
我的母亲常说，当时总统肯尼迪遇刺那天，每个人都记得自己在哪里。她去干洗店取衣服的时候，那个干洗店的男孩正在哭泣。她问发生了什么事，他说：“哦，亲爱的，你不知道吗？总统被暗杀了。”我也记得祖母讲她在珍珑港袭击时身在何处。
My mother used to say that the day President John F. Kennedy was killed, everyone remembers where they were. She had gone into the dry cleaners to pick up a blouse, and the man at the was crying. She asked what happened, and he said, “Oh dear, do you not know? The president was assassinated.”I also recall my grandmother remembering where she was when the attack at Pearl Harbor happened.
在我们这一代人中，我们又有了另一个“耻辱”的日子。2023年10月7日。这结束了我的“之前”的那一天。在那个清晨，乔恩和我被扔进了一个我希望没有人会经历的苦难之旅。没有人。我们和那天被劫持的251名宝贵人质的家人们一起，在极度的痛苦中跋山跨海，拼命、痛苦地试图救回他们。
In our generation, we now have another day of “infamy.”Oct. 7, 2023. The day my “before” ended. On that morning, Jon and I were thrust into an odyssey of hardship I wish on no one. No one. We, and all of the families of the 251 treasured hostages abducted that day, ran in excruciating pain to the ends of the planet, trying desperately and agonizingly to save them.
我们希望找回所有人，包括那些我们知道在10月7日就已遇难的人质，他们宝贵的尸体被残忍地抢走当作筹码。我们也拼命想在活着的时候救回所有还活着的人质。但那是不可能的。我们失败了他们。数十名人质活着被带走，经受着可怕的条件和折磨数百天，却在救援之前就被杀害。
We wanted everyone back, including the hostages whom we knew had been killed on Oct. 7, whose precious bodies had been savagely taken to be used as bargaining chips. And we were desperate to get back all of the live hostages while they were still living. But that was not to be. We failed them. Dozens of hostages went in alive, survived horrifying conditions and torture for hundreds of days, only to be murdered before they could be saved.
10月7日被劫持的人质来自39个不同的国家。他们是基督徒、穆斯林、犹太人、印度教徒和佛教徒。最年轻的人质是一个九个月大的红发宝宝，最年长的是一个留着胥胥胡子的爷爷。他们设法活了下来。不管怎么说。那些神圣而珍爱的灵魂们。但我们没有及时赶到。
The hostages taken on Oct. 7 were from 39 different nations. They were Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists. The youngest hostage was a nine-month-old redheaded baby and the oldest was a mustachioed grandpa. They kept themselves alive. Somehow. Those sacred and cherished souls. But we did not get to them in time.
被杀害的人质，以不同的但残忍的方式，一个接一个地被装在袋子里送回家人怀中。甚至连那个红发的小宝宝和他四岁的弟弟，也装在更小的袋子里。
Hostages killed in captivity, in different but heinous ways, were tricklingly returned to their families in bags. Even the little redheaded baby and his four-year-old brother. In smaller bags.
如今，距离那些人被从我们身边夺走已经快三年了——他们被从自己的生活中、从我们身边带走了。许多人都会问：“你的情况好些了吗？”这个问题出自真诚的关心与善意，我绝不会认为问话者有意伤人。但我的回答是：“没有，我并没有好起来。”
And now we approach three years of the day these people were taken from us. Taken from themselves and their lives. And so many ask, “Are you getting better?”The question comes from a genuine place of curious benevolence, kindness even. I cannot imagine anyone means to cause harm. But the answer is “no.”No, we are not getting better.
其实，我得谨慎些，只代表我自己发言。因为痛苦与磨难是极其个人化的体验，它只属于承受它的人。我所承受的苦难，甚至与家里其他同样失去亲人的人所经历的都截然不同。我们的赫什，永远活在我们心中的孩子。我那可爱又阳光的儿子啊……所以，那些关心询问我的人，很抱歉，我并没有好转。我渴望改变，努力去适应这个令人难以置信的现实——在这个没有空气的世界里呼吸，在这片没有水的荒漠中前行。
Actually, I want to be careful and only speak for myself. Because pain and suffering are deeply personal and tailor-made for the one wearing it. My personal garment of affliction is not even similar to others in my family who are missing the same person. Our forever Hersh. Oh, my delightful sunny sun of son. So, dear inquisitive asker, I am sorry; I am not getting better. I aspire and try to get different. To adapt to this bewildering truth. To breathe in this world without air.
可我仍被困在痛苦的牢笼里，那里就是我的栖身之所。你们只看到了我，却看不到将我禁锢在这痛苦牢笼中的栅栏。我能伪装，真的能演戏、能假装、能撒谎。当人们期望我们“康复”、要求我们“振作”时，我明白这种做法其实叫“有害的积极心态”——这是一种情感上的野蛮行径，是对痛苦的刻意忽视。我明白大家只是无法忍受看到别人深陷痛苦之中；谁愿意去想象有人始终被喉咙里的痛楚、胸口的苦闷、心灵的创伤所折磨呢？
To wander the desert without water. But I am trapped in a cage of suffering. It is where I live. You see me and not the bars that keep me in this prison of pain. And I can fake it. Boy, can I act, pretend, and lie. When people want and demand our healing, I have learned that is called “toxic positivity.”It is emotional barbarism and emotional denial. I understand it comes from everyone being fiercely uncomfortable with misery. Who wants to think someone is always with an ache lodged in their throat? In their chest?
我在芝加哥长大，离林肯公园动物园不远。我们每年都会随学校去那里参观。可我并不喜欢那里，总觉得心里不安。原因我也说不清。至今我仍清晰地记得那只黑豹：它在看似牢笼的围栏里来回踱步，节奏整齐而单调。我觉得自己和那只上世纪70年代末出现的、忧郁又俊美的黑豹简直是同类啊。
In their spirit. I grew up in Chicago, not far from the Lincoln Park Zoo. We went there with school every year. I didn’t like it. It felt unsettling to me. I don’t know why. I have seared into me the black panther that would pace rhythmically back and forth, back and forth, in what seemed like a jail. I feel like a kindred spirit to that sad and handsome cat from the late 1970’s.
我的牢笼里有祝福与欢笑，但我仍努力渴望着有朝一日能够逃出去。尽管成千上万的父母曾联系我——他们都在我之前失去了自己的孩子——他们都告诉我情况不会好转。他们从各地发来消息，讲述那些再也回不来的纯真生命；而那些还活着的孩子们也呼吸困难，连呼吸都成了一种负担。
I have blessings and laughter in my cage. And I strive and yearn to get out. One day. Even though the thousands of parents who have reached out to me, who all put their children in the ground before me, have explained that it will not get better. They reach out from all sorts of places, describing treasured innocent lives no longer here; and those who are here have their breathing constricted. Inhaling is an effort.
赫什是个充满好奇心且思想激进的人，他梦想着环游世界来满足自己的求知欲。为此他精心规划并积蓄多年，机票也早已买好，原定起飞日期是2023年12月27日。可惜的是，那天他仍被劫持为人质，遭受饥饿与折磨，被困在可怕的囚禁环境中，根本无法成行。
Hersh was a curious, radical listener who dreamt of quenching his wanderlust by traveling the world. He had planned and saved for many years. His ticket was purchased, and the flight date was Dec. 27, 2023. Alas, Hersh was to miss the flight because he was still being held hostage, starving, tortured, and surviving on that date in terrifying confinement.
有趣的是，他依然满怀希望。这一点我深知，因为绑架者拍摄的一段视频中，赫什亲口对我们说了这话；那段视频后来交到了我的丈夫乔恩和我手中。还有一些成功获救的人质也告诉我们，赫什曾对他们说自己满怀希望。即便身处地狱般的绝境仍能心怀希望，这真是无比珍贵的品质啊。但愿我也能拥有这样的希望。真的希望如此。
And, fascinatingly, he was hopeful. I know it because he told us in a video his captors made of him that was given to my husband, Jon, and me. I know it because some hostages who did make it home told us that Hersh told them he was hopeful. What a gorgeous gift, to remain hopeful even when in the bowels of hell. I hope I can muster that kind of hope. I hope. Hersh had many compasses.
赫什身边总是围绕着许多指南针：书桌上、背包上、学校的储物柜里，手机里也装满了各种指南针应用——他甚至戏称这些为“作弊用指南针”。如今，我梦寐以求的是找到一个能指引我找到“慈悲”之道的“指南针”——一个能涵盖“慈悲”含义的词汇。我渴望获得通往慈悲之路的方向指引，为了我自己、我的家人、我的同胞，乃至全人类。我希望自己能拥有慈悲之心，也希望自己能被他人以慈悲相待。
On his desk, clipped to his many backpacks, in his locker at school, and ubiquitous compasses on his phone (which he referred to as “cheating” compasses). And now what I dream of is finding the compass that will offer me the road to another word similar to compass, a word that encompasses compass. I long for directions to compassion. For me, my family, my people, all people. Compassion from me and to me. We have all been taught that history is written by the ones with the power to hold the pen.
我们从小就被教导：历史是由掌握话语权的人书写的。我没有权力，只有爱。我正用爱去维系、去传递。我渐渐明白：爱比死亡更强大。我对赫什的爱仍在不断生长，如今比他还在我身边时更加深沉而复杂。
I have no power. Just love. I am holding and wielding love. I have learned that love is stronger than death. My love for Hersh continues blooming and is more intricate than when he was right here.
爱不会消亡，它会成长。不是以陈词滥调的方式，而是以洪泛和丰盈的方式。如果你感受过，那你就知道。悲痛是爱的标记。但它别在我们的皮肤上，所以当我们吸气时，它会疼痛。或者呼气时。
Love does not die. It grows. Not in a cliché way, but in a flooding and abundant way. If you have felt it, you know it. Grief is a badge of love. But it is pinned to our skin so it hurts when we inhale. Or exhale.
在即将到来的10月7日，我想起了25年前的9月11日，11个月大的赫施，他有着像饼干一样的大褐眼睛，还有一个毛绒白色的熊猫玩偶睡觉时抱在怀里。那个赫施，现在埋在地下，一座临着森林的坟墓里，距离我正在写这篇文章的地方五英里远。那个赫施，永远都会是23岁。我的赫施。
On this approaching Oct. 7, I think of the 11-month-old Hersh from 25 years ago, on September 11th, 2001, who had big brown eyes like cookies and a furry white polar bear he slept with. That Hersh, who is now buried in the ground, in a grave overlooking a forest, five miles from where I am writing this. That Hersh, who will always be 23 years old. My Hersh.
我为我们所有正在悲伤中的人祈祷，愿有一天，不管以何种方式，我们能够变得不同。行安全速。
I pray for all of us in sorrow that some day, somehow and someway, we become different. Godspeed.