Dear son...孩子…The day that you see me old and I am already not， have patience and try to understand me …哪天你看到我日渐老去，身体也渐渐不行，请耐着性子试着了解我……If I get dirty when eating… if I cannot dress… have patience.如果我吃的脏兮兮，如果我不会穿衣服……有耐性一点……Remember the hours I spent teaching it to you.你记得我曾花多久时间教你这些事吗?If， when I speak to you，I repeat the same things thousand and one times…如果，当我一再重复述说Do not interrupt me… listen to me同样的事情…不要打断我，听我说….When you were small， I had to read to you thousand and one times the same story until you get to sleep…你小时候，我必须一遍又一遍的读着同样的故事，直到你静静睡着……..When I do not want to have a shower，neither shame me nor scold me…当我不想洗澡，不要羞辱我也不要责骂我……Remember when I had to chase you with thousand excuses I invented，in order that you wanted to bath…你记得小时后我曾编出多少理由，只为了哄你洗澡…..When you see my ignorance on new technologies… give me the necessary time and not look at me with your mocking smile…当你看到我对新科技的无知，给我一点时间，不要挂着嘲弄的微笑看着我I taught you how to do so m any things… to eat good，to dress well… to confront life…我曾教了你多少事情啊….如何好好的吃，好好的穿…如何面对你的生命……When at some moment I lose the memory or the thread of our conversation…如果交谈中我忽然失忆不知所云，let me have the necessary time to remember…给我一点时间回想…and if I cannot do it，如果我还是无能为力，do not become nervous…请不要紧张…..as the most important thing is not my conversation but surely to be with you and to have you listening to me…对我而言重要的不是对话，而是能跟你在一起，和你的倾听…..The Pennsylvania-landscape was in severe wintry garb as our car sped westover the interstate Ul The season was wrong, butI couldn't get bluebirds outof my head.Only three weeks before, at Christmas, Dad had given me a nesting box he'dmade: He had a special feeling for the brilliant creatures, and each spring heeagerly awaited their return. Now I wondered, will he ever see one again?It was a heart attack. Dad's third.When I got to the hospital at 2 a.m., he was losing the fight. As the familyhovered at his bedside, he drifted in and out of consciousness.Once he looked up at.Mom sitting beside the bed holding his hand. "Theywant me to let go," he said, ':but I can't. I don't want to."Mom patted his arm. "Just hold on to me," she murmured.The next morning the cardiologist met us in the waiting room. "He's stillfighting,"the doaor said. "I've never seen such strengthMy youngest brother was only five when Ileft home 30 years ago. Relation-ships between my brothers- and sisters had become -frayed because of dis-tance and commitments to our own families. But Dad needed his childrennow, so we stayed at the hospital. During the long vigil, we reminisced aboutour years at home.A miner, Dad had not had an easy life. He and Mom raised six kids at a timewhen coal miners eamed as little as 25 cents a ton, and he loaded nine tonsa day. Even now, I'm sure we don't know most of the sacrifices they madefor us.I remembered Dad's hard hat, its carbide lamp showing a fine pall of coaldust. Dad's graygreen eyes seemed large and wise as an owl's in his black-ened face. They often sparkled with devilment when they met yours inconversation. .Each evening he came home, eager to take up his crosscut saw or clawhammer. Dad could chock a piece of walnut on his lathe and deffly tum outa beautiful salad bowl for Mom. He could build a cherry fold-top desk withfine, dovetailed drawers as easily as he could fashion a fishing-line threaderout of an old ballpoint pen.Dad bought our plain, two-story house from the coal company and immedi~ately began to remodel it. Our house was the first on the hill to have anindoor bathroom and hot water. He spent one summer digging out the clay-filled foundation to install a coal furnace. We children no longer shivered inour bed-rooms on cold winter mornings.We loved to watch him work. When Dad needed something, we ran to getit. If we called it a "thingamabob he would say, "That's a nail set" (thetool for sinking the head of a nail below the surface of the wood). "It has aname. Use it."Dad carried a spirit of craftsmanship into every job and expeaed the samefrom all six children. Each job had its claim on your best efforts. And evertool had its name. Those were his principles, and we lived by them just aSDad did.His playful spirit would set us to giggling-like the time he was buildingfireplace in the back yard. He sent us to look for the"stone-bender" he needeto make the comer stones fit more evenly. "Guess I'll have to bend theiamyself," he said when we retumed empty-handed. We saw the sparkle in.bijeyes, and knew we'd been had.Sitting in the hospitalwaitting room, I thought back to an afteon in Dad'sworkshop several years ago..He was retired by then, but he kept busy building beautiful furniture, now for his children's homes. A volunteer naturalist,I was eager to tell him about the help bluebirds needed.When the early settlers had cleared forests for farmland, I explained, blueLbirds flourished, nesting in fence-posts and orchard trees. But their habitatwas disappearing, and now the birds needed nesting boxesDad listened as-I spoke, his hands gently moving a finegrained sand-paperover a piece of oak. I asked him if he would like to build a box. He said hewould think about it.Several weeks later he invited me into his workshop. There, on his workbench,sat three well-crafted bluebird nesting boxes. "Think the birds willlike themT'he asked."As much as I do,"I replied, hugging him. Dad put up the boxes, and thenext spring bluebirds nested in his yard. He was hooked.Dad became quite an expert on the species. Bluebirds, he would say, areharbingers of hope and triumph, renowned for family loyalty. A pair willhave two or three broods a year, the earlier young sometimes helping to feedthe later nestlings.The presence of his children must have boosted Dad's spirits after his attackbecause he grew stronger and left the hospital on Valentine's Day WhenI visited my parents at the end of March, Dad was confined to the downstairs.But I noticed that he paused longer and longer at the windows facing theback yard. I knew what he was hoping to see. And one day a bright flash ofcolor circled the nesting box closest to our house."Well, it's about time the rascals showed, don't you think?" Dad said.Sporting a resplendent blue head, back, wings and tail, a male bluebird sanghis courtship song so passionately that we dubbed him "Caruso," after theItalian tenor. A female appeared, but rejected thenesting box. Caruso foundanother in the field below the yard. He circled the new box, singing feverishly.She remained aloof on a distant perch.Dad was walking more and more each day as the love story unfolded. Icould see strength coming back into his wiry frame.One day Caruso battled a rival for the female's attentions. Then she foughtan even more vehement battle with another female. Afterward she resumedher haughty. stance while he fervently continued with his rapturous repertoire.Suddenly one exquisite morning, when the sky mirrored Caruso's courtingraiment, she flew back to the box nearest the house and inspected itthoroughly. Caruso hovered nearby and sang blissfully as she finally acceptedhim.Shortly thereafter she proceeded to lay one egg a day until there were six.Caruso fluttered outside, defending the nest while she incubated.Dad was now well enough to go outside, but he still couldn't reach the back-yard. He asked us to check inside the nesting box once a day. When we'dreturn, the questions came. "Is she on the nest?" he asked. "Have the eggshatched? Did you see that showboat what's-his-name?""Caruso, Dad," I replied. "He has a name, you know." Dad's sly grin re:flected the devilment that had returned to his eyes.When the eggs hatched, we marveled at the herculean efforts Caruso andhis mate expended to capture insects for their brood. Nestlings must be fedevery 20 minutes.Near the end of May, the fledglings left the nest. By then Dad was able towalk to the fields beyond and see what other bluebird news there might be.Mom and I would watch him from the kitchen window. "He gave some-thing to those bluebirds," she said quietly one day. "Now they've given itback."蓝知更鸟的希望我们的汽车奔驰西行越过州界，宾夕法尼亚州一派严冬景象，时令不正常，可是我对蓝知更鸟一直不能忘怀。