I know a man who soars above the city every night. In his dreams, he twirls and swirls with his toes kissing the Earth. Everything has motion, he claims, even a body as paralyzed as his own. This man is my father.
我知道有个人每天晚上都翱翔在这个城市的上空 在他的梦里,他扭转,不断地扭转 用脚趾亲吻着大地 他说,万物皆喜乐, 即使像他那般瘫痪的躯体(也是如此) 这个人,就是我的父亲
Three years ago, when I found out that my father had suffered a severe stroke in his brain stem, I walked into his room in the ICU at the Montreal Neurological Institute and found him lying deathly still, tethered to a breathing machine. Paralysis had closed over his body slowly, beginning in his toes, then legs, torso, fingers and arms. It made its way up his neck, cutting off his ability to breathe, and stopped just beneath the eyes. He never lost consciousness. Rather, he watched from within as his body shut down, limb by limb, muscle by muscle.
三年前,我发现 我父亲遭受中风 在他的脑干部位 我走进重症监护室 位于蒙特利尔神经研究所 然后发现他,僵硬地躺着 接着呼吸机 渐渐的,他全身瘫痪 先是脚趾,然后大腿 躯体,再是手指,臂膊 蔓延至颈部以上 这切断了他的呼吸功能 并且停止于眼睑 他从未失去信念 并且 他默默地注视着 他的躯体陷入瘫痪 从双腿到双臂 从肌肉到肌肉
In that ICU room, I walked up to my father's body,
在重症监护室里,我走到我父亲的身前
and with a quivering voice and through tears, I began reciting the alphabet. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K. At K, he blinked his eyes. I began again. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I. He blinked again at the letter I, then at T, then at R, and A: Kitra. He said "Kitra, my beauty, don't cry. This is a blessing." There was no audible voice, but my father called out my name powerfully. Just 72 hours after his stroke, he had already embraced the totality of his condition. Despite his extreme physical state, he was completely present with me, guiding, nurturing, and being my father as much if not more than ever before.
泪汪汪的,以颤抖的声音 我开始计数字母表 A,B,C,D,E,F,G H,I,J,K 数到K的时候,他抖动了下睫毛 我又一次开始 A,B,C,D,E,F,G H,I, 他在数到 I 的时候又抖动了下睫毛 然后再T,R,A Kitra 他说 Kitra,我的女儿,不要哭 神护佑着我 声音不大,但我的父亲 有力地说出了我的名字 只是在他中风72小时后 他已经坦然接受 他的现状 尽管经受着极差的身体状况 他还是同我在一起 引导,呵护 作为我的父亲 甚至到达前所未有的高度
Locked-in syndrome is many people's worst nightmare. In French, it's sometimes called "maladie de l'emmuré vivant." Literally, "walled-in-alive disease." For many people, perhaps most, paralysis is an unspeakable horror, but my father's experience losing every system of his body was not an experience of feeling trapped, but rather of turning the psyche inwards, dimming down the external chatter, facing the recesses of his own mind, and in that place, falling in love with life and body anew.
身处险境 是许多人的梦魇 在法国,有时人们称之为 炼狱噩梦 字面上理解,即“在病痛中行走” 对许多人来说,也许 瘫痪是不可言说的恐怖 但我父亲的经历 失去了身体的各部位的功能 却不为所困 反而转向内观 在外界扰攘中静下心 面对自己的内心深处 在那里 爱上新的生命和躯体
As a rabbi and spiritual man dangling between mind and body, life and death, the paralysis opened up a new awareness for him. He realized he no longer needed to look beyond the corporeal world in order to find the divine. "Paradise is in this body. It's in this world," he said.
作为一个拉比(犹太人的学者)和关注心灵的人 游离于思想和身体,生命和死亡之间 瘫痪为他开启了新的意识 他意识到他不再需要观察 逾越肉体世界 才能追求圣神 “天堂就在这个躯体里面 就在这个世界” 他说
I slept by my father's side for the first four months, tending as much as I could to his every discomfort, understanding the deep human psychological fear of not being able to call out for help. My mother, sisters, brother and I, we surrounded him in a cocoon of healing. We became his mouthpiece, spending hours each day reciting the alphabet as he whispered back sermons and poetry with blinks of his eye. His room, it became our temple of healing. His bedside became a site for those seeking advice and spiritual counsel, and through us, my father was able to speak and uplift, letter by letter, blink by blink. Everything in our world became slow and tender as the din, drama and death of the hospital ward faded into the background. I want to read to you one of the first things that we transcribed in the week following the stroke. He composed a letter, addressing his synagogue congregation, and ended it with the following lines: "When my nape exploded, I entered another dimension: inchoate, sub-planetary, protozoan. Universes are opened and closed continually. There are many when low, who stop growing. Last week, I was brought so low, but I felt the hand of my father around me, and my father brought me back."
起初四个月 我睡在父亲的床边 尽我所能 消除他的不适 理解人类内心深处的恐惧 因为无法求救 我的母亲,兄弟姐妹们还有我 我们围着他,形成医治他的蛹 我们成为了他的说话筒 每天花上几小时背诵字母表 他耳语一些重心长的话 还有诗歌,他的眼里闪着光芒 父亲的房间化身我们医治的殿堂 而他的床畔成了 那些寻求帮助和心灵慰藉的场所。通过我们 我的父亲可以说话 升华心灵 一字又一字 一眨眼又一眨眼 所有的一切变得缓慢并且温柔 当医院病房的喧嚣,疯狂和死亡 渐渐消失 我想说给你们听的第一件事 是在父亲中风后的第一个礼拜 我们听写下来的内容 他写了一封信 给教会的会众 在结尾处他写到 当我的项背炸开 我进入了另一个次元 初生,俯瞰尘世,细微 一个个宇宙开启,关闭,生生不息 很多人在生命的低谷 停止生长 上星期,我被打击到如此卑微 但是我感觉到我父亲的手扶住了我 我父亲把我带了回来
When we weren't his voice, we were his legs and arms. I moved them like I know I would have wanted my own arms and legs to be moved were they still for all the hours of the day. I remember I'd hold his fingers near my face, bending each joint to keep it soft and limber. I'd ask him again and again to visualize the motion, to watch from within as the finger curled and extended, and to move along with it in his mind.
当我们不再是他的声音的时候 我们成了他的双腿和双臂 我移动手脚就像我知道 自己的手脚想要舒展 假想我若是整天动弹不得 我握着他的手指贴在我的脸庞 弯曲每个关节使它柔软和弹性 我一遍又一遍的问他 让他看到每一个动作 从内部看手指弯曲 伸直和随之移动 跟着他的意念
Then, one day, from the corner of my eye, I saw his body slither like a snake, an involuntary spasm passing through the course of his limbs. At first, I thought it was my own hallucination, having spent so much time tending to this one body, so desperate to see anything react on its own. But he told me he felt tingles, sparks of electricity flickering on and off just beneath the surface of the skin. The following week, he began ever so slightly to show muscle resistance. Connections were being made. Body was slowly and gently reawakening, limb by limb, muscle by muscle, twitch by twitch.
有一天,我用眼角的余光 看到他的身体像蛇一样扭动 一种无意识的痉挛 通过他的手臂 一开始,我想这是我自己的幻觉 花费了太多时间照顾的身体 如此渴望看到他身体某个部位自己能够有所回应 但是他告诉我他感觉到刺痛感 断断续续的电流 就在他的肌肤Z之下 在接下来的一周里,他出现了十分微弱的 肌肉抗力 刺激和反应开始产生连接 身体慢慢地恢复知觉 从双腿到双臂,从肌肉到肌肉 抽搐一下接着一下
As a documentary photographer, I felt the need to photograph each of his first movements like a mother with her newborn. I photographed him taking his first unaided breath, the celebratory moment after he showed muscle resistance for the very first time, the new adapted technologies that allowed him to gain more and more independence. I photographed the care and the love that surrounded him.
作为一个纪实摄影师 我感觉到记录下这一切的必要 每一个他第一次的移动 就像母亲和他的新生儿 我拍下了他第一次无供养呼吸 庆祝时刻 在出现 第一次肌肉抗力后 新的科技使得他 获得越来越多的自主性 我拍下了围绕在 他身边的关怀和爱
But my photographs only told the outside story of a man lying in a hospital bed attached to a breathing machine. I wasn't able to portray his story from within, and so I began to search for a new visual language, one which strived to express the ephemeral quality of his spiritual experience.
但是我的照片仅仅讲述了故事的表面 一个男人躺在病床上 依附着呼吸机 我没能刻画他内心的故事 我开始寻找一种新的可视化的语言 一种努力表达瞬间的语言 展现他的心灵历程
Finally, I want to share with you a video from a series that I've been working on that tries to express the slow, in-between existence that my father has experienced. As he began to regain his ability to breathe, I started recording his thoughts, and so the voice that you hear in this video is his voice.
最后,我想和你们分享 我一直在坚持的系列中的一段视频 它试图表达了缓慢的滞留生死之间的过程 我父亲经历过的 当他开始重获呼吸的能力时 我开始记录他的想法 因此你们在这段视频中听到的声音 是我父亲的声音
(Video) Ronnie Cahana: You have to believe you're paralyzed to play the part of a quadriplegic. I don't. In my mind, and in my dreams every night I Chagall-man float over the city twirl and swirl with my toes kissing the floor. I know nothing about the statement of man without motion. Everything has motion. The heart pumps. The body heaves. The mouth moves. We never stagnate. Life triumphs up and down.
你不得不相信 你无法动弹 才能演一个 一个四肢瘫痪的人 我不信 在我的脑海里 在我的梦里 每个夜晚 我化身夏加尔(俄国画家)的画中人 漂浮 在城市上空 翩翩起舞 我的脚趾亲吻大地 我一无所知 何为无法动弹的人 万物皆有情感 心脏跳动 身体喘息 嘴巴张合 我们从不瘀滞 人生跌宕起伏
Kitra Cahana: For most of us, our muscles begin to twitch and move long before we are conscious, but my father tells me his privilege is living on the far periphery of the human experience. Like an astronaut who sees a perspective that very few of us will ever get to share, he wonders and watches as he takes his first breaths and dreams about crawling back home. So begins life at 57, he says. A toddler has no attitude in its being, but a man insists on his world every day.
对于我们中的大多数 我们的肌肉开始抽搐运动 我们过很久才会意识到 但是我的父亲告诉我他的奇异恩典 是住在外围 在人类经验的外围 想宇航员欣赏到的景色 我们中间很少有人将会看到 他惊讶地注视着 他第一次呼吸 梦想着爬回家 当他57时,他说 一个蹒跚学步的孩子内心对他的生命没有想法 但是一个成年人每天坚持着他想要的世界
Few of us will ever have to face physical limitations to the degree that my father has, but we will all have moments of paralysis in our lives. I know I frequently confront walls that feel completely unscalable, but my father insists that there are no dead ends. Instead, he invites me into his space of co-healing to give the very best of myself, and for him to give the very best of himself to me. Paralysis was an opening for him. It was an opportunity to emerge, to rekindle life force, to sit still long enough with himself so as to fall in love with the full continuum of creation.
我们中间很少会要面临生理的限制 达到像我父亲那样的程度 但是我们都会遇到无力的时刻 在我们的生命中 我常常面对生活的围墙 感到完全不可超越 但是我的父亲坚持 人生没有死胡同 相反,他邀请我进入共同治疗的空间 展现一个最完美的自己,对他而言 在我面前展现一个最完美的他 瘫痪为他打开了一扇窗 这是一个涌现生命的机会 重获生命的力量 一个人长时间静静地坐着 爱上 创造的永恒
Today, my father is no longer locked in. He moves his neck with ease, has had his feeding peg removed, breathes with his own lungs, speaks slowly with his own quiet voice, and works every day to gain more movement in his paralyzed body. But the work will never be finished. As he says, "I'm living in a broken world, and there is holy work to do."
今天,我的父亲再也不受禁锢 他轻松自如地扭动动他的脖子 他的营养输送管也被移除了 他用自己的肺呼吸 用他自己的嗓音慢慢说话 每天坚持复健 让他瘫痪的身体获得更多的活动 但是这项工作永远不会结束 他说 我住在一个破碎的世界里 有圣神的事情要做
Thank you.
谢谢
(Applause)
(掌声)