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This story starts, of all things, with a viral tweet. It’s the summer of 2021. [qh]
真没想到这个故事始于一条大爆的推文。这是2021年的夏天。[qh]
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.[qh]
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。[qh]
I have not. I head up the stairs to my computer. [qh]
我没有看到。我上楼来到电脑前。[qh]
“How will I find it?” I shout. “You’ll find it,” he tells me. [qh]
“我怎样才能找到这张照片呢?” 我喊道。“你会找到的，”他告诉我。[qh]
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. [qh]
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。[qh]
Perhaps you, too, have seen this photo? [qh]
也许你也见过这张照片? [qh]
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. [qh]
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。[qh]
“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.”[qh]
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。”[qh]
That this earnest, heartfelt tweet has been liked some 80,000 times and retweeted more than 2,600 is already striking. [qh]
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。[qh]
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.[qh]
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。[qh]
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. [qh]
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。[qh]
One is proudly holding a tray of Yorkshire pudding he’s baked. [qh]
其中一个孩子自豪地端着一盘他烤好的约克郡布丁。[qh]
Another is spooning his mom on a picnic blanket.[qh]
另一个孩子在野餐毯上抱着妈妈。[qh]
I spend nearly an hour, just scrolling. [qh]
只是滚动翻看，我就花了将近一个小时。[qh]
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. [qh]
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。[qh]
It’s because he recognizes that to me, the tweet and downrush of replies are personal.[qh]
这是因为他意识到，推特和大量回复对我来说具有私人性。[qh]
He knows that I have an aunt whom no one speaks about and who herself barely speaks. [qh]
他知道我有个姨妈，没人提起她，她自己也几乎不会说话。[qh]
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. [qh]
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。[qh]
Before this very moment, in fact, I have forgotten she exists at all.[qh]
事实上，在这一刻之前，我已经完全忘记了她的存在。[qh]
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. [qh]
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。[qh]
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.[qh]
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。[qh]
She is a thinning shadow, an aging ghost.[qh]
她是稀疏的影子，远古的回忆。[qh]
