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本原创朗读和封面版权归潘之声所有。欢迎点播、收听和下载。
未经潘之声授权许可，严谨将本节目朗读音频用于其他平台或商业用途！
朗读：Laura（潘之声英语世界.美国）
作者：Octavia C. Locke
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To this day I remember my mums letters. I...

介绍： 微信公众号：潘之声英语世界 | 视频号：潘之声
本原创朗读和封面版权归潘之声所有。欢迎点播、收听和下载。
未经潘之声授权许可，严谨将本节目朗读音频用于其他平台或商业用途！
朗读：Laura（潘之声英语世界.美国）
作者：Octavia C. Locke
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To this day I remember my mums letters. It all started in December 1941.
至今我依然记得母亲的信。事情要从1941年12月说起。
Every night she sat at the big table in the kitchen and wrote to my brother Johnny, who had been drafted that summer. We had not heard from him since the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
母亲每晚都坐在厨房的大饭桌旁边，给我弟弟约翰写信。那年夏天约翰应征入伍。自从日本袭击珍珠港以后，他就一直杳无音信。
I didn't understand why my mum kept writing Johnny when he never wrote back.
约翰从未回信，我不明白母亲为何还要坚持写下去。
“Wait and see—we'll get a letter from him one day”, she claimed. Mum said that there was a direct link from the brain to the written word that was just as strong as the light God has granted us. She trusted that this light would find Johnny.
可母亲还是坚持说："等着瞧吧，总有一天他会给我们回信的。" 她深信思想和文字是直接相连。这种联系就像上帝赋予人类的光芒一样强大，而这道光芒终会照耀到约翰的身上。
I don't know if she said that to calm herself, dad or all of us down. But I do know that it helped us stick together, and one day a letter really did arrive.
虽然我不肯定她是否只是在安慰自己，或是父亲，或者是我们几个孩子，但我们一家人却因此更加亲密。而最终我们终于等到了约翰的回信。
Around next spring mum had got two more sons to write to. Every evening she wrote three different letters which she gave to me and dad afterwards so we could add our greetings.
第二年春天，母亲也要开始给另外两个入伍的儿子写信了。每天晚上，她先写好三封内容不同的信交给我和父亲，然后我们再加上自己的问候。
Little by little the rumour about mums letters spread.
母亲写信的事渐渐传开。
One day a small woman knocked at our door. Her voice trembled as she asked: “Is it true you write letters?”
一天，一个矮小的女人来敲我们家的门，用颤抖的声音问：“你真的会写信吗?”
The woman opened her bag and pulled out a pile of air mail letters. 
女人打开背包，掏出一叠航空信。
The letters were from the woman’s son who was a soldier in Europe, a red-haired boy who mum remembered having seen sitting with his brothers on the stairs in front of our house. Mum read the letters one by one and translated them from English to Italian. The woman’s eyes welled up with tears. “Now I have to write to him,” she said. But how was she going to do it?
信是女人在欧洲参战的儿子写来的，母亲依稀还记得他的模样，他有一头红色的头发，常和他的兄弟一起坐在我们家门前的楼梯上。母亲把信一封接一封地从英文翻成意大利文读出来。听完，那女人双眼噙着泪水说：“我一定要给他写回信。”可是她该怎么办呢?
“Make some coffee, Octavia,” mum yelled to me in the living room while she took the woman with her into the kitchen and seated her at the table. She took the fountain pen, ink and air mail notepaper and began to write. When she had finished, she read the letter aloud to the woman.
“奥塔维娅，去冲杯咖啡来。”母亲在客厅大声叫我，然后把那女人领到厨房桌旁坐下，拿出钢笔、墨水和信纸开始写信，写完后为她大声读了出来。
“How did you know that was exactly what I wanted to say?”
“这正是我想说的话，您是怎么知道的呢？”
“I often sit and look at my boys’ letters, just like you, without a clue about what to write.”
“我也和你一样，常常坐在那里读我儿子的来信，完全不知道写什么好。”
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