童言童語 - I got soul, but I'm not a soldier.

By chenbeck

This story takes place in several different locations in both heaven and on earth. The novel begins at Ruby Pier. Eddie grew up very close to Ruby Pier because his father worked there for a living. Ruby Pier was thus a significant setting in Eddie's childhood; the novel flashes back many times to Eddie's childhood involving incidents at Ruby Pier. Ruby Pier is also where Eddie had his career as a maintenance man and is the very place where he was killed on his birthday.

When Eddie is in heaven, which is the bulk of the novel and also where he learns the five lessons, he visits five different settings: Ruby Pier, the battlegrounds on which he fought in the war, mountains, various wedding receptions and a river.

There are two major conflicts in this story; the first being Eddie vs. himself. When Eddie was young he never had the desire to work at Ruby Pier like his father did. After Eddie returned from the war, he was very depressed and angry at what he had done with the remainder of his life. He never had another career aside from Ruby Pier and he eventually moved back into the same apartment building, where he grew up, to take care of his mother. We can tell that Eddie internally stores a lot of regret, hatred and anger about his life. This conflict is resolved when he meets Tala in heaven. She helps him realize that his life did have……

(1) The 1st person
＊ Each of us was in your life for a reason. (You may not have known the reason at the time.)
    每一個人在你的生命裡都有一個存在的理由。(也許我們並不知道那個理由是什麼...)

＊ That there are no random acts. That we are all connected.
    所有的行為都不是隨機而無意義的。我們所有的人，彼此之間都有關連。

＊ Why people gather when others die? Why people feel they should?
- It is because the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take  someone, it misses someone else.
- There is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole.
"It is why we are drawn to babies . . . And to funerals."
    為什麼有人去世了，大家要聚在一塊呢?為什麼大家覺得應該聚在一塊呢?
- 這是因為人類的心靈都明白，追根究柢，所有的生命都是互相交錯的。
  死亡不僅僅是帶走了某一個人；死亡也與另一個人擦肩而過。
- 所有的事情都有平衡。一消一長。生與死，都是整體的一部分。就是這個緣故，所以我們會被嬰兒吸引...也參加葬禮。

＊ No life is a waste, the only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.
    沒有誰的生命是白白浪費掉的，如果花時間去想自己有多麼孤單，那才是浪費時間。

(2) The 2nd person
＊ Sacrifice. You made one. I made one. We all make them.
    But you were angry over yours. You kept thinking about what you lost.
    犧牲。你犧牲過，我犧牲過。我們都曾經做過犧牲。
    可是，大部份的人都對自己的犧牲感到憤怒，一直在想著自己失去了什麼。

＊ Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to. Little sacrifices. Big sacrifices. A mother works so her son can go to school. A daughter moves home to take care of her sick father.
    犧牲是人生的一部分。犧牲是應該的，沒有什麼好悔恨的，卻是值得嚮往的事情。
    小小的犧牲、大大的犧牲...就像一個母親為了讓她兒子上學而工作、一個女兒搬回家住為了就近照顧生病的父親..

＊ Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else.
    有時候，你犧牲了某個珍貴的東西，並不代表你真的失去它，你只不過是把它傳遞給了另一個人。

(3) The 3rd person
＊ You have peace, when you make it with yourself.
    想獲得平靜，你必須先跟自己和解。

＊ PARENTS RARELY LET go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them—a mother's approval, a father's nod—are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers ...
    父母很難得會放開自己的孩子，因此便由做子女的來放開父母。孩子們往前走；孩子們離開。這個放手的時刻出現的時候--得到了母親的認可、父親的點頭--它會被子女的成就蓋住。非要到日後，子女他們自己也皮肉鬆垂、心臟耗弱的時候，這才會明白，他們的故事和所有的成就，都要從母親父親的故事開始說起...

＊ Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.
    憤怒是一種毒藥，會腐蝕著我們的內心。我們以為怨恨是一項武器，可以用來攻擊那些傷害過我們的人。可是，仇恨是一把彎曲的刀：我們造成了傷害，其實是傷害了自己。

＊ Forgive. no one is born with anger. And when we die, the soul is freed of it. But now, here, in order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did, and why you no longer need to feel it.
    寬恕。沒有人一出生就帶著憤怒。而我們死的時候，靈魂也擺脫了憤怒。可是，現在，就在這裡，你必須先明白你為什麼會有那些憤怒，而你又為什麼不再需要有那些感受，這樣才能繼續前進。

(4) The 4th person
＊ People say they "find" love, as if it were an object hidden by a rock. But love takes many forms, and it is never the same for any man and woman. What people find then is a certain love. And Eddie found a
certain love with Marguerite, a grateful love, a deep but quiet love, one that he knew, above all else, was irreplaceable.
    人說自己 「找到 」愛情，彷彿愛情是藏在岩石後面的一個物件。然而，愛情有各種形式，每一個男人女人所認為的愛情並不相同。因此，人們所找到的是「某一種」愛。而艾迪是在瑪格莉特身上找到了某一種愛，一份感激之愛，一份深厚而安靜的愛，一份他認為是無可取代的愛。

＊ It never changes, when the groom lifts the veil, when the bride accepts the ring, the possibilities you
see in their eyes, it's the same around the world. They truly believe their love and their marriage is going to break all the records.
    都一樣的 — 當新郎掀起了新娘的頭紗，當新娘接下了戒指，你都會在他們眼中看到同樣的「希望」，全天下都是一樣的。新人真心相信自己的愛情與婚姻可以打破所有的記錄。

＊ Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that's all. ( You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor.) But when those senses weaken, another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it.
    "Life has to end. Love doesn't."
    失去的愛仍然是愛，只不過形式不一樣了。(你看不見他們的笑容、不能為他們端上三餐、不能撥弄他們的頭髮、不能勇有著他們在舞池裡轉) 可是，隨著這些感受的褪去，會有另一種感覺逐漸轉濃，那是記憶。記憶變成你的伴侶，你灌溉它、你擁有它、你與記憶共舞。
    「人生總會結束。愛，沒有終點。」

(5) The 5th person
＊ Each affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one.
    每一個人會對另一個人造成影響，另一個人又對其他人造成影響，這整個世界充滿了故事，然而所有的故事共同串連成一個完整的故事。

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- 原來，自己的生命裡一直都有別人的生命；
  而別人的故事與自己的故事，會在最無法預料的時空裡、產生交集。

- 每一個人都是重要的。

- 你能活著，是因為有另一個人為你而死去。你來到這裡，也許是因為有一些人正等著你為他們帶來意義。

- 當你不在乎失去，你才能真正愛著；當你完全付出自己，你才能真的活著。