that those would ultimately be his identity,and if they were his identity they would become my identity,that that illness was going to take a very different shape as it unfolded. 那将永久成为他的特性，如果这是他的特性，也将会是我的特性，这将不同于病症最初呈现的那样。

We took him to the MRI machine, we took him to the CAT scanner,we took this day-old child and gave him over for an arterial blood draw. 我们带他做核磁共振，带他做计算机化X射线轴向分层造影，我们带着这个出生仅一天的孩子做动脉抽血。

We felt helpless. 我们感到无助。

And at the end of five hours, 五个小时后，

they said that his brain was completely clear and that he was by then extending his legs correctly. 医生们说他的大脑完全没问题，也可以完全正常伸展他的双腿。

And when I asked the pediatrician what had been going on,she said she thought in the morning he had probably had a cramp. 当我问儿科医生这是怎么回事，她说，她觉得早上他可能抽筋了。

But I thought how my mother was right. 我认为我的母亲是正确的。

I thought, the love you have for your children is unlike any other feeling in the world, 我以为你对自己孩子的爱是不同于世界上任何其他感觉的，

and until you have children, you don't know what it feels like. 直到你有孩子，你才知道那是什么样的感觉。

I think children had ensnared me the moment I connected fatherhood with loss. 我想是孩子让我，认为自己不是个称职的父亲。

But I'm not sure I would have noticed that if I hadn't been so in the thick of this research project of mine. 但我不确定自己会注意到，要不是我做了这么繁复的研究项目，

I'd encountered so much strange love,and I fell very naturally into its bewitching patterns. 我遇到了太多奇怪的爱，然后我很自然地陷入其迷人的模式。

And I saw how splendor can illuminate even the most abject vulnerabilities. 我看到光彩如何照亮最不幸的脆弱之处。

During these 10 years, I had witnessed and learned the terrifying joy of unbearable responsibility, 在这 10 年期间，我曾目睹和了解到，那些难以承受的责任，

and I had come to see how it conquers everything else. 我也看到了它如何克服一切苦难。

And while I had sometimes thought the parents I was interviewing were fools, 我曾经有时会想，我正在采访的父母是傻瓜，

enslaving themselves to a lifetime's journey with their thankless children and trying to breed identity out of misery, 让自己踏上给不知感恩的孩子们一生为奴的旅程，试图从痛苦中获得身份认同，我意识到，从研究开始那天起，我已建造了一块踏板，

I realized that day that my research had built me a plank and that I was ready to join them on their ship.Thank you. 随时准备着与他们同舟共济。谢谢。