(单词翻译:单击)
This story starts, of all things, with a viral tweet. It’s the summer of 2021.
真没想到这个故事始于一条大爆的推文。这是2021年的夏天。
My husband wanders into the kitchen and asks whether I’ve seen the post from the English theater director that has been whipping around Twitter, the one featuring a photograph of his nonverbal son.
我丈夫信步走进厨房，问我有没有看到推特上疯传的那个英国戏剧导演发的帖子，内容是一张他无法说话的儿子的照片。
I have not. I head up the stairs to my computer.
我没有看到。我上楼来到电脑前。
“How will I find it?” I shout. “You’ll find it,” he tells me.
“我怎样才能找到这张照片呢?” 我喊道。“你会找到的，”他告诉我。
I do, within a matter of seconds: a picture of Joey Unwin, smiling gently for the camera, his bare calves and sandaled toes a few steps from an inlet by the sea.
几秒之内，我找到了：照片里，乔伊·昂温对着镜头温柔地微笑着，他光着小腿，穿着凉鞋，露着脚趾，离海边的一个入口只有几步之遥。
Perhaps you, too, have seen this photo?
也许你也见过这张照片?
His father, Stephen, surely did not intend it to become the sensation it did—he wasn’t being political, wasn’t playing to the groundlings.
他的父亲，斯蒂芬，当然没有想过让这件事引起轰动——他不是在玩弄政治，也不是在讨好草根。
“Joey is 25 today,” he wrote. “He’s never said a word in his life, but has taught me so much more than I’ve ever taught him.”
他写到：“乔伊今天25岁了，他生来从未说过一句话，但他教给我的东西比我教给他的多得多。”
That this earnest, heartfelt tweet has been liked some 80,000 times and retweeted more than 2,600 is already striking.
这条诚挚真切的推文已经被点赞了8万次，转发了2600多次，这已经令人震惊。
But even more so is the cascade of replies: scores of photographs from parents of non- and minimally verbal children from all over the world.
但更让人吃惊的是一连串的回复：来自世界各地无法说话或极少说话的孩子的父母发来了大批的照片。
Some of the kids are young and some are old; some hold pets and some sit on swings; some grin broadly and some affect a more serious, thoughtful air.
这些孩子有的年纪小，有的年纪大；有的养宠物，有的坐在秋千上；有的咧嘴大笑，有的则摆出一副更严肃、更深思的样子。
One is proudly holding a tray of Yorkshire pudding he’s baked.
其中一个孩子自豪地端着一盘他烤好的约克郡布丁。
Another is spooning his mom on a picnic blanket.
另一个孩子在野餐毯上抱着妈妈。
I spend nearly an hour, just scrolling.
只是滚动翻看，我就花了将近一个小时。
I am only partway through when I realize my husband hasn’t steered me toward this outpouring simply because it’s an atypical Twitter moment, suff used with the sincere and the personal.
当我刷到一半的时候，我意识到丈夫之所以没有将我引向涌现的回复，仅仅是因为这不是一般的推特热搜，这是真挚和私人的东西。
It’s because he recognizes that to me, the tweet and downrush of replies are personal.
这是因为他意识到，推特和大量回复对我来说具有私人性。
He knows that I have an aunt whom no one speaks about and who herself barely speaks.
他知道我有个姨妈，没人提起她，她自己也几乎不会说话。
She is, at the time of this tweet, 70 years old and living in a group home in upstate New York. I have met her just once.
在这条推特发布时，姨妈已经70岁了，居住在纽约北部的一个收容所。我只见过她一次。
Before this very moment, in fact, I have forgotten she exists at all.
事实上，在这一刻之前，我已经完全忘记了她的存在。
It is extraordinary what we hide from ourselves—and even more extraordinary that we once hid her, my mother’s sister, and so many like her from everyone.
离奇的是，我们会对自己隐藏，更离奇的是，我们曾隐藏过她--我母亲的妹妹，而且还对每个人隐藏许多像她一样的人。
Here are all these pictures of nonverbal children, so pulsingly alive—their parents describing their pleasures, their passions, their strengths and styles and tastes—while I know nothing, absolutely nothing, of my aunt’s life at all.
这里是所有这些无法说话的孩子的照片，如此鲜活--父母描述着孩子的快乐，孩子的激情，孩子的力量，孩子的风格品味，而我对姨妈的生活却一无所知，绝对一无所知。
She is a thinning shadow, an aging ghost.
她是稀疏的影子，远古的回忆。
