臨終前,她爲丈夫尋找另一段愛情

Amy Krouse Rosenthal, a prolific children’s book author, memoirist and public speaker who, dying of cancer, found an extraordinarily large readership this month with a column in The New York Times titled “You May Want to Marry My Husband,” died on Monday at her home in Chicago. She was 51.

本月，因患癌症而不久於世的多產兒童讀物作者、回憶錄作者和演講者艾米·克勞斯·羅森塔爾(Amy Krouse Rosenthal)，在《紐約時報》(The New York Times)上發表了一篇題爲《你願意嫁給我丈夫嗎？》的專欄文章，取得了驚人的閱讀量。週一，羅森塔爾在芝加哥家中去世，享年51歲。

The cause was ovarian cancer, which she learned she had in September 2015, her agent, Amy Rennert, said.

羅森塔爾的經紀人說她死於卵巢癌。她是在2015年9月得知自己患有這種疾病的。

Ms. Rosenthal’s bittersweet paean to her spouse of 26 years appeared as a Modern Love column in the online Style section of The Times on March 3 and in the Sunday newspaper section on March 5.

3月3日，羅森塔爾爲陪伴她26年的丈夫書寫的甜蜜而又苦澀的讚歌，作爲“摩登情愛”專欄的一篇文章現身時報風尚版的網絡版。

The column has drawn almost four and a half million readers online.

這篇文章的線上點閱量約爲450萬次。

“I want more time with Jason,” she wrote. “I want more time with my children. I want more time sipping martinis at the Green Mill Jazz Club on Thursday nights. But that is not going to happen. I probably have only a few days left being a person on this planet. So why I am doing this?

“我想要有更多時間，和賈森待在一起，”她寫道。“我想要有更多時間，和我的孩子們待在一起。我想要有更多時間，在週四的夜晚去綠磨坊爵士俱樂部喝馬丁尼。但這一切都不可能發生。我活在這個世界上的時間可能只剩下幾天了。那我爲什麼要寫這個呢？”

“I am wrapping this up on Valentine’s Day,” she continued, “and the most genuine, non-vase-oriented gift I can hope for is that the right person reads this, finds Jason, and another love story begins.”

“我是在情人節寫完這篇文字的，而我希望得到的鮮花以外真正的禮物便是，一個對的人能讀到它，找到賈森，開始另一段愛情故事。”

Her husband, interviewed by People magazine afterward, said, “When I read her words for the first time, I was shocked at the beauty, slightly surprised at the incredible prose given her condition and, of course, emotionally ripped apart.”

她丈夫後來接受《人物》(People)雜誌採訪時說，“當我第一次讀到她的文字時，我被那種美驚呆了，鑑於她的狀況，這篇不可思議的散文讓我有些意外，當然，它還撕裂了我的心。”

Since 2005, Ms. Rosenthal has written 28 spirited children’s picture books, two quirky, poignant memoirs; delivered TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) Talks and NPR commentaries; and produced short films and YouTube videos of what she called social experiments.

自從2005年以來，羅森塔爾寫了28本生動活潑的兒童圖畫書，兩本離奇而又能夠觸動心靈的回憶錄；做過TED演講，寫過全國公共廣播電臺(NPR)評論文章；還製作過她稱之爲社會實驗的短片和YouTube視頻。

“I tend to believe whatever you decide to look for you will find, whatever you beckon will eventually beckon you,” she told one audience.

“我傾向於認爲，你會找到你決心找尋的任何東西；此外，受你吸引的任何東西最終都會吸引住你，”她告訴一名聽衆。

She beckoned her readers and viewers. In a video called “17 Things I Made” — among them were her books and even a peanut butter and jelly sandwich — she welcomed fans to join her at Millennium Park in Chicago, on August 8, 2008, at 8:08 p.m., to make an 18th thing. Hundreds showed up.

她吸引住了她的讀者和觀衆。她製作了一則名爲《出自我手的17樣東西》(17 Things I Made)的視頻——包括她寫的書，乃至一個花生醬果凍三明治——在裏面邀請粉絲於2008年8月8日晚上8點零8分，和她在芝加哥千禧公園(Millennium Park)一起製作第18樣東西。當天有數百人赴約。

“Amy ran at life full speed and heart first,” Maria Modugno, her editor at Random House, said in a phone interview. “Her writing was who she was.”

“艾米在生活中全速奔跑、隨心而動，”她在蘭登書屋(Random House)的編輯瑪麗亞·莫杜尼奧(Maria Modugno)接受電話採訪時說。“她的文字就是她的本色。”

In The New York Times Book Review in 2009 Bruce Handy said of her work: “For all I know, she may suffer torment upon torment in front of a blank screen, but the results read as if they were a pleasure to write.” He added, “Her books radiate fun the way tulips radiate spring: they are elegant and spirit-lifting.”

2009年，布魯斯·漢迪(Bruce Handy)在《紐約時報》書評版提及她的作品時說：“據我所知，她或許在空白的屏幕前經受過種種折磨，但作品讀上去就好像作者寫得津津有味一樣。”他還表示，“她的書散發着無盡的樂趣，就如同鬱金香散發着春的氣息：它們既優雅又令人振奮。”

In her latest memoir, published as she was dying, she wrote: “Invariably, I will have to move on before I have had enough. My first word was ‘more.’ It may very well be my last.”

她在臨終前出版的最新一本回憶錄裏寫道：“不變的是，我不得不在擁有得足夠多之前離開。我開口說的第一個詞是‘more’（更多）。它極有可能成我說的最後一個詞。”

But even before her diagnosis, she suggested that her energy and imagination were not boundless. Her favorite line from literature, she once said, was in Thornton Wilder’s play “Our Town,” as spoken by the character Emily as she bids the world goodbye: “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?”

但即便是在病症被確診前，她也提到過，她的能量和想象力不是無窮無盡的。她曾經表示，她最喜歡的來自文學作品的話，出自桑頓·懷爾德(Thornton Wilder)的劇作《我們的小鎮》(Our Town)，是劇中人埃米莉(Emily)跟世界告別時說的：“人類之中有誰能做到在活着的時候意識到生命？”

When she reached 40, Ms. Rosenthal began calculating how many days she had left until she turned 80.

她從40歲便開始計算，離80歲還有幾天。

“How many more times, then, do I get to look at a tree?” she asked. “Let’s just say it’s 12,395. Absolutely, that’s a lot, but it’s not infinite, and I’m thinking anything less than infinite is too small a number and not satisfactory. At the very least, I want to look at trees a million more times. Is that too much to ask?”

“我還能再多看一棵樹多少次？”她問道。“就算12395次吧。這絕對很多了，但不是無窮的，而我認爲，任何少於無窮的數字都太小了，不足以令人滿意。我至少想再多看一棵樹100萬次。這要求很過分嗎？”