Terry Evanshen was one of Canadian football’s greatest receivers——a little man in a big man’s game who carried the ball for more than 10,000 yards in 14 1)bone-jarring seasons.
He played every 2)down as if it was his last. And in all his years in the 3)pros, a career that put him in the top 10 in total catches, with a remarkable 92 4)touchdowns, he surrendered only three 5)fumbles. A statistic that’s a measure of his legendary determination to never give up.
Despite his 6)Hall of Fame career, Terry’s memories of his playing days have been 7)irretrievably lost to 8)amnesia. The 14 years that saw Terry win the 9)Schenley Award for outstanding Canadian player twice, seven all-star selections and a 10)raft of other records, have been forgotten.
特里·伊文森是加拿大橄欖球史上最偉大的接球手之一。在這項大個子的運動里,小個子的他每逢比賽,要抱著球狂奔10000碼(約9144米)以上。他在狂暴而激烈的賽場上闖蕩了14個賽季。
每次進攻,他都將它看作是自己的最后一次進攻機會。他總共92次完成“觸地得分”,成績驕人。在他打職業(yè)賽的全部年頭里,他是接球次數最多的十大優(yōu)秀橄欖球手之一,他只掉過3次球。這些數字正是那他非一般的決心的真實寫照—永不放棄。
顯赫的職業(yè)生涯使特里在“名人堂”占有一席之地。然而,他對自己輝煌歲月的記憶,都在失憶后被徹底抹掉了。14年中,特里曾經兩次榮膺象征加拿大頂級運動員的“申里獎”、七次入選全明星隊,并獲得無數其他榮譽,但這些通通被遺忘了。
It was in the summer of 1988 that his post-football career in sales was 11)taking off. One day in July, his youngest daughter Jennifer remembers getting a phone call from Terry on his way home from work.
“He called on his cell phone, and said, ‘I’ll be home in 10 minutes.’ Coming home for a 12)barbecue.” Jennifer said, “And I said, ‘I love you’ and he said, ‘OK, I love you. I’ll see you in 10 minutes.’”
But as he passed through an intersection a van ran a red light, smashing into Terry’s jeep, ripping him out of his seat belt and sending him 13)hurtling five meters through the air.
Within minutes, Terry’s unconscious body was picked up by 14)paramedics at the side of the road. Noticing his skin had taken on a deep blue hue——indicating a lack of oxygen——medics put a pipe down Terry’s throat, and he was rushed to nearby Oshawa General hospital.
“By the time Terry came in, we were ready and waiting for him,” said Marianne Timmermans, one of the nurses who initially worked on him.
He was in critical condition.
那是在1988年的夏天,退役后的特里經營的銷售事業(yè)正處于攀升階段。他最小的女兒詹妮弗回憶說,那是七月的一天,她接到了特里的電話。他告訴女兒,他已經下班了,正在回家途中。
“他是用手機打的電話。他說:‘我10分鐘后就到家。’他正趕回家燒烤,”詹妮弗說,“接著我說:‘我愛你?!貞溃骸乙矏勰恪?0分鐘后見?!?
然而,當他駛過一個十字路口時,一輛大貨車闖紅燈,直接撞向了特里的吉普車,把系著安全帶的特里撞飛,拋到了5米以外。
很快,不省人事的特里被救護人員抬到了馬路一旁。他的皮膚呈青紫色,很明顯他已經嚴重缺氧。醫(yī)生把一根管子插進了特里的喉嚨,他被迅速送到了附近的奧沙華全科醫(yī)院。
“特里被送進來之前,我們早已準備就緒,在等著他了?!碑斈暾疹櫵钠渲幸晃蛔o士瑪麗安·提莫曼斯說。
特里的情況相當危急。
Moments later, police arrived at the Evanshen home with the news.
Lorraine, Terry’s wife of 25 years, remembers seeing him in the 15)intensive care unit for the first time after the accident.
There was nothing but machines all over him. He wasn’t a pretty sight, and at that time their hope and that of the doctors wasn’t very good.
Terry lay deep in a 16)coma.
But as unbelievable as his injuries seemed to be, so too were Terry’s powers of recovery. Three weeks after being thrown from his vehicle, he came out of his coma.
But although he was by all appearances 17)intact, Terry would soon reveal an injury far more severe than whatever damage had been done to his body.
A lifetime of memories had been vir-tually wiped clean. He didn’t even recognize his own wife.
It wasn’t just his memories of people and events that had been erased. When Terry awoke from his coma, he had been all but reduced to the level of a child; everything from his ability to talk and walk to his understanding of what it meant to be a husband and a father were all gone.
過了一會兒,警察來到了伊文森家里,將這一意外告知了他的家人。
和特里生活了25年的妻子洛蘭,回憶起事故后第一次在重癥監(jiān)護病房看到丈夫時的情形。
當時他全身上下接遍了大大小小的儀器。他看起來情況不妙,家人和醫(yī)生們都不抱樂觀態(tài)度。
特里處于深度昏迷狀態(tài)。
正如他的受傷是突如其來的一樣,他身體的康復能力同樣是讓人始料不及的。車禍后的三個星期,特里就從昏迷中清醒了過來。
雖然從表面看起來,特里的身體并沒有受太大傷害,但人們很快發(fā)現,車禍給特里造成的影響,遠不止身體上的傷害。
車禍把特里之前所有的記憶抹掉了,他甚至認不出自己的妻子。
消失的還不僅是特里對人物和事件的記憶。當他蘇醒過來后,他倒退到了兒童的認知水平——無論是語言能力和行走活動,還是對“丈夫”和“父親”角色的理解,他和一個小孩無異。
At age 44, Terry Evanshen would be starting all over again.
Terry had to retrain himself how to think, how to speak, even relearning something as basic as how to shave. But as 18)unsettling as his behavior was for his family, what made it worse was that Terry’s brain could not understand the most basic human emotions.
He recalls what it was like to live without a sense of what love is: not knowing what the word meant, I wouldn’t know how to look at other people. I wouldn’t know how to show proper affection to you. What is that affection anyway? What is right, what should I do?
But as much as Terry had a problem, he also had the support of his family, marked by small victories and a renewed bond between him and his three daughters, like when they taught him how to play football again.
“So I was standing there and I said ‘Put your hand out,’ like he used to,” said Terry’s daughter Tara. “So he did and then Tracey threw him the ball and that’s when he stood there, and that’s when I realized, ‘Oh my god, I think he really doesn’t remember how to do this.’ “
到了44歲的時候,特里·伊文森的人生突然被迫重頭再來。
特里必須重新學習如何思考,如何說話,甚至學習像刮胡子這么簡單的事情。特里的狀況讓家人痛心不已。更糟的是,特里的大腦已經完全無法理解最簡單的人類情感。
后來,特里回憶起在不明白愛的那段日子里的生活情形:“不知道‘愛’這個字意味著什么,我便不懂得該用什么目光看別人;我不知道怎么向他人恰當地表達感情;感情的涵義到底是什么呢?怎樣做才是對的?我該怎么做?”
特里遇到了困難,但他的家人一直不離不棄,他們在幫他一點一點地克服障礙,他和三個女兒之間也建立起了一種更加親密的關系。她們還教他打橄欖球。
“我站在那里,對他說‘伸出手來’,就好像他從前曾做的那樣,”特里的女兒塔拉說?!坝谑撬兆隽?,接著特蕾西把球拋給他,但他依然直愣愣地站在那里。那一刻,我猛然意識到——‘噢,天啊,我想他真的已經忘了如何打橄欖球了。’”
But when Terry returned in 1992 from a six-month 19)stint at a 20)state-of-the-art 21)rehabilitation center in Washington State, his recovery really began to 22)pick up steam. It has taken years to rebuild his shattered life, but today, more than 20 years since his playing days, Terry is a highly sought after motivational speaker. He tells his inspiring story of perseverance and courage in his presentation, Seize Each Day.
“Never forget, we’re all in this game of life together,” Evanshen said, as he frequently referred to his large stack of cue cards in his hands. “We will get to the finish line, one day at a time, one moment at a time, but celebrate the journey. Seize today, because yesterday is gone and is never coming back.”
The subject of the most watched Canadian movie of 2005, The Man Who Lost Himself, Evanshen says his family has been his most important asset. He stresses that he refuses to be a victim, claiming he is a survivor.
然而在1992年,當特里結束了在華盛頓州一個頂級的康復中心所進行的六個月療程后,他開始加速復原。他花了多年時間讓生活重新恢復正常。然而在他的運動生涯結束了二十多年后的今天,他成了一位炙手可熱的勵志演說家。在題為《把握每一天》的激勵演講中,他講述了自己如何堅持不懈、勇敢面對生活的故事。
“別忘了,在生命這場競賽中,我們都是參與者,”伊文森在演說過程中,不時需要查看手中的一大疊提示卡。“終有一天,我們會到達終點,生命中總會有那一刻的,但是,讓我們?yōu)檫^程歡呼吧。把握今天,因為昨天已經流逝,而且永遠不會再回頭。”
作為加拿大2005年最賣座的電影《丟失記憶的男人》的主角原型,伊文森說他生命中最重要的財富始終是家人。他強調,他沒有成為命運的受害者,他說他是與命運抗爭后幸存下來的人。