4 minute Coffee with Uncle Reggie story: “What happens at age 80?!”
与曾叔叔的4分钟咖啡故事:“80岁时会发生什么?!” (DG翻译)
Coffee Reggiegram:
What are your plans at age 80?
There are perks at 80?
与曾叔叔喝咖啡短信:
80岁的时候你有什么计划?
80岁有什么特殊待遇吗?
Part 1. What happens when it’s also 2020?
第一部分.80岁撞上2020会发生什么?
Are these dangerous times? The Coronavirus Covid19 outbreak reminded us vividly that we were (then nearly) 80 years old! We saw on the news constant reminders of how dangerous the virus was for “older people”, and the number 80 always stood out as being really dangerous for “them”, those people over 80.
现在是危险的时期吗?新冠肺炎疫情生动地提醒我们，我们(当时快)80岁了!因为我们在新闻上看到不断提醒这种病毒对“老年人”有多危险。对于那些80岁以上的人来说，80这个数字也就会不断地警示他们实际更加危险。
When did we cross the danger line? One Sunday we were the only people sitting in our usual Sunday lunch spot. The usually busy Seattle Eastside café had become eerily deserted. With virus danger signals flashing around us, it suddenly dawned on us that we were the high risk ones! The next day, March 15, 2020, Washington State locked down restaurants, and us!
我们什么时候跨过了警戒线?一个星期天，只有我们坐在我们常去的星期天午餐点。往常繁忙的西雅图东区café变得出奇的冷清。当病毒危险信号在我们周围闪烁时，我们突然意识到我们才是高危人群!第二天，2020年3月15日，华盛顿州因疫情原因餐饮停业了，我们也进入居家状态!
Somewhere along the way, we had crossed a red line without realizing it. We were non high risk in February 2020, but became high risk sometime in March. Only essential people were not locked in. So officially we were now non-essential, locked-in, high-risk people.
在人生的某个阶段，我们不知不觉地越过了红线。我们在2020年2月的时候还不高危，但是在3月的某个时候就一下高危了。只有必须工作的人才不用被封锁。所以正式来说，我们现在是不必须的、不重要的、被锁在家里的、高危人员。
Photo 1: Locked down empty Café Ori. 80 year olds shouldn’t show up for lunch. Our last meal one day before Seattle shutdown.
图1:封城后空空的Café Ori. 80岁的人是不应该出现在餐厅吃午餐的。纪念西雅图封城前……. 最后一餐。
What happens when there aren’t enough ventilators? We began to see alarming reports of leaked Italian hospital documents. They apparently declared that, in view of possible lack of ventilators for Covid19 patients in Italy, people over 80 would not be given ventilator support. Visions of expendable older folk in primitive tribes left out in jungles or ice floes came immediately into mind. Non-essential, high-risk, locked-in, expendable.
如果没有足够的呼吸机怎么办?我们开始看到关于意大利医院文件泄露的令人震惊的报道。他们明确宣布，鉴于意大利可能缺乏给新冠肺炎患者使用的呼吸机，将不会为80岁以上的人提供呼吸机支持。我的脑海里立刻浮现出原始部落中老人被遗弃在丛林或浮冰中的画面。我们这些不必须的、不重要的、被锁在家里的、高危, 可牺牲的人员。
Who’s trying to protect us? Actually the phrase “we’re 80” became a good pretext/logic for a lot of things. If anyone actually asked us to do anything like going out, instantly in our mind there was an angel reminding us, “Hey, you’re nearly 80!” Which meant that we really shouldn’t! Nor do anything else potentially “high risk”.
谁在保护我们?实际上，“我们80岁了”这个短语成了很多事情的借口/逻辑。如果有人真的让我们做任何事，比如出去走走，我们脑海中立刻会有一个天使在提醒我们:“嘿，你都快80岁了!”这意味着我们真的不应该去!其他任何可能存在“高风险”的事情也不例外。
Photo 3: Shutdown time benefit, prompting elegant red beard growth, observed from video coffee chat.
图3:封城的好处，促使优雅的红胡子生长—-从视频聊天截图。
With the stay at home state order, immediately our Seattle family responded and surrounded us, so that we became truly and pleasantly locked in.
按照华州“居家令”的规定，我们西雅图的家人立即做出反应，把我们保护起来，这样我们就真正地、愉快地被锁在里面了。
Who’s feeling pampered? Our groceries and/or take-out Chinese lunches were brought in by my wife’s niece, and our son with his wife. They joined us for lunch at our home, so twice a week we actually had in-home company, which was comfortingly sweet. We decided that was “Covid19 legal” since we were family.
“老来得宠”？我们的食品杂货和/或外卖中餐是由我妻子的侄女、我们的儿子和儿媳带来。他们和我们一起在我们家吃午饭，所以我们实际上每周有两次会有家人作伴，这是令人欣慰的甜蜜。我们自己认为我们这样决定是符合” covid – 19合法”要求的，因为我们是家人。
For lunch we fondly used our small quaint Chinese marble and wood dining table, passed on from our grandparents, literally from the ancestral Hakka village. It was a historic use for us since we barely used it for dining before the pandemic. So even though non-essential to the state, we were well pampered by family, a very good feeling!
午餐时，我们在那张小巧而典雅的木制的、镶嵌大理石的餐桌上享用午餐，这个桌子是我们家祖传下来的。这对我们来说是一次历史性的使用，因为在新冠大流行之前我们几乎从不用它吃饭。所以即使对社会来说我们已经是“非必要的”，我们仍被家人照顾得很好，难得的感受!
Photo 2: Isolation at home prompts good historic use of ancestral dining table, having remote takeout lunch.
图二:隔离在家。正好用上祖传餐桌，享用远程外卖午餐。
Is there a bonus to this? With the lockdown, surprisingly I saved some normal local travel time, and speedily finished my bilingual Coffee with Uncle Reggie Book 3, to send it off fully to the Hong Kong publishers. And, for the first time I focused attention on distribution issues, which resulted shockingly in 10,000 worldwide orders during the pandemic period. For the first time! Credit the coronavirus!
这有什么好处吗?在封城期间，没想到的是让我节省了一些正常的旅行完成了《与曾叔叔闲聊3》的双语版，并将其全部寄给了香港出版商。而且，我第一次把注意力集中在分销问题上。结果在此期间，全球范围内的2020年的订单数量惊人地达到了1万份。这是第一次! 是不是要归功于新冠？
Photo 4: Coffee with Uncle Reggie Book 3 finished because of pandemic isolation. Age 80 begs question of how many more books?
图四:因疫情隔离，《与曾叔叔闲聊3》完成。80岁让人不禁要问，还有多少书可以再出?
Why the kid gloves? Touchingly, we sensed our family were handling us now with extra kid gloves, even more gently and affectionately it seemed! And we received phone, email, Whatsapp and Wechat communications about how we were doing, from friends in the USA and abroad. 80 years old might actually be a good number to be connected!
成了“珍惜物种”? 令人感动的是，我们感觉我们的家人现在正以特别的关心对待我们，更加温柔和亲切!我们收到来自美国和国外朋友的电话、电子邮件、Whatsapp和微信的信息，询问我们的情况。80岁实际上可能是一个很好地增进家人、朋友联系的数字!
Part 2. What do the numbers say?
第二部分.数字说明了什么?
How do you view these funny numbers? Seriously, 80 is a serious number, since in theory the average life expectancy for Americans is only 78, so we’re already over that number! “More than expected, sorry.”
你如何看待这些有趣的数字?说真的，80岁是个严肃的数字，因为理论上美国人的平均预期寿命只有78岁，所以我们已经超过了这个数字!“活超了，对不起。”
However the number for Asian Americans (did you know that?) is supposed to be 86, so we’re not there yet! “A few more years, excuse me.”
然而，亚裔美国人(你知道吗?)的平均寿命是86，所以我们还没有达到那个数字!“抱歉，还没达标。”
And then there are biblical numbers of 70 being the usual limit, but 80 as outlier. So we’re hovering around all these authoritative reference numbers. One conclusion could be, it’s certainly beyond time for me to think about life as being “one day at a time”, never knowing what the next day holds! Which is biblical anyway, at any age.
圣经中记述70岁是通常的上限，但80岁是异常值。所以我们在这些权威的参考数字周围徘徊。一个结论可能是，对于我来说，把生活想象成“过一天算一天”肯定是超越时间的，永远不知道第二天会发生什么!这在任何年龄都是符合圣经的。
What about 90s?! I met several people well over 90 years in our Bellevue church and they looked surprisingly spry and healthy. I would have thought they were “only 80”.
90岁会怎么样？ !我在我们的贝尔维尤教堂遇到了几个90多岁的人，他们看起来令人惊讶地活泼和健康。我以为他们“只有80岁”。
Photo 5: Meeting senior surgeon at church. How old do you think he is? I think he’s “only 80”, but see text above.
图五:在教堂见到的资深外科医生。你觉得他多大了?我想他“只有80岁”。但真相在上面的文字里。
During the pandemic, I heard on TV about a couple, both aged 99 who lived together in a Seattle nursing home. Remember Seattle is famous for the first nursing home covid19 deaths in USA. One of the couple contracted Covid19, was quite sick but survived, while the other did not even have the disease at all! So life is always full of exceptions to any reference numbers!
在新冠大流行期间，我在电视上听到一对99岁的夫妇住在西雅图一家养老院的故事。请记住，西雅图以美国首例来自养老院的新冠肺炎死亡病例而闻名。其中一人感染了covid – 19，病得很重，但幸存了下来，而另一人则根本就没得这种病!所以生活总是充满了例外!
100s, that’s really old!!? And then we have good friends who were beyond a hundred. A hundred! Even I would agree that’s really old!! We particularly like the story of our dear friend Israel Martin who had a Christian bookstore in Cincinnati. He was driving in his 90s and only passed away at age 105!
100岁，真的很老了!!?我们还有超过100岁的好朋友。一百岁!连我都同意那真的很老!!我们特别喜欢我们的好朋友Israel Martin的故事，他在辛辛那提有一家基督教书店。他90多岁还在开车，105岁去世!
In our family there are quite a few in their 90s, or have lived to their 90s and even over 100. Dad’s older sister passed away at age 105. So what do these intimidating numbers really mean? What are we ourselves to expect?
在我们家，有不少人已经90多岁了，或者活到90多岁，甚至超过100岁。我父亲的姐姐105岁时去世。那么，这些令人生畏的数字到底意味着什么呢?我们自己会期待什么呢?
We are especially shocked to hear of numbers of even 120, like the historical Moses, but in modern accounts. They seem apparently to often live in remote mountain areas, “away from civilization”! Presumably away also from pollution and toxins in air, water and food. Certainly away from fancy pricey doctors who prescribe youthful lotions, potions and cosmetic surgery. Even away from modern sophisticated geriatric medical care! What’s going on, we wonder?
当我们听到120岁这个数字时，在现代的记录里会让我们尤其震惊，就像历史上的摩西。他们似乎经常生活在偏远的山区，“远离文明”!大概也远离了空气、水和食物中的污染和毒素。当然，还远离那些开出青春润肤露、药水和整容手术的昂贵的医生。即使远离现代复杂的老年医疗护理!我们想知道到底是为什么?
Any time is a good time? Since I am a planner, frankly all these numbers complicate my fondness for order and planning. It would be nice to have a sensible number, no glamorous expectations! For example, should I plan to write one more book? As a Jesus believer, however, I’m glad to meet my Lord, anytime. Glad to go when time’s up!
什么时候都是好时机?由于我是一个爱做计划的人，坦白地说，所有这些数字使我对秩序和计划的喜爱复杂化。有一个合理的数字就好了，没有迷人的期望!例如，我是否应该计划再写一本书?然而，作为一个耶稣信徒，我很高兴在任何时候见到我的主。时间到了就去!
So, are we essential or not? Finally, with the common quip that life has 100% mortality in the background, I re-read one of my Coffee with Uncle Reggie Book 1 stories reminding us that there’s “Eternity in our genes”. So even though we don’t go beyond 80, 90, 100, even 120, genes can theoretically go on and on. Forever!?
那么，我们是不是必须的？最后，我又读了一遍《与曾叔叔闲聊》。这本书的故事提醒我们，“我们的基因显示永恒”。所以即使我们没有超过80,90,100，甚至120，基因理论上可以一直延续下去。永远! ?
But as long as we are still living, at whatever age, 80 or 120, it would be good to be considered by everyone, state or otherwise, as essential, risk worthy and non-expendable. Because we are all honorably created, in the Imago Dei, image of God!
但只要我们还活着，无论年龄是80岁还是120岁，每个人、国家或其他方面都认为我们是必须的、被珍视、不可被牺牲的，这是件好事。因为我们都是荣耀地被创造出来的，是上帝的形象(Imago Dei)!
