Mystery of the White Gardenia
栀子花之谜
Every year on my birthday, from the time I turned 12, white gardenia was delivered to my house in Bethesda, Md. No card or note came with it. Calls to the florist were always in vain—it was a cash purchase. After a while I stopped trying to discover the sender’s identity and just delighted in the beauty and heady perfume of that one magical, perfect white flower nestled in soft pink tissue paper.
打12岁开始，每年生日那天，我都会在马州贝塞斯达的家中收到一束白色的栀子花。花上没有卡片或便条之类的东西。打电话给花店，却总是一无所获，因为花是被人拿现金买走的。几年下来，我不再打探送花人的身份，对于这束拿粉色棉纸包起来的、带有神秘色彩的白色花朵，只是其乐无穷地享受它的美丽和芬芳。
But I never stopped imagining who the anonymous giver might be. Some of my happiest moments were spent daydreaming about someone wonderful and exciting but too shy or eccentric to make known his or her identity.
但我从未停止过对这个匿名送花人的猜想，许多大好时光都是在对他的幻想中度过的。我幻想他是一个招人喜欢但却又性格腼腆、特立独行的人。
My mother contributed to these imaginings. She’d ask me if there was someone for whom I had done a special kindness who might be showing appreciation. Perhaps the neighbor I’d help when she was unloading a car full of groceries. Or maybe it was the old man across the street whose mail I retrieved during the winter so he wouldn’t have to venture down his icy steps. As a teen-ager, though, I had more fun speculating that it might be a boy I had a crush on or one who had noticed me even though I didn’t know him.
母亲为我的想像出了不少力。她曾说，是不是我之前对谁有过特殊的恩惠，人家这是在感谢我。或许是那个邻居吧，我曾帮她卸过满满的一车货；又或许是对街的那位老先生，我在冬天老帮他取邮件，省了他走下结冰台阶的麻烦。但作为年轻人，我更乐于去猜想那是某个让我心动的男孩，或者是某个注意到了我、但我却没有注意到人家的男孩。
When I was 17, a boy broke my heart. The night he called for the last time, I cried myself to sleep. When I awoke in the morning, there was a message scribbled on my mirror in red lipstick: “Heartily know, when half-gods go, the gods arrive.” I thought about that quotation from Emerson for a long time, and until my heart healed, I left it where my mother had written it. When I finally went to get the glass cleaner, my mother knew everything was all right again.
17岁那年，我为一个男孩伤透了心。那天晚上他最后一次打电话，我在哭泣中睡着。早上醒来时，我发现穿衣镜上有人用红色口红写了一句话：“心知道，该走的走了，该来的才会来。”我让妈妈的笔迹留在那里，心里把爱默生的这句话思考了好久，直到受伤的心愈合过来。当我最后拿起玻璃清洁剂，这时妈妈便知道一切都过去了。
I don’t remember ever slamming my door in anger at her and shouting, “You don’t understand!” because she did understand.
在我的记忆中，我从未在她面前怒气冲冲地把门一摔，然后冲她吼道：“你知道啥！？”因为她什么都知道。
One month before my high-school graduation, my father died of a heart attack. My feelings ranged from grief to abandonment, fear and overwhelming anger that my dad was missing some of the most important events in my life. I became completely uninterested in my upcoming graduation, the senior-class play and the prom. But my mother, in the midst of her own grief, would not hear of my skipping any of those things.
在我高中毕业前的一个月，爸爸因心脏病过世。我内心的感受由悲伤到被遗弃，又到恐惧和怨恨，五味杂陈，因为爸爸错过了我人生中最重要的一些活动。对于即将到来的毕业典礼，毕业表演以及舞会，我开始变的了无兴趣。但处于悲痛之中的妈妈，这时却不允许我错过其中的任何一件。
The day before my father died, my mother and I had gone shopping for prom dress. We’d found a spectacular one, with yards and yards of dotted swiss in red, white and blue, it made me feel like Scarlet O’Hara, but it was the wrong size. When my father died, I forgot about the dress.
爸爸去世前一天，我和妈妈曾出去给我买舞会穿的礼裙。我们找到了特别漂亮的一件，上面有红色，白色和蓝色的薄纱缀饰其间，我穿上去整个人显得跟郝思佳似的。可是尺码不合适，爸爸去世后，我就把这事也给忘了。
My mother didn’t. The day before the prom, I found that dress—in the right size—draped majestically over the living-room sofa—beautifully, artistically, lovingly. I didn’t care if I had a new dress or not. But my mother did.
但妈妈没有忘。舞会前一天，我发现那件礼裙炫丽地悬挂在客厅的沙发上。尺码是合适的尺码，裙身精美高雅，令人爱不释手。我从没想过自己有没有新的礼裙，但妈妈却把这当成了一件正事。
She wanted her children to feel loved and lovable, creative and imaginative, imbued with a sense that there was magic in the world and beauty even in the face of adversity. In truth, my mother wanted her children to see themselves much like the gardenia—lovely, strong and perfect—with an aura of magic and perhaps a bit of mystery.
她想把爱心与美丽，创意与想像带给她的孩子，想给她的孩子灌输一种思想，那就是，世界就是这么奇妙，即便在灾难面前也有美丽的存在。实际上，妈妈更想让她的孩子像看待栀子花一样看待自己，带有一种奇妙和神秘，但却美丽，坚强，尽善尽美。
My mother died ten days after I was married. I was 22. That was the year the gardenias stopped coming.
在我结婚后的第十天，妈妈去世了。那年我22岁。从此，我再也没有收到过白色的栀子花。