13. How Kids Deal with Grief

13. How Kids Deal with Grief

13. 孩子應(yīng)對悲傷的方式

Shortly after the breakup, I told Zach, my eight-year-old, the news. We were eating dinner, and I tried to keep it simple: Boyfriend and I had both decided (poetic license) that we weren’t going to be together after all.

我分手后不久，就把這個消息告訴了八歲的兒子扎克。當(dāng)時我們在吃晚飯，我盡量簡單地向他說明：男友和我“共同決定”（詩一般美妙的謊言）我們還是不在一起過了。

His face fell. He looked both surprised and confused. (Welcome to the club! I thought.)

兒子的臉拉得好長，他的表情既吃驚又困惑。（我心想：“歡迎來到吃驚俱樂部！”）

“Why?” he asked. I told him that before two people got married, they needed to figure out if they’d make good partners, not just for the moment, but for the rest of their lives, and even though Boyfriend and I loved each other, both of us realized (again, poetic license) that we wouldn’t and that it was better for us to find other people who would.

“為什么呢？”他問。我告訴他兩個人在結(jié)婚之前要搞清楚他們能不能成為合適的伴侶，不只是現(xiàn)在覺得合適，而是要能在一起過一輩子。男友和我雖然相愛，但我倆都意識到（又一個詩一般美妙的謊言）我們不能一起過一輩子，所以還是各自另找可以共度余生的伴侶比較好。

This was, basically, the truth—minus some details and plus a few pronoun changes.

我說的基本上都是事實，只是略去了一些細(xì)節(jié)，又把代表男友的“他”改成了“我倆”。

“Why?” Zach asked again. “Why wouldn’t you be good partners?” His face was a wrinkle. My heart ached for him.

“為什么呢？”扎克接著問道，“為什么你們不會成為合適的伴侶呢？”他的臉皺成一團(tuán)，令我為他感到心痛。

“Well,” I said. “You know how you used to hang out with Asher and then he got really into soccer and you got really into basketball?”

“這個嘛，”我說，“你記不記得你以前常跟亞瑟一起玩，但后來他愛上了踢足球，但你喜歡打籃球？”

He nodded.

他點點頭。

“You guys still like each other, but now you spend more time with people who have similar interests.”

“你們倆還是互相喜歡的，但現(xiàn)在你們會花更多的時間和興趣相投的人一起玩?！?/span>

“So you like different things?”

“所以是因為你們喜歡的東西不一樣？”

“Yeah,” I said. I like kids, and he’s a Kid Hater.

“對呀?！蔽艺f。我喜歡孩子，而他是仇童男。

“What things?”

“是什么樣的東西呢？”

I took a breath. “Well, things like I want to be home more and he wants to travel more.” Kids and freedom are mutually exclusive. If the queen had balls . . .

我吸了口氣。“就比如，我更喜歡待在家里，他更想出去旅行?！蔽易焐线@么說，心里卻想著，“孩子和自由是相抵觸的。就像如果皇后是個帶把兒的……”

“Why can’t you both compromise? Why can’t sometimes you stay home and sometimes you go traveling?”

“為什么你們不能各自作出一點讓步呢？為什么不能有時待在家里，有時出去旅行？”

I mulled this over. “Maybe we could, but it’s like that time you were assigned to work with Sonja on that poster and she wanted to put pink butterflies all over it, and you wanted it to have Clone troopers, and in the end, you ended up with yellow dragons, which was pretty cool, but not really what either of you wanted. Then on the next project you worked with Theo and even though you had different ideas, they were similar enough, and you still both compromised, but not as much as you had to do with Sonja.”

我斟酌了一下。“也許可以，但就像上次你和索尼婭分在一組做海報一樣，她想畫滿粉色的蝴蝶，你想畫克隆部隊，但最后你們畫的是黃色的龍，結(jié)果也很棒，但并不是你們倆各自最想要的。可是后來你跟西奧一起完成另一項作業(yè)時，你們倆的想法雖然也不一樣，但非常相似。你們也需要互相遷就，但就不像你和索尼婭那次要妥協(xié)那么多?！?/span>

He was staring at the table.

他呆呆地望著桌子。

“Everyone has to compromise to get along,” I said, “but if you have to compromise too much, it might be hard to be married to each other. If one of us wanted to travel a lot and one of us wanted to stay home a lot, we both might get frustrated a lot. Does that make sense?”

“每個人和別人相處時都要作出讓步，”我說，“但如果不得不妥協(xié)的事情太多了，那兩個人就很難結(jié)婚了。如果一個人一直都想出去旅行，另一個想一直待在家，兩個人可能都會非常沮喪。這么說你能明白嗎？”

“Yeah,” he said. We sat together for a minute, and then suddenly he looked up and blurted out, “Are we killing a banana if we eat it?”

“嗯。”他說。我們就這么坐了一會兒，突然他抬起頭，脫口而出地問道：“我們吃香蕉的時候是殺死了香蕉嗎？”

“What?” I said, thrown by the non sequitur.

“什么？”我完全摸不著頭腦。

“You know how you kill a cow to get the meat and that’s why vegetarians don’t eat meat?”

“我們要殺死一頭牛才能吃到牛肉，所以素食者不吃肉對不對？”

“Uh-huh.”

“沒錯?！?/span>

“Well,” he continued, “if we pull the banana off the tree, aren’t we also killing the banana?”

“那么當(dāng)我們把香蕉從樹上拔下來，我們是不是也殺死了香蕉？”

“I guess it’s like hair,” I said. “Hair falls off our heads when it’s ready to die, and then new hair grows in its place. New bananas grow where the old ones used to be.”

“我猜那更像是頭發(fā)，”我說，“頭發(fā)會從我們頭上脫落，同一個地方還會長出新頭發(fā)。拔掉香蕉的地方也會長出新的香蕉?！?/span>

Zach leaned forward in his chair. “But we pull the bananas before they fall off, when they’re still alive. What if somebody PULLED YOUR HAIR OUT before it was ready to fall off? So doesn’t it kill the banana? And doesn’t it hurt the tree when we pull the banana off?”

扎克坐在椅子上，身子前傾著說：“但香蕉自己掉下來之前就被我們拔下來了呀，那時它們還活著。就像你頭發(fā)還沒有掉下來之前有人拔你的頭發(fā)。所以這不是在殺死香蕉嗎？我們把香蕉拔下來的時候樹不會疼嗎？”

Oh. This was Zach’s way of dealing with the news. He was the tree here. Or the banana. Either way, he was hurting.

噢。這是扎克應(yīng)對這個消息的方式。他就是那棵樹，或者是那根香蕉，反正他受到了傷害。

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe we don’t intend to hurt the tree or the banana, but it’s possible that sometimes we hurt it anyway, even though we really, really don’t want to.”

“我也不知道?！蔽艺f，“或許我們不是有意要傷害那棵樹或是香蕉，但可能從結(jié)果來看有時是會傷害到它們，盡管那真的不是我們的本意?！?/span>

He went quiet for a while. Then: “Am I going to see him again?”

他沉默了一陣子，然后說：“我還會再見到他嗎？”

I told him I didn’t think so.

我告訴他應(yīng)該不會。

“So we’re not going to play Goblet anymore?” Goblet was a board game that belonged to Boyfriend’s kids when they were young, and Zach and Boyfriend sometimes played it together.

“所以我們再也不會玩《干杯》了嗎？”《干杯》是一種桌游，原來是男友的孩子們小的時候玩的，扎克和男友有時會一起玩。

I told him no, not with Boyfriend. But if he felt like it, I’d play it with him.

我說不會了，至少不會和男友一起玩了。如果他想玩，我可以陪他玩。

“Maybe,” he said quietly. “But he was really good at it.”

“好吧，”他輕聲說道，“但他真的玩得很好?！?/span>

“He was really good at it,” I agreed. “I know this is a big change,” I added, and then I stopped talking because nothing I said would help him right then. He was going to have to feel sad. I knew that over the next few days and weeks and even months, we’d have many conversations to help him through this (the upside of being a therapist’s child is that nothing gets shoved under the rug; the downside is that you’ll be totally screwed up anyway). Meanwhile, the news would have to marinate.

“他確實玩得很好，”我附和道，“我知道這會是一個很大的改變。”然后我停下來，因為那一刻無論我說什么對扎克都不會有幫助，他還是會感到難過。我知道在接下來的幾天、幾周，甚至幾個月的時間里，我們會進(jìn)行很多對話來幫助他渡過這個難關(guān)。（作為心理治療師的孩子，好處是沒有什么需要隱藏的情緒，但壞處是面臨難關(guān)的時候，你會被逼著直面痛苦，完全沒機(jī)會逃開。）與此同時，這件事總需要慢慢被消化和平息。

“Okay,” Zach mumbled. Then he got up from the table, went over to the fruit bowl on the counter, picked up a banana, ripped it open, and with dramatic flair, sunk his teeth into it.

“好吧?！痹肃絿伒?。然后他從桌子后面站起來，走到料理臺旁，拿起一根香蕉，剝開香蕉皮，故意動作夸張地把他的牙齒插進(jìn)果肉里。

“Yummmm,” he said, a strangely gleeful look on his face. Was he murdering the banana? He devoured the entire thing in three big bites and then went to his room.

“真——好吃。”他說，臉上露出一種奇異而喜悅的表情。他是在謀殺香蕉嗎？他狼吞虎咽地三口就把一根香蕉吃完了，然后走去他自己的房間。

Five minutes later, he came out carrying the Goblet game.

五分鐘后，他拿著《干杯》游戲走出房間。

“Let’s give this to Goodwill,” he said, placing the box by the door. Then he walked over to me for a hug. “I don’t like it anymore anyway.”

“我們把這個捐給慈善商店吧，”他說著，把那盒桌游放到門邊，然后走過來，給了我一個擁抱，“反正我也不喜歡它了。”