阅读理解
Blameless
I was a freshman in college
when I met the Whites. They were completely different from my own family, yet I
felt at home with them immediately. Jane White and I became friends at school,
and her family welcomed me like a long-lost cousin.
In my family, it was always
important to place blame when anything bad happened.
"Who did this?" my
mother would scream about a dirty kitchen.
"This is all your fault,
Katharine," my father would insist when the cat got out or the dishwasher
broke.
From the time we were little,
my sister, brothers and I told on each other. We set a place for blame at the
dinner table.
But the Whites didn't worry
about who had done what. They picked up the pieces and moved on with their
lives. The beauty of this was driven home to me the summer Jane died.
In July, the White sisters and
I decided to take a car trip from their home in Florida to New York. The two
older sisters, Sarah and Jane, were college students, and the youngest, Amy,
had recently turned sixteen. Proud of having a new driver's license, Amy was
excited about practicing her driving on the trip. She showed off her license to
everyone she met.
The big sisters shared the
driving of Sarah's new car during the first part of the trip, but when they
reached less crowded areas, they let Amy take over. Somewhere in South
Carolina, we pulled off the highway to eat. After lunch, Amy got behind the
wheel. She came to a crossroads with a stop sign. Whether she was nervous or
just didn't see the sign no one would ever know, but Amy continued into the
crossroads without stopping. The driver of a large truck, unable to stop in
time, ran into our car.
Jane was killed immediately.
I was slightly injured. The
most difficult thing that I've ever done was to call the Whites to tell them
about the accident and that Jane had died. Painful as it was for me to lose a
good friend, I knew that it was far worse for them to lose a child.
When Mr. and Mrs. White arrived
at the hospital, they found their two daughters sharing a room. Sarah had a few
cuts on the head; Amy's leg was broken. They hugged us all and cried tears of
sadness and of joy at seeing their daughters. They wiped away the girls' tears
and made a few jokes at Amy as she learned to use her crutches(拐杖).
To both of their daughters, and
especially to Amy, over and over they simply said, "We're so glad that
you're alive."
I was astonished. No blame. No
accusations.
Later, I asked the Whites why
they never talked about the fact that Amy was driving and had run a stop sign.
Mrs. White said, "Jane's
gone, and we miss her terribly. Nothing we say or do will ever bring her back.
But Amy has her whole life ahead of her. How can she lead a full and happy life
if she feels we blame her for her sister's death? "
They were right. Amy graduated
from the University of California and got married several years ago. She works
as a teacher of learning-disabled students. She's also a mother of two little
girls of her own, the oldest named Jane.
