【英语语言学习】家庭对话

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Linda Wertheimer. I hope that most of the people listening to us today have been with their families and friends during this holiday season. We've all had nice dinners and nice talks, but maybe there is one more talk we ought to have and the subject maybe won't sound quite right for the holidays.

 

But perhaps there is no better time. We ought to be talking about death. My old friend, Ellen Goodman, is the person who's raised this with me and others. She was a journalist and Boston Globe columnist¹ for many years. She's now trying to organize families to face a tough issue. She's named this effort The Conversation Project. She's trying to help people find a way to talk about a subject we've all been brought up to avoid.

 

Ellen is at our member station WGBH in Boston. Ellen, thank you for doing this.

 

ELLEN GOODMAN: My pleasure. Thank you.

 

WERTHEIMER: Now I understand that this comes out of your own personal experience.

 

GOODMAN: It does. When I went through the experience of my mother's last months and actually years, there were all kinds of decisions that I had to make for which I was totally unprepared and which my mother and I hadn't talked about. And we were people who talked about virtually² anything. And that experience was really very unsettling.

 

WERTHEIMER: And if you had had that chance, taken that chance, to talk to her about it, you might not have even done anything very differently, but you would have sort of known where you were.

 

GOODMAN: I think we've learned³ that when people do have these conversations with the people they love, they experience less depression, less sorrow, less guilt⁴ afterwards. So, The Conversation Project is not only for people to express their wishes, but it's for their survivors⁵. It's for their families. That's why it's a rich family conversation, even at the holidays, when, I know, it sounds counterintuitive.

 

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and now let's talk about dying⁶. But in fact, these conversations may be among the richest and most intimate⁷ that we'll ever have.

 

WERTHEIMER: I raise the same kind of issues with friends, maybe 20 years ago at a college reunion. You know, we were going around the circle saying everybody, if you have some important advice, now is the time. And I said you have to figure out how to handle the death of your parents because my mother died young and I was totally not ready. I wonder why this is such a difficult issue for families just to really face.

 

GOODMAN: Well, it's tough stuff⁸. You're talking about loss. We have found though that these conversations between, say, adult children and elderly parents, where very often the elderly parents don't want to worry their children and the children don't even want to suggest to their parents the remote possibility that they're going to die. But everybody knows it. My favorite line about this was the headline in the Onion, the online satirical magazine, that said, you know, death rate holds steady at 100 percent.

 

So it's not a secret, but that fact that we don't talk about it can leave us feeling very lonely and uncertain about what to do when we're faced with decisions.

 

WERTHEIMER: I know that I said to my mother, we don't need to talk about this; you're going to be fine. And afterwards I'm kicking myself all around the place for having prevented her from telling me what she wanted.

 

GOODMAN: I think that's what so many of us do. And what we don't want our families and the people who will survive us to feel is that kind of regret. Our survey said that 90 percent of people know it's important to have these conversations and only 30 percent are having them. So how do you close the gap⁹?

 

WERTHEIMER: In your typical practical way, Ellen, what you've done is you've created a workbook basically¹⁰ for dealing¹¹ with the conversation and in very early on, you get right down to cases. You want people to think about what they want at the end of their lives. And on the page that you call get set, the second question is finish this sentence. What matters to me at the end of life is....Why is that an important thing to find out?

 

GOODMAN: Well, in general, what we wanted to do was not to create a starter kit¹² that said, you know, if my left elbow and my right eyebrow¹³ are gone, you know, pull the plug. That's not really useful. And it's scary. We wanted people to talk about what values, we wanted them to talk about what matters to them and not what's the matter with them. And some of the most common responses are peacefulness, comfort, being surrounded by people we love.

 

Seventy percent of Americans say they want to die at home, but 70 percent are dying in hospitals and institutions. And dying at home is not necessarily¹⁴ a geographical¹⁵ place, but it's an idea, and we have to share that idea with the people that we love who may be making decisions for us.

 

The other reason to have it, of course, at the holiday season when people are around is you don't want your children or the people who may be making decisions for you to get into a disagreement. You want them all to know what it is that's important to you.

 

WERTHEIMER: When will you know that this Conversation Project has worked - has taken hold?

 

GOODMAN: I think will know that The Conversation Project has succeeded in that sense, when people ask each other: Have you had the conversation? And they know the answer, and the answer is yes.

 

WERTHEIMER: Ellen Goodman founded The Conversation Project. She joined us from member station WGBH. Ellen, thank you very much.

 

GOODMAN: Thank you, Linda.

1 columnist   

n.专栏作家

参考例句：

• The host was interviewing a local columnist.节目主持人正在同一位当地的专栏作家交谈。
• She's a columnist for USA Today.她是《今日美国报》的专栏作家。

2 virtually   

adv.实际上，事实上

参考例句：

• The job was virtually completed by the end of the week.到周末时这项工作差不多完成了。
• He was virtually a prisoner.他实际上是个囚犯。

3 learned   

adj.有学问的，博学的；learn的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He went into a rage when he learned about it.他听到这事后勃然大怒。
• In this little village,he passed for a learned man.在这个小村子里，他被视为有学问的人。

4 guilt   

n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责

参考例句：

• She tried to cover up her guilt by lying.她企图用谎言掩饰自己的罪行。
• Don't lay a guilt trip on your child about schoolwork.别因为功课责备孩子而使他觉得很内疚。

5 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

6 dying   

adj.垂死的，临终的

参考例句：

• He was put in charge of the group by the dying leader.他被临终的领导人任命为集团负责人。
• She was shown into a small room,where there was a dying man.她被领进了一间小屋子，那里有一个垂死的人。

7 intimate   

adj.亲密的，密切的；个人的，私人的；v.暗示、提示、宣布、通知

参考例句：

• The two of them were as intimate as sisters.她们俩处得好像亲姐妹一样。
• I can't tell them my intimate thoughts.我不能告诉他们我内心深处的想法。

8 stuff   

n.原料，材料，东西；vt.填满；吃饱

参考例句：

• We could supply you with the stuff in the raw tomorrow.明天我们可以供应你原材料。
• He is not the stuff.他不是这个材料。

9 gap   

n.缺口；间隔；差距；不足，缺陷

参考例句：

• We must see that there is no gap in our defence.我们必须确保我们的防御没有漏洞。
• There is a gap of five miles between towns.镇与镇之间相隔五英里。

10 basically   

adv.基本上，从根本上说

参考例句：

• His heart is basically sound.他的心脏基本上健康。
• Basically I agree with your plan.我基本上同意你的计划。

11 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

12 kit   

n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物

参考例句：

• The kit consisted of about twenty cosmetic items.整套工具包括大约20种化妆用品。
• The captain wants to inspect your kit.船长想检查你的行装。

13 eyebrow   

n.眉毛，眉

参考例句：

• Her eyebrow is well penciled.她的眉毛画得很好。
• With an eyebrow raised,he seemed divided between surprise and amusement.他一只眉毛扬了扬，似乎既感到吃惊，又觉有趣。

14 necessarily   

adv.必要地，必需地；必定地，必然地

参考例句：

• More work does not necessarily call for more men.增加工作量不一定就要增添人员。
• A voter must necessarily be no younger than eighteen.选民必须在18岁以上。

15 geographical   

adj.地理的；地区(性)的

参考例句：

• The current survey will have a wider geographical spread.当前的调查将在更广泛的地域范围內进行。
• These birds have a wide geographical distribution.这些鸟的地理分布很广。