【Modern Love特辑】愿安暖伴着你，愿归潮终相遇

《现代爱情》读者投稿的第二部分，这期封面是[Before Sunrise爱在黎明破晓前]，没看过这部电影的请一定一定要去看！

春天到了，祝你们不要过敏，祝你们终有甜甜的爱情�～

（文本翻译过两天上传，谢谢原谅，咕咕）

BGM: 三葉のテーマ --野田洋次郎 

歌曲推荐：Supermarket Flowers --Ed Sheeran

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The Race Grows Sweeter Near Its Final Lap (2)

A few months later, when we were both in Europe on separate trips, we met in Barcelona. This was a leap. Traveling together in a foreign country would be a more exacting test of our relationship than our jaunts to movies and races. But in this, as in almost everything else, Sam was perfect. When I arrived at our hotel, he was there with wine, chocolates and flowers. For all our anxiety about traveling together, we meshed. On the flight home, Sam declared, “We must never travel separately again.”

几周后，我们俩各自旅行碰巧相遇在欧洲，便约在巴塞罗那见了面。我俩的关系因此而向前跨了一大步。一起在国外旅行与相约看电影跑步不同，对两人来讲都是不小的考验。但山姆依旧是那么完美。当我跨进酒店房门，他早已备好了鲜花巧克力和红酒。我们之前幻想可能出现的种种不愉快全是多虑。回家的航班上山姆说道：“我们再也不要分开旅行了。”

From then on, we were well and truly together. We had few outside pressures: He was retired with a comfortable pension; I was a freelance writer with an outside income; our middle-aged children were on their own. We had nothing to do but love each other and be happy. Sam and I did things younger people do — we ran and raced, we fell in love and traveled and remodeled a house and got married.

After the ceremony, we flew to Hawaii. “You must never call this a honeymoon,” he told me. “That way no one can ever say that the honeymoon is over.”

自那以后，我们便正式在一起了。我们生活得轻松自在毫无压力：他早已退休，拿着丰厚的退休金；我工作之余还是一名自由作家，时常能拿到不少稿费。我们的孩子都已步入中年有自己的家庭和生活。我们在一起没什么好忙的，只需静享时光，好好爱彼此就足以。小年轻们恋爱时做的事我们也一件不落：一起跑步，相约旅行，修缮房子，步入婚姻殿堂… 

婚礼后我们去夏威夷度假。他说“咱们别把这叫蜜月。没有开始，就永远不会有结束。”

We traveled to Italy to compete in the 2007 World Masters Athletics Championships (what I fondly call “The Geriatric Olympics”), where we both won gold medals in our respective age brackets: 70 to 74 for me and 80 to 84 for Sam. At home, we planted a garden; I finished writing a memoir. Every morning we did push-ups; every evening we sat on the rim of our bathtub and flossed our teeth. He called me “sweetheart.” He never forgot an anniversary, including our first movie date. I gave him flowers on Betty’s birthday.

07年我们一起去意大利参加世界田径锦标赛（不过我更愿意把它称作“老年奥林匹克”），我们都在各自的年龄组别（我在70-74岁年龄组，山姆在80-84岁组）拿到了金牌。回到家里，我们一起建造了一个小花园，我写完了一本回忆录。每天早晨我们一起做俯卧撑，每晚我们一起坐在浴缸边剔牙…他总是会亲昵地叫我“亲爱的”，他会牢记我们的每个纪念日，包括我们第一次看电影的日子。每到贝蒂的生日我也会送他一束花表示祝福。

OLD LOVE is different. In our 70s and 80s, we had been through enough of life’s ups and downs to know who we were, and we had learned to compromise. We knew something about death because we had seen loved ones die. The finish line was drawing closer. Why not have one last blossoming of the heart?

黄昏恋是不一样的。我们已经七八十岁了，早已经历过各种起起落落，对自己有了更深的了解，在一次次经历中学会了妥协。我们都体会过爱人的逝去，丧失所爱后我们已不再惧怕死亡，我们每天也都在离死亡越来越近。为什么不最后再好好享受一次纯粹的爱情？

I was no longer so pretty, but I was not so neurotic either. I had survived loss and mistakes and ill-considered decisions; if this relationship failed, I’d survive that too. And unlike other men I’d been with, Sam was a grown-up, unafraid of intimacy, who joyfully explored what life had to offer. We followed our hearts and gambled, and for a few years we had a bit of heaven on earth.

我虽容颜不再，但岁月的沉淀也使我不再像小姑娘那么神经质。我犯过错，经历过失去，做过许多不成熟的决定。所以哪怕我们这段关系没能走到底，我肯定也能照常过日子。和我认识的多数男人不同，山姆成熟稳重，不抵触亲密关系，总是愿意不断发掘生活中的美好。我们随心所欲，不在意结果。渐渐地，我们将平凡的日子过程了一直期待的模样。

Then one day the tear duct in Sam’s right eye didn’t work, and soon his eye began to bulge. One misdiagnosis and failed treatment followed another until there was a biopsy. A week later his doctor called to say Sam had stage 4 cancer that he would not survive.

忽然有一天，山姆发现他右眼的泪腺出了毛病，眼睛开始肿胀。最初的误诊导致后续一系列无效治疗，直到最后山姆不得已做了活组织检查。一周后医生打电话过来，山姆已到了癌症四期，他们能做的不多了。

There was the agony of Sam’s fight to live, which he waged with grace and courage. Desperate to lessen his suffering, I learned to give hospital nurses $20 Starbucks cards to get special care for him. Every day I brought him bowls of his favorite watermelon balls. But one morning he couldn’t eat even those, and a few hours later he died.

山姆与癌症抗争的过程极其痛苦，几乎耗尽了他所有的风度与勇气。看着他痛苦，我也近乎绝望。我学会了偷偷塞给医院护士20美元的星巴克礼品卡请他们多多照顾点山姆。每天去医院我都会带一碗他最爱吃的西瓜球。但有一天早上他连这都吃不了了，几小时后他永远地离开了我。

Not only was I happy during my short years with Sam, I knew I was happy. I had one of the most precious blessings available to human beings — real love. I went for it and found it.

与山姆相伴的这短短几年，我前所未有地、清楚地知道我有多幸福。我幸运地得意拥有人类最宝贵的情感之一——真爱。我努力追求，也终于找到了他。

I yearn desperately for Sam. But the current pain is very worth it. He and I often told each other, “We are so lucky.” And we were. Young love, even for old people, can be surprisingly bountiful.

我渴望山姆。但现在我体会到的痛苦之真切十分值得。我们互相常说，“我该有多幸运能遇到你”。我是有多幸运能遇到你。年轻人间那样热切而真挚的爱，对于我这样的老人而言，依然可以丰盈而热烈。