一个绝望的家庭主妇和母亲是如何成为一个了不起的榜样的    

How A Desperate Housewife And Mom Became My Role Model

最近我的同事们都在聊一部很火的电视剧《我的前半生》。我是一个ABC，中文很烂，所以中国电视剧我看得很少。但是我听说“几乎所有中国人都知道这部剧”。

Recently, my colleagues have been talking about a popular TV drama, 我的前半生 (My First Half Life). As an ABC whose Chinese language skills are terrible, I don’t watch a lot of TV shows here. But I’m told that “everyone in China knows this particular show.”

同事们告诉我这个故事讲述的是已为人母的女主因为婚姻破裂从家庭主妇转变为职场女性的故事，我说：“这有什么好稀奇的？我妈就经历了跟女主一样的生活。”

When they described the story to me about a woman who has to go from being a housewife and mother to starting a career because of a marriage that’s gone bad, I said to my colleagues, “What’s so dramatic about that? I saw my mom go through the same thing in real life.”

虽然我的父亲没有像陈俊生一样出轨然后离婚，但是我母亲的婚姻并不幸福。她20多岁的时候就已经有了三个孩子。当时母亲带着我们住在北卡罗来纳的郊区，她一个人孤立无援，求助无门，经常一个人默默地沮丧。为了摆脱这种生活，我的母亲做出了一个决定，投身公共卫生行业。做出这个决定，她不仅仅是想充实自己的生活，更是希望能通过帮助他人让自己的生活更有意义。为了达到这个目的，她的第一步就是决定重回学校取得硕士学位。

My mom married early and also experienced a marriage that just wasn’t working out. By her late 20s, with three kids and living in the suburbs of North Carolina, she was feeling alone, irrelevant, and depressed. She had nobody to turn to who could help her. So to save herself, she decided to pursue a career in public health. This wasn’t just to keep herself busy. She wanted to do something meaningful with her life and good for others. Her first move to pursuing this was to go back to school to get a Masters degree.

在当时的情况下，我母亲的决定看起来实在很疯狂。我哥哥五岁，我三岁，而我妹妹才一岁。而且母亲一直被认为是她的兄弟姐妹中“貌美如花，头脑简单”的那一个。家里也没有人觉得她有潜力在某一专业领域取得成功。她只去过一个三等的女子学校读过书，成绩也是马马虎虎。就像我母亲自己也常说的那样：“我们这些年轻女孩基本就是拿一个学位，然后就结婚生子成为家庭主妇。” 

At the time, that seemed like a crazy idea. My older brother was five, I was three, and my little sister was just one year old. My mom was also viewed as “the dumb, but pretty one” among her brothers and sisters. Nobody in the family thought she had any real potential to have a successful professional career. She went to a 3rd tier all-women’s college and was a ‘C’ student. As she would always say, “It was basically just a finishing school that young women would go to before you became a mother and housewife.”

但是这些并没有阻挡她重回学校。当然，在北卡罗来纳大学这种著名学校读书对她来说并不是一件轻松的事情。她也是十分艰难才通过了各门课程的考试。

But all this didn’t stop her from going back to school again, which she did head first. Of course, taking courses at a reputable university, the University of North Carolina, wasn’t easy for her at first. She struggled just to pass her classes.

然后，她迎来了人生中一个转折点：她的教授鼓励她去申请博士学位。教授的话让母亲很惊讶。因为班里有不少比她学习成绩好的比她年轻的学生，但是教授却看中了我的母亲。教授认为她是所有学生中最有潜力的一个，他说看到了她对成功的渴望甚至偏执。母亲接受了她的建议，申请并加入了博士课程，她的学术生涯也开始了。

Her turning point came when one of her professors encouraged her to apply to the PhD program. His words shocked her. There were many younger students with much more impressive academic backgrounds than hers. But this professor told her that among all his students, she was the one that he felt had the most potential. He said he saw a hunger and almost desperation to be successful in her. So upon his suggestion, she applied and got into the doctoral program. And so began her academic career.

在这期间，尽管学业很重事情很多，她仍然是一名优秀的母亲。她想尽一切办法兼顾家庭和事业。当然有时候我的母亲也会偷偷懒。有时候我们会一边看电视一边吃晚餐，也吃了很多速冻食品。有时，我们会把麦片当午餐和晚餐。不过当时我们还小，所以觉得这一切都很有趣，很是喜欢。我们也吃了很多次剩饭，母亲把这些称为“妈妈的特供”。

All this time, she never stopped being an awesome mother. She did take some short cuts to manage both her family and career. We ate a lot of TV dinners and prepared foods. Sometimes, we had cereal for lunch or dinner. But we were kids. To us, it was fun. We liked it. We also ate a lot of reheated leftovers. She used to call them her, “momma specials.”

小时候，我们知道母亲很忙所以尽量不给她制造麻烦。我们自己上下学，跟街坊邻居的孩子玩耍。一到暑假，母亲就会把我们送到夏令营去。

As kids, we knew how busy she was so tried to stay out of her way. Back in those days, we would walk to and from school by ourselves. We ran around the neighborhood playing with the other kids and entertaining ourselves. She’d drop us off at camps in the summer time.

我当时是最让母亲头疼的一个孩子。那时，我在离家不远的地方上小学。我喜欢玩各种各样的运动，经常玩到忘记回家吃饭。一半的时间里，母亲要让从香港来的阿姨出来找我，阿姨总是走到学校，用自己仅有知道的几个英语单词在夜色中大喊：“Lally，回家了，Lally，回家了。”

I was her biggest headache. I loved playing all kinds of sports at the elementary school near our house and never noticed when it was time to go home for dinner. Half the time, my mom had to send our nanny from Hong Kong to go out and look for me. She’d walk up to the school and yell out in the dark, “Lally, come home, Lally, come home,” in the few English words she knew.

工作方面，母亲忙得不可开交。后来我们从北卡罗来纳搬到了马里兰，她在美国顶尖医学院之一的约翰霍普金斯大学找了份工作，唯一的问题是学校跟居住的地方相距150公里。不过，这依旧没有阻止她的脚步。她每天早晨六点钟起床，跟人拼车开一个半小时到达工作地点。在来回的车上工作，晚上回家吃饭，然后回房间继续忙到深夜，甚至更晚。这么多年母亲都是这样过来的，直到我们长大成人。

Meanwhile, my mom worked her ass off. When we moved from North Carolina to Maryland, she got a job at Johns Hopkins University, one of the top medical universities in the U.S. The only problem was that the university was 150 kilometers from our home. But again, that didn’t stop her. She got up at 6am every morning to catch a ride with some other people for the 1 1/2 hour drive. She would do work in the car to and from the university. She’d arrive back home at night in time for dinner, and then go up to her room to work until midnight or later. She did this all the years we were growing up.

周日是家庭时间，所以一到周日，母亲就会放下工作跟我们待在一起，带我们去做想做的任何事情。很多时候她会带我跟哥哥去钓鱼，然后带上一把躺椅，戴着宽檐帽和墨镜，跟我们一起坐在湖边，我和哥哥便在她身边钓上一整天的鱼。我们干劲很足，但是钓鱼技术很烂，因为我们太大声，把鱼都吵跑了！

Sunday though was family day. It was her quality time with us. She’d take us to do anything we wanted. Many of those days, it was to take my brother and me fishing. She’d bring along a lawn chair, her floppy hat, and sunglasses, and sit by the lake doing work next to us, while my brother and I fished all day. We were enthusiastic, but terrible fishermen. Too noisy!

在我大二刚开始的时候，我跟父亲母亲开车一起送妹妹去上大学。妹妹是家里最小的孩子，也是最晚离开家的那一个。在车上的时候，父亲母亲说既然现在我们都要开始自己的生活了，他们也没有必要继续住在一起了。

At the beginning of my sophomore year in college, my mom, dad, and I drove my sister to school to begin her freshman year in college. As the youngest one, she was the last one to leave the house. So during the drive, my parents told us that it was time to move on with their lives. There was no reason for them to stay together in the same house anymore.

所以，我的母亲又做了一个勇敢的决定——搬去洛杉矶，去加州大学洛杉矶分校的公共卫生学院工作。她在东海岸生活了半辈子，对洛杉矶十分陌生，我大学毕业一年后搬到了洛杉矶，所以我是她在洛杉矶认识的唯一一个人。在快五十岁的时候，我的母亲又开始了一段崭新的生活。

So my mom made another bold decision then to move to Los Angeles to join the School of Public Health at UCLA. Having spent all of her life on the east coast up until then, she didn’t know anyone in L.A., except for me. I had moved there just a year earlier after graduating from university. At nearly 50 years old, she made another fresh, clean start to her life.

这些都已经是30年前的事情了。我的母亲却认为这过去的三十多年是她一生中最幸福的日子。搬到洛杉矶五年后，她认识了Leo。一瞬间，我成了一个整天担心她、给她出约会主意的人。我总是有一堆问题：“他是做什么工作的啊？”“他为什么现在还没结婚？”“他有什么目的？”

That was over 30 years ago. My mom would say that these past 30+ years have been the best of her life. Five years after moving to L.A., she met Leo. Suddenly, I was the one to worry and give her dating advice. “What does he do for a living?” Why isn’t he married now?” “What are his intentions?”

当然，我说的话她一句都没有听进去。他们约会了三个月之后就结婚了。母亲说：“我们这个年纪的人都知道自己想要的到底是什么。”

Of course, she didn’t listen to a thing I said. They got married after just three months of dating. “At our age, we’re both very clear about what we want,” is what she told me. They’ve lived happily together ever since.

在加州大学洛杉矶分校工作时，母亲会定期去中国出差，一般一年会去两三次。在世界卫生组织和福特基金会的赞助下，她会带研究生或博士生去中国开展一些医疗保健项目。这些项目覆盖范围很广，包括计划生育、产前保健、艾滋病知识普及、抽烟问题和废物回收利用等。她跟中国的很多大学和医疗组织开展了合作，建立了一个专门的网络用来关注中国需要医疗保健的人群。

It was after getting to UCLA that my mom started making regular consulting trips to China, usually 2-3 times a year. During these trips, she would lead teams of Masters and PhD students to work with her on healthcare projects sponsored by the World Health Organization and Ford Foundation. These projects addressed a wide variety healthcare issues that included family planning, prenatal care, AIDS awareness, cigarette smoking, and waste recycling. She collaborated with different universities and medical institutions here and built an impressive network and following in China’s healthcare community.

我的妹夫在公共健康领域也取得了博士学位，他曾经参加了我母亲组织的一个项目。在母亲已经60多岁的时候，我记得妹夫是这样评价母亲的：“你知道吗，妈妈简直太了不起了。她每天都第一个起床，最后一个睡觉。在工作的时候，她忙来忙去，是最有精神的一个。要知道我们都比她年轻三十多岁呢！”我记得我当时还在想 “对啊，我妈妈就是这样的人。”

On one of these trips, my brother-in-law, who also has a PhD in public health, had the chance to work with my mom on one of her projects. She was already in her mid-60s at the time. I remember him saying, “You know, mom is unbelievable! Every day, she’s the first one up and the last one to go to sleep. And in between, she’s running around and has more energy than any of the rest of us. And we’re all half her age!” I remember thinking to myself, “Yup, that sounds just like mom, alright.”

独立、勇敢、坚强、奉献、热情、真诚、直面逆境、克服困难、浴火重生、追求新生活。这些词就是对母亲和她生活的真实写照。正是因为拥有这样一位母亲，所以电视剧里的这些情节并不是很吸引我。我的母亲把她的一生活成了一部励志电视剧。我想，如果我的母亲再有一两件风流韵事，她的一生说不定也可以拍成一部很好看的电视剧！

Independent, brave, tough, resilient, dedicated, passionate, heartfelt, dealing with adversity, overcoming the odds, rising from the ashes, pursuing an inspired life. These are all words and phrases that describe my mom and her life. So watching a TV drama to see these things doesn’t sound that interesting to me. I’ve witnessed a real version of all these things my whole life through my mom. Now if she only had a steamy affair or two, maybe her life would make a good TV series to watch too!