VOA双语新闻 Christmas Holds Different Meanings

Jack 1 Lemmon's son Chris was also an actor, but left the profession for a career that allows him to spend more time at home with his family. He says that decision was prompted by memories of growing up in the shadow of a famous father who was seldom home with his family.

好莱坞有许多表演世家，比如方达家族、布里奇斯家族、巴里摩尔家族、希恩家族等等。杰克.莱蒙的儿子克里斯也做过演员，但是后来改行，从事一个能够有更多时间陪伴家人的职业。克里斯说，他小时候，大名鼎鼎的父亲很少在家，那段记忆给他留下的阴影促使他作出这个决定。

As Chris Lemmon watched his father lying in a hospital bed dying of cancer four years ago, he reflected on their unique relationship. "I'd pull my chair up next to his bedside and take his hand and I'd remember the wonderful time we had together."

四年前，克里斯看着身患癌症、奄奄一息躺在医院病床上的父亲，回想他们俩独特的父子情谊。他说：“我会把椅子拉到他的床边，握住他的手，回忆我们一起渡过的美好时光。”

But they weren't all wonderful. "My father and my mother went through that sort of compulsory 2 Hollywood divorce, when I was quite young," he says. "When you're as a big star as Jack Lemmon, you're forced to place yourself and your career first. I was yearning 3 for my father to be there. And what I had instead in my everyday life was an empty chair at the end of the table… an image that will haunt me for the rest of my days."

但是，以往的时光并不全是那么美好。克里斯说：“父亲和母亲经历了那种注定要发生的好莱坞式的离婚，当时我还很小。当你作为杰克.莱蒙那样的大明星，你就非得把你自己和你的事业摆到首位不可。我盼望父亲在身边，而我每天的生活中得到的却是饭桌顶端那把空椅子。这个景像在后来的日子里一直挥之不去。”

However, Lemmon recalls, the busy star recognized what his young son was going through. "So, he decided 4 to take me on adventures," he says. "They really resurrected our relationship together. That, and our mutual 5 love of music and later in my life, golf. It all really started with these wonderful adventures, once a year, for a week or two. For example, he'd come and take me to Alaska to go fly-fishing.

不过，克里斯回忆说，他那位忙碌的明星父亲后来认识到年幼的儿子所经历的酸楚。他说：“所以他决定带我去游历。这些经历确实恢复了我们彼此相依的父子情。我们共同的音乐爱好和后来喜欢上的高尔夫球，这些都开始于那些奇妙的经历，每年一次，每次一两个星期。比如说，他带我到阿拉斯加钓鱼。”

Through these adventures, Lemmon says, he came to know the real man behind the movie star image. "If you think he's funny on screen, he's funnier off screen," he says. "Going fishing with Jack Lemmon entailed 6 watching him fall in the stream repeatedly or sit on the bank trying to undo 7 all the knots in his fly line. I don't think he hardly ever fished! He was so fun and funny. If I had to put one word on it, he was so magical. Wherever you went with Jack Lemmon, it was always magical."

克里斯说，通过那些游历，他逐渐了解了电影明星形像背后的那个真实的人。他说：“如果你认为我父亲在银幕上很逗乐，在银幕下面就更逗乐了。跟杰克.莱蒙去钓鱼，可以看到他一再摔进水里，要不就是坐在岸边，试图解开鱼线上所有的疙瘩。我看他就没怎么钓鱼。他那么风趣逗乐。如果我必须用一个词来形容，那就是，他是那样的富有魔力。你跟杰克.莱蒙不管到哪里，都是有魔力的。”

In his book, A Twist of Lemmon: A Tribute to My Father, Chris Lemmon recalls the times that shaped his relationship with his father… and his understanding of himself. "I had actually had some difficulty coming to terms with my own self identity, a lot of which was due to being identified as Jack Lemmon's son not as Chris Lemmon," he says. "I was concerned with how I was going to find my way from beneath my father's iconic shadow. I learned a wonderful lesson from that, which was, don't be so hard on yourself, trust yourself, take it easy."

克里斯.莱蒙在他撰写的《给父亲的献礼，扭曲的莱蒙》一书中回顾了那些造就他与父亲的关系、以及对自身理解的时光。他说：“事实上，认同自己的身份，我有些困难。这其中很大一部份是由于我被看成是杰克.莱蒙的儿子，而不是克里斯.莱蒙。我很在意从我父亲的影子下面找到自己的路。我从那方面学到很好的一课，那就是：不要对自己太苛刻，相信自己，坦然处之。”

At that moment, Lemmon says, he realized that he didn't need to live his life solely 8 for the approval of others. That helped him develop his own personality, and eventually, choose his own path in life. "I worked as an actor for 25 straight years, but I never felt fulfilled. I always wanted to create," he says. "I always wanted to write."

克里斯说，那个时候他意识到他不需要只是为了别人的赞许而活着，这帮助他养成了自己的个性，并且帮助他最终选择了自己的人生道路。他说：“我当演员连续干了25年，可是从来没有感到满足。我总是想要创新，总是想要写作。”

So - in 1999 - he became a fulltime writer, and a fulltime father. "I have 3 children: a daughter, 16, and two boys, 11 and 9," he says. "Because I wanted to be there seven days a week, all the time, for my children, we decided to move away from Hollywood and New York. We live in the country, in New England right now. I'm there every morning when my kids wake up. I drive them to school. Then I come and I do my thing as a writer. At night I go home and I cook dinner for them with my wife. We sit down seven nights a week at that table because that's the one thing that will always haunt me, the empty chair at the end of the table. My three children will never have to go through that."

1999年，克里斯成了一名全职作家，同时也是全职父亲。他说：“我有三个孩子，16岁的女儿、11岁和9岁的两个儿子。因为我想每周7天每时每刻都在家。为了孩子，我们决定离开好莱坞和纽约。我们住在乡下，现在住在新英格兰地区。每天早晨孩子们醒来，我都在家。我开车送他们上学。然后我回来写作。晚上，我回家跟我妻子一起给孩子们做晚餐。我们每周7个晚上都坐在饭桌前，因为我一直挥之不去的一件事就是饭桌顶端那把空椅子。我的三个孩子永远不会有那种经历。”

However, this Father's day [June 18], Chris Lemmon will not be at the table. He's on a book tour, talking not only about his father but fatherhood, a topic, he says, that's not discussed very often. "For anybody who doesn't have a close relationship with their father, take it from me, please think about it twice," he says. "Go to that person and tell them you love them, tell them that and hold them and hug them every day because they might be gone tomorrow. And you don't know what you have until you lose it."

克里斯.莱蒙偶而也去外地旅行，比如进行他的售书活动。他不仅谈论有关他父亲的事情，而且还要谈论为父之道。克里斯说，这是个人们不常讨论的话题：“任何人，只要跟他们的父亲没有亲近的关系，从我这里取经吧，请再三想想。去告诉父亲你爱他，告诉他你爱他，每天拥抱他，因为他明天可能就离开人世了。直到你失去了，你才知道你所拥有的东西。”

Chris Lemmon hopes readers will realize how important and universal the father-son relationship is in guiding the sons' passage to adulthood 9.

克里斯.莱蒙希望读者能意识到在引导儿子走向成人期的过程中父子关系的重要性和普遍性。