英语书籍:Lucky Girl(节选二)ZT
=====Lucky Girl=====================
LUCKY GIRL
by Mei-Ling Hopgood (nonfiction)
Published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
ISBN: 9781565126008
Copyright (c) 2009 by Mei-Ling Hopgood
LUCKY (Part 2 of 5)
======================================
Still, I was intrigued with the idea that I might meet the woman who
made it possible for me to have a different life. I asked my mom for
her phone number.
Mureen was bubbly, thrilled to hear that my life had turned out
wonderfully.
"Oh, Mei-Ling," she said. "I'm so glad to know I made the right
decision to arrange your adoption. I took care of you and I felt
like a mother to you, too."
She invited me to dinner at her home.
"I have pictures," Maureen said. "Of you...and your mother and your
father."
"You have pictures of my mother?" I asked. I had wondered, on and
off, throughout my adolescence about what my mother looked like, if
I had inherited my body from her, for example. For some reason, my
curiosity was always focused on my birth mother, rather than my
father. I never knew any photos of either existed.
"Your mother loved you, Mei-Ling. She didn't want to give you up."
Tears sprang to my eyes, catching me off guard. A surprising wave of
sadness and relief washed over me. Maureen had just offered an
answer to a question I never had dared to ask. 'She didn't want to.'
I paused before accepting the invitation for dinner. I did not want
Maureen to hear my voice cracking.
Mureen's one-bedroom apartment in Allen Park was small, but cozy,
decorated with mementos of the many years she spent globetrotting. A
hand-painted scroll, a farewell gift given to her when she left
Taiwan after eight years, hung on her living-room wall. She had
watched a friend paint the snowy mountain scene and write in Chinese
characters, "You may be leaving us, but you are leaving your
footsteps behind." Maureen used an African kitenge as a tablecloth
and displayed a hand-carved ebony African head purchased from an
artist in Tanzania. On another wall she kept a large framed profile
of an African woman with a tear running down her cheek. Maureen said
she bought the picture at an ethnic festival in Detroit about twenty
years ago and took it wherever she went because, to her, it
symbolized all who are oppressed.
I recognized Maureen only a little from old black-and-white pictures
my parents had shown me. She had been thirty-one years old when she
cared for me. Back then, she was quite thin and kept her hair tucked
under her veil. The modern, in-living-color Maureen was age fifty-
four, short and robust. Her dark, wavy hair was uncovered and she
wore pants and a purple sweater over a blue and white shirt. She had
sharp blue eyes that welled up with tears when she saw me. We hugged
like old friends.
"It is so good to see you," Maureen said. "You turned out so well."
She introduced me to Sister Shirley Smith, who also had helped care
for me at St. Mary's Hospital. The three of us sat on Maureen's
couch, drank tea, and chatted about my blossoming career as a
journalist and Maureen's world adventures and new psychology
practice. Maureen cooked a chicken and veggie stir-fry dinner, which
we ate with chopsticks. After our meal, Maureen took out an envelope
filled with dozens of photos she had taken in Taiwan, of St. Mary's
hospital, of the nurses, of my birth family. We examined each while
Maureen and Shirley reminisced, laughing at how young and skinny
they were back then.
In one picture, Maureen holds me as I reach down to pull the hair of
one of my sisters. My grandmother, an auntie, and Shirley stand
nearby. In another, also taken the day I left Taitung, Maureen and I
pose with several nurses and my birth parents, who had come to say
good-bye. I am in Maureen's arms, but my biological mother stands
nearby, resting her hand on my arm. Her hair is pulled back and she
is wearing a striped sweater over a yellow button-down shirt and red
shoes. My birth father stands to Maureen's right, partially cut out
of the frame. He is wearing a brown jacket. I didn't see myself in
either of them. I examined the way my mother touched me--her face
seemed almost expressionless--and wondered what she must have felt.
At the end of the evening, Maureen said, "You know, Mei-Ling, if you
ever want to contact your birth family, I am sure they would be
exactly in the same place you left them."
I stared at her. It was the first time that the possibility of
searching for my biological family--and the prospect that I might
actually 'find' them--had crossed my mind seriously. While I was
growing up, when anyone would ask me if I wondered what became of
them, I'd answer no. No, I did not know how many siblings I had. No,
I did not know much about Taiwan. No, I did not care to meet them.
As a teenager, I practically took pride in my ignorance.
I mean, why dwell on the past? A choice was made for my good or
theirs, or for both, and ultimately, as soon as I was poured into
the arms of Rollie and Chris Hopgood one April afternoon in 1974,
these two midwestern teachers became my real family. They read me
bedtime stories, attended my recitals, helped me build homecoming
floats, and took me on vacations to Florida. My mom dressed me in
pretty clothes and drove me to dance class; I admired her pale,
slender beauty and her measured patience, even when our opposite
personalities clashed. My dad took me grocery shopping, to the
dances he chaperoned, and on the picket lines when he led strikes. I
was just like him, strong-willed, independent, and passionate; our
battles shook the windows, but we were fiercely devoted to each
other. Hoon-Yung and Jung-Hoe, who were both adopted from South
Korea, were my real brothers, my playtime companions. I taught Hoon-
Yung to play house and camp out and helped Jung-Hoe speak English
and sleep on a bed. Instead of enduring poverty and prejudice
against girls and women, I had been raised to believe I could do
anything that I wanted. I had a close family, a rich life, and the
endless opportunities of the great United States of America.
'I'm lucky,' I've always told myself.
英语书籍:Lucky Girl(节选二)
本帖于 2010-05-03 05:39:23 时间, 由版主 林贝卡 编辑