双语·当呼吸化为空气 我还是一如既往地爱他

我本以为，保罗去世后，我只会觉得空虚和心碎，却从未想过即使一个人去了，你还是能够一如既往地爱他；从未想过我会在强烈的悲伤之余，一直感受到浓烈的爱意与感恩。有时悲伤很沉重，压得我浑身颤抖，呻吟呜咽。保罗走了，而我几乎每时每刻都在强烈地思念他。但不知怎么，我还是感觉仍然在过着两人一起创造的人生。“丧亲之痛并不能阻断婚姻之爱，”C.S.刘易斯曾经写道，“这只是婚姻中必经的阶段——就像蜜月。这个阶段的婚姻，也要诚心诚意，好好经营。”我抚养我们的女儿，与家人培养感情，出版这本书，追求有意义的工作。去保罗墓前看他，为他悲痛，也为他骄傲，坚强地活下去……我对他的爱没有停歇，仍然鲜活，这是我万万没有料到的。
I expected to feel only empty and heartbroken after Paul died. It never occurred to me that you could love someone the same way after he was gone, that I would continue to feel such love and gratitude alongside the terrible sorrow, the grief so heavy that at times I shiver and moan under the weight of it. Paul is gone, and I miss him acutely nearly every moment, but I somehow feel I’m still taking part in the life we created together. “Bereavement is not the truncation of married love,” C. S. Lewis wrote, “but one of its regular phases—like the honeymoon. What we want is to live our marriage well and faithfully through that phase too.” Caring for our daughter, nurturing relationships with family, publishing this book, pursuing meaningful work, visiting Paul’s grave, grieving and honoring him, persisting. . . my love goes on—lives on—in a way I’d never expected.

每次看见保罗曾经作为医生和病人工作、生活和去世的那家医院，我都会想，如果他活下来了，一定会在神经外科和神经系统科学领域做出杰出的贡献。他可能会帮助无数的病人与家属度过他们一生中最艰难的时刻，这本来也是他投身神经外科的初衷。他曾经是，也会继续做一个好人，一个深刻的思考者。如今他虽死去，这本书却成为帮助别人的新渠道，也只有他能做出这样的贡献。这当然没有减轻我们失去他的痛苦。但在奋笔疾书的过程中，他找到了人生的意义。他在书中第115页（英文版）写道：“你永远无法到达完美的境地，但通过不懈的努力奋斗和追求，你能看见那无限接近完美的渐进曲线。”写作这本书对那时的他来说，实在是很艰巨、很辛苦的工作，但他从未有一丝一毫的懈怠。上天赐予他这样的生命，他就用这样的生命创造出丰硕的成果。《当呼吸化为空气》是一部非常完整的作品。
When I see the hospital where Paul lived and died as a physician and a patient, I understand that had he lived, he would have made great contributions as a neurosurgeon and neuroscientist. He would have helped countless patients and their families through some of the most challenging moments of their lives, the task that drew him to neurosurgery in the first place. He was, and would have continued to be, a good person and a deep thinker. Instead, this book is a new way for him to help others, a contribution only he could make. This doesn’t make his death, our loss, any less painful. But he found meaning in the striving. On page 115 of this book, he wrote, “You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.” It was arduous, bruising work, and he never faltered. This was the life he was given, and this is what he made of it. When Breath Becomes Air is complete, just as it is.

保罗去世后两天，我写了一篇名为“致卡迪”的日记：“一个人死去时，大家都会说好话赞颂他。那你要记住，人们现在所说的关于你爸爸的好话，都千真万确。他真的那么好，那么勇敢。”回想他人生的意义，我脑海里总会浮现出那首衍生于《朝圣者的行进》的赞美诗：“谁是真正的勇士／请他来到近前……／一切虚妄过眼／他不会在意他人所言／他会昼夜不停劳作／成为朝圣者不断向前。”保罗决定正视死亡，不仅体现了他在生命最后时光的精神，更说明了他一直以来的为人。保罗的大半生都在对死亡进行探索和思考，并拷问自己是否能坦然诚实地面对死亡。最后，他给出了肯定的答案。
Two days after Paul died, I wrote a journal entry addressed to Cady:“When someone dies, people tend to say great things about him. Please know that all the wonderful things people are saying now about your dad are true. He really was that good and that brave.”Reflecting on his purpose, I often think of lyrics from the hymn derived from “Pilgrim’s Progress”: “Who would true valour see, / Let him come hither. . . / fancies fly away, / He’ll fear not what men say,/ He’ll labour night and day / To be a pilgrim.” Paul’s decision to look death in the eye was a testament not just to who he was in the final hours of his life but who he had always been. For much of his life, Paul wondered about death—and whether he could face it with integrity. In the end, the answer was yes.

我是他的妻子，也是见证人。
I was his wife and a witness.

致谢
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

露西·卡拉尼什
Lucy Kalanithi

感谢多里安·卡马尔，保罗在威廉·莫里斯奋进公司的代理人，你的积极支持和鼓励，让保罗充满信心，完成这本很重要的书。感谢安迪·沃德，保罗在兰登书屋的编辑，其决心、智慧和编辑才华让保罗迫切地与他合作，而其幽默与同情心又让保罗想与之成为朋友。保罗的遗愿，是请家人在他死后务必出版这本书，我能给他肯定的承诺，就是因为我们都对多里安和安迪充满信心。那时，这些还都只是他电脑上的一个文件，但因为两位非凡的才能和投入的态度，我相信，保罗去世时，也是满怀希望，知道这些字字句句能够为世人所知，也知道我们的女儿通过这本书能了解自己的爸爸。谢谢亚伯拉罕·维基斯提笔作序，保罗要是读到你的文字，一定会很受触动。（我唯一提出的异议，是维基斯医生说保罗留着“先知一样的络腮胡”，其实只是因为没时间刮胡子罢了！）我很感激艾米丽·拉普，感谢她愿意在我悲痛之时来见我，并辅导我写完后记，像保罗一样教导我，怎么做一个作家，该写些什么东西。感谢所有支持过我们一家的人，包括这本书的读者。最后，感谢那些为了提高人们对肺癌的重视程度以及促进相关研究不懈努力的倡导者、临床医生和科学家，他们全心投入，立志要让那些晚期恶性肺癌患者生存下来。
Thank you to Dorian Karchmar, Paul’s agent at William Morris Endeavor, whose fierce support and nurturing gave Paul the confidence that he could write an important book. And to Andy Ward, Paul’s editor at Random House, whose determination, wisdom, and editorial talent made Paul eager to work with him, and whose humor and compassion made Paul want to befriend him. When Paul asked his family—literally his dying wish—to shepherd this book to publication posthumously, I was able to promise him that we would, because of our shared confidence in Dorian and Andy. At that time, the manuscript was just an open file on his computer, but thanks to their talent and dedication, I believe Paul died knowing that these words would make their way into the world and that, through them, our daughter would come to know him. Thank you to Abraham Verghese for a foreword that would have thrilled Paul (my only objection being that what Dr. Verghese judged to be a “prophet’s beard”was really an “I-don’t-have-time-to-shave” beard!). I am grateful to Emily Rapp for her willingness to meet me in my grief and coach me through the epilogue, teaching me, as Paul did, what a writer is and why writers write. Thank you to all who have supported our family, including the readers of this book. Finally, thank you to the advocates, clinicians, and scientists working tirelessly to advance lung cancer awareness and research, aiming to turn even advanced lung cancer into a survivable disease.

保罗·卡拉尼什曾经是一位神经外科医生，也是一名作家。他成长在亚利桑那州的金曼，取得了斯坦福大学英语文学学士和硕士学位，以及人体生物学学士学位。其后于剑桥大学取得了科学医药历史与哲学研究硕士学位。还以优异成绩从耶鲁医学院毕业，并在那里加入了“Alpha Omega Alpha国家医学荣誉协会”。他回到斯坦福，完成神经外科住院医生培训，并进行神经科学的博士后研究项目，其间获得了美国神经外科学会研究领域的最高奖。2015年3月，保罗不幸去世。但他的生命在那个充满爱的大家庭中得以延续，其中包括他的妻子露西和女儿伊丽莎白·阿卡迪亚。
Paul Kalanithi was a neurosurgeon and writer. He grew up in Kingman, Arizona, and graduated from Stanford University with a BA and MA in English literature and a BA in human biology. He earned an MPhil in history and philosophy of science and medicine from the University of Cambridge and graduated cum laude from the Yale School of Medicine, where he was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha national medical honor society. He returned to Stanford to complete his residency training in neurological surgery and a postdoctoral fellowship in neuroscience, during which he received the American Academy of Neurological Surgery’s highest award for research. He died in March 2015. He is survived by his large, loving family, including his wife, Lucy, and their daughter, Elizabeth Acadia.

温暖的夕阳从病房西北向的窗户斜斜地照进来。保罗的呼吸变得越来越安静。卡迪的睡觉时间快到了，她举着胖胖的小拳头揉揉眼睛。一个朋友到医院来把她送回家。我把她的脸颊凑到保罗的脸颊前。父女俩有着一模一样的深色头发，都是这里一簇那里一簇地歪斜着。保罗的面庞平静安详，卡迪有些古怪地做着鬼脸，但也很平静。他所深爱的宝贝完全想不到，这一刻就是永别。我轻轻唱起卡迪的安眠曲，不仅是对女儿，也是对保罗。接着我松手把卡迪交给朋友。
Warm rays of evening light began to slant through the northwestfacing window of the room as Paul’s breaths grew more quiet. Cady rubbed her eyes with chubby fists as her bedtime approached, and a family friend arrived to take her home. I held her cheek to Paul’s, tufts of their matching dark hair similarly askew, his face serene, hers quizzical but calm, his beloved baby never suspecting that this moment was a farewell. Softly I sang Cady’s bedtime song, to her, to both of them, and then released her.

因为，几个星期后，情绪上的大起大落就逐渐消散了。我发现，跟非医学生聊天，讲有关尸体的事情时，我会强调这事有多怪异，多可怕，多荒谬可笑，好像要明白无误地告诉他们：看，虽然我每周六个小时都在切割尸体，但我是正常人。有时候我会跟他们讲，有一次上课，我回过身，看到一个平时用的马克杯上都会有大团大团彩漆的女同学，正开开心心地用锤子和凿子凿进一具女尸的脊椎骨，碎片在空中四处飞溅。我讲这个故事，就是想和这样的人划清界限。但我身在其中，无处可逃。毕竟，我刚刚不是还很急切地拿一对断线钳拆解了一个男人的胸腔吗？就算切的是死人，脸也蒙上了，也不知道他们的名字，你还是会感觉他们身为人的特性扑面而来。我打开尸体的胃，发现两片还未消化的吗啡，这说明他是在痛苦中死去的。也许当时正孤身一人，手忙脚乱地抓着药瓶。
Because after a few weeks, the drama dissipated. In conversations with non–medical students, telling cadaver stories, I found myself highlighting the grotesque, macabre, and absurd, as if to reassure them that I was normal, even though I was spending six hours a week carving up a corpse. Sometimes I told of the moment when I turned around and saw a classmate, the sort of woman who had a mug decorated with puffy paint, tip-toeing on a stool, cheerfully hammering a chisel into a woman’s backbone, splinters flying through the air. I told this story as if to distance myself from it, but my kinship was undeniable. After all, hadn’t I just as eagerly disassembled a man’s rib cage with a pair of bolt cutters? Even working on the dead, with their faces covered, their names a mystery, you find that their humanity pops up at you—in opening my cadaver’s stomach, I found two undigested morphine pills, meaning that he had died in pain, perhaps alone and fumbling with the cap of a pill bottle.