親友見到我,總會關切地問:「妳點呀?」 我也總會表演得開朗些,其實,每天仍會暗地落淚。楊江比我可要堅強得多, 得病以來,我從沒看見他掉過一滴眼淚, 我知道,他不想我担心,不想我難過。現在回想那段難受的日子, 究竟我們是怎樣熬過來的, 很想和你分享。除了宗教的力量,使我們得著出乎意料的平安, 另外,留院數個月的當兒,弟妹給我們看的兩本書籍, 讓我們對生老病死有更深體會, 謹將部份節錄,請細意感受...(相約星期二 社會心理學教授莫里年約七十時患上肌萎縮性側索硬化ASL,身體日益衰竭,他一位不見廿載的學生,在老教授最後的歲月,每周二都造訪,一起談論人生道理,學生後來把所見所想編織起來,讓這書載滿老師參透生死的智慧。)(The Purpose Driven Life 是一本相當出名的宗教書籍,加深我對神因何要人面對苦難的理解。眼見楊江身體日漸衰弱,我發覺對他的愛和忍耐卻與日俱增。他今天雖然不能陪伴著我,但我倆的愛會永不止息,因我領悟到,神之所以對我倆有此安排,就是為了成全我們的約誓。) 相約星期二
p.54 「(不治之症)只有當你覺得它可怕時,它才可怕。」莫里說。「看著自己的軀體慢慢地萎謝的確很可怕,但它也有幸運的一面,因為我可以有時間跟人說再見。」 他笑笑說:「不是每個人都這麼幸運的。」 我審視著輪椅上的莫里:「不能站立,不能洗澡,不能穿褲。」幸運?他真是在說幸運?p.77 「每個人都知道自己要死。」莫里重複道:「可沒人願意相信。如果我們相信這一事實的話,我們就會作出不同的反應。」 我們就會用戲謔的態度去對待死亡,我說。 「是的,但還有一個更好的方法。意識到自己會死,並時刻作好準備。這樣做會更有幫助。你活著的時候就會更珍惜生活。」p.86 「事實上,如果沒有家庭,人們便失去了可以支撐的根基。我得病後對這一點更有體會。如果你得不到來自家庭的支持、愛撫、照顧和關心,你擁有的東西便少得可憐。愛是至高無上的,正如我們的大詩人奧登說的那樣,「相愛或者死亡。」p.97 「接受所有的感情──對女人的愛戀,對親人的悲傷,或像我所經歷的:由致命的疾病而引起的恐懼和痛苦。如果你逃避這些感情──不讓自己去感受、經歷──你就永遠超脫不了,因為你始終心存恐懼。你害怕痛苦,害怕悲傷,害怕愛必須承受的感情傷害。「可你一旦投入進去,沉浸在感情的汪洋裡,你就能充分地體驗它,知道甚麼是痛苦,甚麼是悲傷。只有到那時你才能說,「好吧,我已經經歷了這份感情,我己經認識了這份感情,現在我需要超脫它。」p.108 「我是個獨立的人,因此我內心總在同這一切抗爭──依賴車子,讓人替我穿衣服等等。我有一種羞恥感,因為我們的文化告訴我們說,如果你不能自己擦洗屁股,你就應該感到羞恥。但我又想,忘掉文化對我們的灌輸。我的大半生都沒有去理睬這種文化。我沒有必要感到羞恥。這有甚麼關係呢?」 「我感覺到了依賴別人的樂趣。現在當他們替我翻身、在我背上塗擦防止長瘡的乳霜時,我感到是一種享受。當他們替我擦臉或按摩腿部時,我同樣覺得很受用。我會閉上眼睛陶醉在其中。一切都顯得習以為常了。」 「這就像重新回到了嬰兒期。有人給你洗澡,有人抱你,有人替你擦洗。 我們都有過當孩子的經歷,它留在了你的大腦深處。對我而言,這只是在重新回憶起兒時的那份樂趣罷了。」p. 119「我當然在受罪。但給予他人,能使我感到自己還活着。汽車和房子不能給你這種感覺,鏡子裡照出的模樣也不能給你這種感覺。只有當我奉獻出了時間,當我使那些悲傷的人重又露出笑顏,我才感到我仍像以前一樣健康。 只要你做的是發自內心的,你過後就不會感到失望,不會感到妒忌,也不會計較別人的回報。否則,你就要患得患失。」 p.146 「在生命的起點,當我們還是嬰兒時,我們需要別人活着,對不對?在生命的終點,當你像我現在這樣時,你也需要別人活著,是嗎?」 他壓低了聲音。「可還有個秘密:在生命的中途,我們同樣需要別人活著。」p.158 我看著他。 「你會去我的墓地嗎?告訴我你的問題?」 我的問題? 「是的。」 「我會盡力的。我不是一直這麼做的嗎?」 我想像著他的墓地:在山坡上,俯視著一片水塘。人們把他安葬在九英尺見方的土地裡,上面蓋上泥土,樹一塊碑。也許就在幾個星期後?也許就在幾天後? 我想像自己獨自坐在那兒,雙手抱膝,仰望天空。 不一樣了,我說,沒法聽見你的說話。 「哈,說話...」 他閉上眼睛笑了。 「知道嗎?我死了以後,你說,我聽。」p.159 莫里把火化的想法告訴了朋友阿爾。 「千萬別把我燒過了頭。」 他聽了直發愣。可莫里現在老拿自己的身體開玩笑,越接近生命的終結,他越把自己的身體看作是個殼,僅僅是一具裝有靈魂的外殼。它漸漸地枯萎成一堆毫無用處的皮膚和骨頭,然後便可毫不費力地化去。p.161 「死是很自然的。」他說:「我們之所以對死亡大驚小怪,是因為我們沒有把自己視作自然的一部分。」 「只要我們彼此相愛,並把它珍藏在心裡,我們即使死了也不會真正地消亡。 你創造的愛依然存在著。所有的記憶依然存在著。你仍然活著──活在每一個你觸過愛撫過的人的心中。」 「死亡終結了生命,但沒有終結感情的關係。」 TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE (MITCH ALBOM) p.57 “(Disease) It's only horrible if you see it that way,” Morrie said. “It's horrible to watch my body slowly wilt away to nothing. But it’s also wonderful because of all the time I get to say good-bye.” He smiled. “Not everyone is so lucky.” I studied him in his chair, unable to stand, to wash, to pull on his pants. Lucky? Did he really say lucky?
p. 81 “Everybody knows they're going to die,” he said again, “but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.” So we kid ourselves about death, I said. “Yes. But there's a better approach. To know you're going to die, and to be prepared for it at any time. That's better. That way you can actually be more involved in your life while you're living.”P. 91 “The fact is, there is no foundation, no secure ground, upon which people may stand today if it isn’t the family. It's become quite clear to me as I've been sick. If you don't have the support and love and caring and concern that you get from a family, you don’t have much at all. Love is so supreme important. As our great poet Auden said, ‘Love each other or perish.’”p. 103 “Take any emotion – love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I'm going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on emotions – if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them – you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. “But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, ‘All right, I have experienced that emotion. I recognise that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.’” p. 115 “I'm an independent person, so my inclination was to fight all of this – being helped from the car, having someone else dress me. I felt a little ashamed, because our culture tells us we should be ashamed if we can't wipe our own behind. But then I figured. Forget what the culture says. I have ignored the culture much of my life. I am not going to be ashamed. What's the big deal? “And you know what? The strangest thing.” What's that? “I began to enjoy my dependency. Now I enjoy when they turn me over on my side and rub cream on my behind so I don't get sores. Or when they wipe my brow, or they massage my legs. I revel in it. I close my eyes and soak it up. And it seems very familiar to me. “It's like going back to being a child again. Someone to bathe you. Someone to lift you. Someone to wipe you. We all know how to be a child. It's inside all of us. For me, it's just remembering how to enjoy it.”p. 128 “I'm dying, right?” Yes. “Why do you think it's so important for me to hear other people's problems? Don't I have enough pain and suffering of my own? Of course I do. But giving to other people is what makes me feel alive. Not my car or my house. Not what I look like in the mirror. When I give my time, when I can make someone smile after they were feeling sad, it's as close to healthy as I ever feel. “Do the kinds of things that come from the heart. When you do, you won't be dissatisfied, you won't be envious, you won't be longing for somebody else's things. On the contrary, you'll be overwhelmed with what come back.”P. 157 “In the beginning of life, when we are infants, we need others to survive, right? And at the end of life, when you get like me, you need others to survive, right?” His voice dropped to a whisper. “But here's the secret: in between, we need others as well.”p. 170 “You'll come to my grave? To tell me your problems?” My problems? “Yes.” And you'll give me answers? “I'll give you what I can. Don't I always?” I picture his grave, on the hill, overlooking the pond, some little nine-foot piece of earth where they will place him, cover him with dirt, put a stone on top. Maybe in a few weeks? Maybe in a few days? I see myself sitting there alone, arms across my knees, staring into space. It won’t be the same, I say, not being able to hear you talk. “Ah, talk…” He closes his eyes and smiles. “Tell you what. After I'm dead, you talk. And I listen.”P. 171…Morrie told (his friend) of his cremation plans. “Make sure they don't overcook me.” (His friend) was stunned. But Morrie was able to joke about his body now. The closer he got to the end, the more he saw it as a mere shell, a container of the soul. It was withering to useless skin and bones anyhow, which made it easier to let go.p. 173 “It's natural to die,” he said again. “The fact that we make such a big hullabaloo over it is all because we don’t see ourselves a part of nature. We think because we're human we're something above nature.” He smiled at the plant. “We're not. Everything that gets born, dies.” He looked at me. “As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on – in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.” “Death ends a life, not a relationship.” The Purpose Driven Life (by Rick Warren)
p. 127 Time is your most precious gift because you only have a set amount of it. You can make more money, but you can't make more time. When you give someone your time, you are giving them a portion of your life that you'll never get back. Your time is your life. That is why the greatest gift you can give someone is your time. The essence of love is not what we think or do or provide for others, but how much we give of ourselves. The most desired gift of love is not diamonds or roses or chocolate. It is focused attention. Love concentrates so intently on another that you forget yourself at that moment.p.197 Since God intends to make you like Jesus, he will take you through the same experiences Jesus went through. That includes problems. The Bible says Jesus “learned obedience through suffering” and “was made perfect through suffering.” Why would God exempt us from what he allowed his own Son to experience? Paul said, “ We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him!”p.199 Refuse to give up. Be patient and persistent. The Bible says, “Let the process go on until your endurance is fully developed, and you will find that you have become men of mature character…with no weak spots.” “If you are facing trouble right now, don't ask, “Why me? Instead ask, “What do you want me to learn?” Then trust God and keep on doing what's right. “You need to stick it out, staying with God's plan so you'll be there for the promised completion.” Don't give up – grow up!p.222 Be patient with God and with yourself. One of life's frustrations is that God's timetable is rarely the same as ours. We are often in a hurry when God isn't. You may feel frustrated with the seemingly slow progress you're making in life. Remember that God is never in a hurry, but he is always on time. He will use your entire lifetime to prepare you for your role in eternity. p.233 God wants to use you to make a difference in his world. He wants to work through you. What matters is not the duration of your life, but the donation of it. Not how long you lived but how you lived.p.247 God intentionally allows you to go through painful experiences to equip you for ministry to others. The Bible says, “He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When others are troubled we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.”
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