新视野大学英语读写教程听力 第三册 te-unit05-c

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[00:-1.00]1  My mother called last week to tell me that my grand-mother is dying.
[00:-2.00]She has refused on operation that would delay,
[00:-3.00]but not prevent, her death from cancer.
[00:-4.00]She can't eat, she has been bleeding,
[00:-5.00]and her skin is a deep yellow color.
[00:-6.00]"I always prided myself on being different," she told my mother.
[00:-7.00]"Now I am different. I'm yellow."
[00:-8.00]2  My grandmother was born in Russia to a large
[00:-9.00]and prosperous Jewish family.
[00:10.00]But the prosperity didn't last.
[00:11.00]She tells stories of attacks by other Russians when she was twelve.
[00:12.00]Soon after that, her family moved to Canada,
[00:13.00]where she met my grandfather.
[00:14.00]3  Their children were the center of their life.
[00:15.00]Though they never had much money,
[00:16.00]my grandmother saw to it that her daughter had speaking lessons
[00:17.00]and piano lessons,
[00:18.00]and as-sured her that she would go to college.
[00:19.00]4  But while she was at college,
[00:20.00]my mother met my father,
[00:21.00]who was blue-eyed and yellow-haired and not Jewish.
[00:22.00]When my father sent love letters to my mother,
[00:23.00]my grandmother would open and then hide them.
[00:24.00]5  After my grandfather died, my grandmother lived,
[00:25.00]more than ever, through her children.
[00:26.00]When she came to visit, I would hide my diary.
[00:27.00]She couldn't understand that some things were private.
[00:28.00]She couldn't bear it if my mother left the house without her.
[00:29.00]6  This desire to possess and control others made my mother very angry
[00:30.00](and then guilty that she felt that way,
[00:31.00]when of course she owed so much to her mother).
[00:32.00]So I felt the anger that my mother — the good daughter
[00:33.00] — would not allow herself.
[00:34.00]I — who had always performed especially well for my grandmother,
[00:35.00]danced and sung for her,
[00:36.00]presented her with kisses and good report cards — stopped writing to her,
[00:37.00]ceased to visit.
[00:38.00]7  But when I heard that she was dying.
[00:39.00]I realized I wanted to go to see her one more time.
[00:40.00]Mostly to make my mother happy,
[00:41.00]I told myself (certain patterns being hard to break).
[00:42.00]But also, I was presenting to her one more particularly fine achievement:
[00:43.00]my own dark-eyed, dark-skinned, dark-haired daughter,
[00:44.00]whom my grandmother had never met.
[00:45.00]8  I put on my daughter's best dress for our visit,
[00:46.00]the way the best dresses were always put on me,
[00:47.00]and I filled my pockets with small cookies,
[00:48.00]in case my daughter started to cry.
[00:49.00]I washed her face without mercy.
[00:50.00]Going up to Grandma's hospital room,
[00:51.00]I realized how much I was sweating.
[00:52.00]9  Grandma was lying flat with her eyes shut,
[00:53.00]but she opened them when I leaned over to kiss her.
[00:54.00]"It's Dorothy's daughter, Kathleen," I shouted,
[00:55.00]because she doesn't hear well anymore,
[00:56.00]but I could see that no explanation was necessary.
[00:57.00]"You came," she said. "You brought the baby."
[00:58.00]10  Laurie is just one year old,
[00:59.00]but she has seen enough of the world to know
[-1:00.00]that people in beds are not meant to be so still and yellow,
[-1:-1.00]and she looked frightened.
[-1:-2.00]I had never wanted, more, for her to smile.
[-1:-3.00]11  Then Grandma waved at her — the same kind of slow wave a baby makes
[-1:-4.00] — and Laurie waved back.
[-1:-5.00]I spread her toys out on my grandmother's bed and sat her down.
[-1:-6.00]There she stayed, most of the afternoon,
[-1:-7.00]playing and singing and drinking from her bottle,
[-1:-8.00]sleeping at one point,
[-1:-9.00]leaning against my grandmother's leg.
[-1:10.00]When I played some music,
[-1:11.00]Laurie stood up on the bed and danced.
[-1:12.00]Grandma wouldn't talk much anymore,
[-1:13.00]though every once in a while she would say