2005年NPR美国国家公共电台三月-After a Long Estrangement, Is Forgiveness

Some people carry an old hurt around for a long time. Is it possible to forgive someone if they don't apologize or express remorse¹ for their actions? The commentator² Mubarak Dahir has been wrestling with that question.

I got another letter from my father. I've been getting them for a decade now, ever since I stopped talking to him. The odds³ were never good that my father, Sarber, would be able to embrace his gay son. Sarber was raised in the Arab world, where talk about sex of any kind is taboo⁴ and where homosexuality remains⁵ unspoken. Before he found out I was gay, Sarber spoke⁶ to me only once about homosexuality when I was a teenager. "If a man ever touches you there," he said, "kick the guy in the groin." Years later, I was away at college when my mother found personal letters I thought were safely hidden in my bedroom at home. My mother eventually progressed from thinking I was mentally ill to mailing me condoms to help assure I was practising safer sex. But the leap was just too big for my father. When he retired⁷ and moved with my mother back to the Middle East, I couldn't help but think it was partly to escape me. But he could never escape that I would not bear a son to carry on the family name. Soon after my parents moved back to the Middle East, Sarber decided⁸ that, after 30 years of marriage, he was divorcing my mother for an arranged marriage with a woman still young enough to have children. If I would not produce a grandson the burden of carrying on the family name was once again his. So my mother moved back to the United States, and at the age of a grandfather, Sarber became a new dad again. He eventually fathered 4 more kids, 2 daughters and 2 sons. But as far as I was concerned, he’d lost his older son, me, forever. He sends me half a dozen letters a year, but I never write back. I open his latest letter already knowing what's inside. He talks about his age, now 80 and his fragile health. Why don't you write me back, he asks. I keep my father's letters in a filing cabinet and when I reread them, it's not what's in them that stands out, it's what's missing from them. He never writes "I'm sorry". He never asks for forgiveness. All these years, I've held out for those simple words, insisting I can't budge⁹ until he acknowledges his wrongdoing, not against me, but against my now dead mother. I wonder if I could forgive him, even if he asked. But I know the time left to make whatever kind of peace with him I may be able to find is shrinking. I vow¹⁰ that this last letter won't go unanswered. I only wish I knew what to say.

Mubarak Dahir lives in Florida.

1 remorse   

n.痛恨，悔恨，自责

参考例句：

• She had no remorse about what she had said.她对所说的话不后悔。
• He has shown no remorse for his actions.他对自己的行为没有任何悔恨之意。

2 commentator   

n.注释者，解说者；实况广播评论员

参考例句：

• He is a good commentator because he can get across the game.他能简单地解说这场比赛，是个好的解说者。
• The commentator made a big mistake during the live broadcast.在直播节目中评论员犯了个大错误。

3 odds   

n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别

参考例句：

• The odds are 5 to 1 that she will win.她获胜的机会是五比一。
• Do you know the odds of winning the lottery once?你知道赢得一次彩票的几率多大吗？

4 taboo   

n.禁忌，禁止接近，禁止使用；adj.禁忌的；v.禁忌，禁制，禁止

参考例句：

• The rude words are taboo in ordinary conversation.这些粗野的字眼在日常谈话中是禁忌的。
• Is there a taboo against sex before marriage in your society?在你们的社会里，婚前的性行为犯禁吗？

5 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

6 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

7 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

8 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

9 budge   

v.移动一点儿；改变立场

参考例句：

• We tried to lift the rock but it wouldn't budge.我们试图把大石头抬起来，但它连动都没动一下。
• She wouldn't budge on the issue.她在这个问题上不肯让步。

10 vow   

n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓

参考例句：

• My parents are under a vow to go to church every Sunday.我父母许愿，每星期日都去做礼拜。
• I am under a vow to drink no wine.我已立誓戒酒。