读这本书的起因是LD在飞机上看了电影，想着我对妈妈的Alzheimer的关注，给我推荐了。我在网上很难找到电影，就转而找来这部书。
在书的最后和作者Lisa Genova 的对谈中发现， 居然她也是因为看到超过80岁祖母患有Alzheimer症而导致她想了解这病症的一些知识。她想从一个具有Alzheimer症病人的角度来看。所以她选择早期的（early-onset）Alzheimer的病人 - Alice 来演示 Alzheimer是如何慢慢恶化的。
我想不同的读者应该有着不同的阅读动机，比如想对该病的了解；想对真实病人表现、想法的了解； 想自己应该怎样做如果家里有这样的病人；想着病人和病人家属的伦理....。简单的把它当成一本小说大概不是那么引人入胜。
不过我非常地被感动！
做点摘录和评论吧。
Her mother had comforted her and told her not to be sad for the butterflies, that just because their lives were short didn’t mean they were tragic. Watching them flying in the warm sun among the daisies in their garden, her mother had said to her, See, they have a beautiful life. Alice liked remembering that.
Alice的母亲和姐姐在她大一的时候出车祸过世。这可能是她心中很大的痛点。Butterfly也是颇具意义的，在书尾John（Alice的丈夫）找到她母亲的蝴蝶项链，并给她戴上。
Being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s is like being branded with a scarlet A. This is now who I am, someone with dementia. This was how I would, for a time, define myself and how others continue to define me. But I am not what I say or what I do or what I remember. I am fundamentally more than that.
I am a wife, mother, and friend, and soon to be grandmother. I still feel, understand, and am worthy of the love and joy in those relationships. I am still an active participant in society. My brain no longer works well, but I use my ears for unconditional listening, my shoulders for crying on, and my arms for hugging others with dementia. Through an early-stage support group, through the Dementia Advocacy and Support Network International, by talking to you today, I am helping others with dementia live better with dementia. I am not someone dying. I am someone living with Alzheimer’s. I want to do that as well as I possibly can.
Please don’t look at our scarlet A’s and write us off. Look us in the eye, talk directly to us. Don’t panic or take it personally if we make mistakes, because we will. We will repeat ourselves, we will misplace things, and we will get lost. We will forget your name and what you said two minutes ago. We will also try our hardest to compensate for and overcome our cognitive losses.
I encourage you to empower us, not limit us. If someone has a spinal cord injury, if someone has lost a limb or has a functional disability from a stroke, families and professionals work hard to rehabilitate that person, to find ways to cope and manage despite these losses. Work with us. Help us develop tools to function around our losses in memory, language, and cognition. Encourage involvement in support groups. We can help each other, both people with dementia and their caregivers, navigate through this Dr. Seuss land of neither here nor there.
My yesterdays are disappearing, and my tomorrows are uncertain, so what do I live for? I live for each day. I live in the moment. Some tomorrow soon, I’ll forget that I stood before you and gave this speech. But just because I’ll forget it some tomorrow doesn’t mean that I didn’t live every second of it today. I will forget today, but that doesn’t mean that today didn’t matter.
这是Alice 已经病的比较重但还算清醒的时候，给一些专家们做的讲演。是本书的高潮之一。这也是书名的原因之一？（用了很多still）
非常精彩的演讲。
Good morning. My name is Dr. Alice Howland. I’m not a neurologist or general practice physician, however. My doctorate is in psychology. I was a professor at Harvard University for twenty-five years. I taught courses in cognitive psychology, I did research in the field of linguistics, and I lectured all over the world.
早上好，我是爱丽丝.豪兰博士，不过，我并不是神经科医生或全科医生。我的博士专业读的是心理学。我在哈佛大学当了二十五年的教授。在那期间，我教认知心理学的课程，做语言学方面的实验，还经常去世界各地演讲。
I am not here today, however, to talk to you as an expert in psychology or language. I’m here today to talk to you as an expert in Alzheimer’s disease. I don’t treat patients, run clinical trials, study mutations in DNA, or counsel patients and their families. I am an expert in this subject because, just over a year ago, I was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
不过，今天，我并不是以心理学或语言学专家的身份，而是作为阿兹海默病的‘专家’来这里向你们做演讲的。我不接诊，不做临床试验，不研究基因变异，也不为患者家属提供建议。我之所以是这个领域的‘专家’，是因为就在一年前，我被查出得了阿兹海默病。
I’m honored to have this opportunity to talk with you today, to hopefully lend some insight into what it’s like to live with dementia. Soon, although I’ll still know what it is like, I’ll be unable to express it to you. And too soon after that, I’ll no longer even know I have dementia. So what I have to say today is timely.
我很荣幸今天能有这个机会，跟你们一起分享我对于痴呆生活的些许经验。虽然我以后绝不会缺少这类经验，但要不了多久，我就会失去跟你们分享的能力了。紧接着，我甚至可能再也不会意识到自己得了痴呆症。所以，今天的话，我必须得说，刻不容缓。
We, in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, are not yet utterly incompetent. We are not without language or opinions that matter or extended periods of lucidity. Yet we are not competent enough to be trusted with many of the demands and responsibilities of our former lives. We feel like we are neither here nor there, like some crazy Dr. Seuss character in a bizarre land. It’s a very lonely and frustrating place to be.
处于阿兹海默病早期的我们并非一无是处。我们不是没有语言能力、提不出有价值的看法或保持长时间的头脑清醒。然而，我们无法继续承担生活中的各种要求和责任了。我们感到无所适从，就像苏斯博士笔下的人物那样，来到了一片怪异的土地上，这是一个孤单而绝望的世界。
I no longer work at Harvard. I no longer read and write research articles or books. My reality is completely different from what it was not long ago. And it is distorted. The neural pathways I use to try to understand what you are saying, what I am thinking, and what is happening around me are gummed up with amyloid. I struggle to find the words I want to say and often hear myself saying the wrong ones. I can’t confidently judge spatial distances, which means I drop things and fall down a lot and can get lost two blocks from my home. And my short-term memory is hanging on by a couple of frayed threads.
我离开了哈佛。我不再阅读和写作学术论文或书籍了。现在的我跟不久以前简直判若两人。淀粉状蛋白堵塞了相关的神经通道，使我难以理解你们在说什么、自己在想什么以及周围在发生什么。我搜肠刮肚地寻找想说的词语，却听到自己一再说错。我对空间距离无法做出肯定的判断，结果老是掉东西、摔跤，离家两条街就迷路。我的短期记忆像是一个由两三根细线吊着的重物，而且那几根细线已经起了毛，马上就要断了。
I’m losing my yesterdays. If you ask me what I did yesterday, what happened, what I saw and felt and heard, I’d be hard-pressed to give you details. I might guess a few things correctly. I’m an excellent guesser. But I don’t really know. I don’t remember yesterday or the yesterday before that.
我正在失去我的昨天。要是问我昨天的所做所感、所看所听，我可能难以给出细致的答案。我很会猜，也许能猜对一些，但其实并不知道。我记不起昨天或昨天的昨天到底发生了什么。
And I have no control over which yesterdays I keep and which ones get deleted. This disease will not be bargained with. I can’t offer it the names of the United States presidents in exchange for the names of my children. I can’t give it the names of the state capitals and keep the memories of my husband.
而且我也无法选择留住或删除哪些过往。这个病不会让你讨价还价。我不能用忘记总统的名字换取记住我孩子的名字；我不能用忘记各州州府的名字换取对我丈夫的回忆。
I often fear tomorrow. What if I wake up and don’t know who my husband is? What if I don’t know where I am or recognize myself in the mirror? When will I no longer be me? Is the part of my brain that’s responsible for my unique ‘meness’ vulnerable to this disease? Or is my identity something that transcends neurons, proteins, and defective molecules of DNA? Is my soul and spirit immune to the ravages of Alzheimer’s? I believe it is.
我总是害怕明天的到来：我会不会一觉醒来不知道自己的丈夫是谁了呢？我什么时候会不再是我了呢？我会因为大脑损伤而失去独一无二的自己吗？或者，我的特征什么的并不受神经元、蛋白质和变异的基因控制？我的灵魂能免遭阿兹海默病的损坏吗？我相信能的。
Being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s is like being branded with a scarlet A. This is now who I am, someone with dementia. This was how I would, for a time, define myself and how others continue to define me. But I am not what I say or what I do or what I remember. I am fundamentally more than that.
被查出得了阿兹海默病就像是被贴上一张标签，上面写着个红的刺眼的‘A’。这就是现在的我了，一名痴呆症患者。在未来的日子里，我将这样定义自己，而之后，其他人将继续这样定义我。但是，我所说、所做或所记忆的远远不能代表全部的我。
（此处翻译不够精确。《红字》（The Scarlet Letter）是一部在1850年代出版，有历史背景的小说，作者是纳撒尼尔·霍桑。故事背景在 1642年到1649年期间，地点在美国马萨诸塞州波士顿的清教徒区，故事是关于一位女孩海斯特·白兰，她红杏出墙，怀了一个女娃。她需在胸前配戴一个象征“通奸”的红字“A”，让她觉得丢脸、羞愧，此外她还需站在断头台上三小时，让众人羞辱。）
I am a wife, mother, and friend, and soon to be grandmother. I still feel, understand, and am worthy of the love and joy in those relationships. I am still an active participant in society. My brain no longer works well, but I use my ears for unconditional listening, my shoulders for crying on, and my arms for hugging others with dementia. Through an early-stage support group, through the Dementia Advocacy and Support Network International, by talking to you today, I am helping others with dementia live better with dementia. I am not someone dying. I am someone living with Alzheimer’s. I want to do that as well as I possibly can.
我是一个妻子、母亲和朋友，不久还会是一个外祖母。我仍能从这些身份中体会到爱和喜悦，我仍能理解，也仍配得上这些爱和喜悦。我仍是社会的一份子。我的大脑是没有以前好使了，但我的耳朵仍能倾听，我的肩膀仍能供人依靠，我的双臂仍能拥抱其他得了痴呆症的人。借助互助小组和国际痴呆症互助网，通过今天在这里向你们演讲，我正在帮助其他痴呆症患者更好地生活。我不是个等死的人。我只是得了阿兹海默病。我希望尽我所能来帮助其他的痴呆症患者。
Dear Alice,
You wrote this letter to yourself when you were of sound mind. If you are reading this, and you are unable to answer one or more of the following questions, then you are no longer of sound mind:
1. What month is it?
2. Where do you live?
3. Where is your office?
4. When is Anna’s birthday?
5. How many children do you have?
You have Alzheimer’s disease. You have lost too much of yourself, too much of what you love, and you are not living the life you want to live. There is no good outcome to this disease, but you have chosen an outcome that is the most dignified, fair, and respectful to you and your family. You can no longer trust your own judgment, but you can trust mine, your former self, you before Alzheimer’s took too much of you away.
You lived an extraordinary and worthwhile life. You and your husband, John, have three healthy and amazing children, who are all loved and doing well in the world, and you had a remarkable career at Harvard filled with challenge, creativity, passion, and accomplishment.
This last part of your life, the part with Alzheimer’s, and this end that you’ve carefully chosen, is tragic, but you did not live a tragic life. I love you, and I’m proud of you, of how you’ve lived and all that you’ve done while you could.
Now, go to your bedroom. Go to the black table next to the bed, the one with the blue lamp on it. Open the drawer to that table. In the back of the drawer is a bottle of pills. The bottle has a white label on it that says FOR ALICE in black letters. There are a lot of pills in that bottle. Swallow all of them with a big glass of water. Make sure you swallow all of them. Then, get in the bed and go to sleep.
Go now, before you forget. And do not tell anyone what you’re doing. Please trust me.
Love,
Alice Howland
亲爱的爱丽丝，
这封信是你在还有着健全的头脑时写给你自己的。如果你在读这封信的时候，你不能够回答下面一个或更多的问题，你就不再有健全的头脑了：
1. 现在是几月？
2. 你在哪里住？
3. 你的办公室在哪里？
4. Anna（Anna是爱丽丝的女儿）的生日是哪天？
5. 你有几个孩子？
你得了阿兹海默症。你已经失去了太多的自己，失去了太多你所热爱的。你在过着不是你想要的生活。现在对这个病没有好的办法，但是你已经对你和你的家庭选择了最有尊严、公平和尊重的方式。你不能够再信任你自己的判断了，但是你是可以相信我的 - 你从前的你，那个在阿兹海默拿走你太多以前的你。
你曾经有过非凡的和有价值的生活。你和你的丈夫，John，有着三个健康的、了不起的孩子。你们深深地爱着他们，他们在这个世界上也做的很好。你在哈佛大学曾有过一个充满挑战，创造力，激情和成就的卓越职业。
生活中的这带着阿兹海默症最后部分、这个你已经仔细选择的最后部分是悲惨的，但是你从不想过悲惨的生活。我爱你，我为你曾经的生活、为你曾经做的你能够做的一切而自豪。
现在到你的卧室去，到那个靠在床边上面有个蓝色的灯的黑桌子旁边，打开抽屉。在抽屉后头有一瓶药。瓶子上白纸黑字地写着“给爱丽丝”。瓶子里有许多药，用一大瓶水把它们吃了。确认你把它们全吃了。然后，上床，睡觉。
现在就去吧，在你忘了之前。别告诉任何人你所做的，请相信我。
爱你的，
爱丽丝.郝兰
这是非常催人泪下的一段。Alice 在她清醒的时候给她自己的写的一封信。信中详细地指示如何结束自己的生命。
人是在什么情景下会考虑结束自己的生命呢？
