Things in Nature Merely Grow

「存在，直到永遠。」
李翊雲寫給逝子的深情之書

失去之後，唯有愛與存在不滅


李翊雲這部非凡而又帶著抗爭意味的作品，是她對失去兒子詹姆斯後的一種「激進接納」。

「這句話無論怎麼說都不好聽，」李翊雲在書的開頭寫道。「這些事實必須被承認，但無論如何陳述都不會好聽：我和丈夫曾有兩個孩子，卻失去了他們兩個。2017年，16歲的文森特；2024年，19歲的詹姆斯。他們都選擇了自殺，離家不遠的地方結束了生命。」

這句話之所以難以啟齒，是因為言語無法承載如此重量。死亡成為事實僅需一瞬，「在時間線上就是一個單一的點」。如今停留在這個「單一點」上，李翊雲試著用思考、推理，去尋找可能為詹姆斯留下一席之地的語言。她盡己所能：「做那些能讓生活繼續的事」，這不僅是寫作，還有園藝、閱讀卡繆與維特根斯坦、學習鋼琴，以及與死亡並肩「帶著思考地活著」。

這本書獻給詹姆斯，但它並非關於哀悼或悲傷。正如李翊雲所寫：「那個不會死去的動詞是『存在』。文森特曾經存在，仍然存在，將永遠存在；詹姆斯曾經存在，仍然存在，將永遠存在；我們曾是、仍是、將永遠是他們的父母。不存在所謂『現在與過去』、『現在與未來』，只有『現在，現在，現在，還有現在』。」

《自然中的萬物只是生長》(暫譯)（Things in Nature Merely Grow）是李翊雲不屈精神的見證。

Yiyun Li's remarkable, defiant work of radical acceptance as she considers the loss of her son James. "There is no good way to say this," Yiyun Li writes at the beginning of this book. "There is no good way to state these facts, which must be acknowledged. My husband and I had two children and lost them both: Vincent in 2017, at sixteen, James in 2024, at nineteen. Both chose suicide, and both died not far from home." There is no good way to say this--because words fall short. It takes only an instant for death to become fact, "a single point in a timeline." Living now on this single point, Li turns to thinking and reasoning and searching for words that might hold a place for James. Li does what she can: "doing the things that work," including not just writing but gardening, reading Camus and Wittgenstein, learning the piano, and living thinkingly alongside death. This is a book for James, but it is not a book about grieving or mourning. As Li writes, "The verb that does not die is to be. Vincent was and is and will always be Vincent. James was and is and will always be James. We were and are and will always be their parents. There is no now and then, now and later, only, now and now and now and now." Things in Nature Merely Grow is a testament to Li's indomitable spirit.