|
30岁生日时，我发现自己实际上还是个小孩子。一直以来，哥哥是那种典型的负责任的老大，甚至妹妹也早就表现出超越她龄的成熟。他们两人和父母一样，都把我当婴儿般照顾。直到这天，只身前去照顾在异地出差生病的父亲，我才真正成长起来…… I approached my 30th birthday with the typical trepidation associated with the occasion: I lamented all I hadn’t accomplished; I surveyed my face for crevices.[1] Midnight was marked with friends and cupcakes[2]. I fielded the requisite phone calls and flowers at work, and had dinner with 15 friends who braved an impending blizzard to celebrate.[3] Then I went home and waited to feel grown up and responsible overnight. I didn’t. It took four days. My father had recently begun a consulting project in Cleveland, away from my mother in Boston and his three adult kids in New York and Washington, D.C.[4] I was concerned about him being all alone in a dingy[5] apartment. “Calm down,” my older brother told me when I relayed my apprehensions.[6] Dad was set up in a nice corporate apartment, he loves to cook, and he’d be flying home on the weekends, so my hyperbolic scenario wasn’t likely to become a reality.[7] And so I stopped worrying about him and went back to worrying about myself. Three days after my birthday, my dad vomited[8] blood at work. The next day, he was hospitalized[9]. Alone in Cleveland. Hundreds of miles from anyone we knew. I was aimlessly[10] shopping when I got the call that Saturday afternoon. “What are you doing?” my mom asked. “Just killing time before dinner with some friends,” I answered. Then she got to the point: “Your father’s in the hospital.” | 
