Daniel Patrick Keane was born on 4 February, 1996.
My dear son, it is six o'clock in the morning on the island of Hong Kong. You are asleep cradled in my left arm and I am learning the art of one-handed typing. Your mother, more tired yet more happy than I've ever known her, is sound asleep in the room next door and there is soft quiet in our apartment.
Since you arrived, days have melted into night and back again and we are learning a new grammar, a long sentence whose punctuation marks are feeding and winding and nappy changing and these occasional moments of quiet.
When you're older we'll tell you that you were born in Britain's last Asian colony in the lunar year of the pig and that when we brought you home, the staff of our apartment block gathered to wish you well. "It's a boy, so lucky, so lucky. We Chinese love boys," they told us. One man said you were the first baby to be born in the block in the year of the pig. This, he told us, was good Feng Shui, in other words a positive sign for the building and everyone who lived there.
Naturally your mother and I were only too happy to believe that. We had wanted you and waited for you, imagined you and dreamed
We have called you Daniel Patrick but I've been told by my Chinese friends that you should have a Chinese name as well and this glorious dawn sky makes me think we'll call you Son of the Eastern Star. So that later, when you and I are far from Asia, perhaps standing on a beach some evening, I can point at the sky and tell you of the Orient and the times and the people we knew there in the last years of the twentieth century.
Your coming has turned me upside down and inside out. So much that seemed essential to me has, in the past few days, taken on a different color. Like many foreign correspondents I know, I have lived a life that, on occasion, has veered close to the edge: war zones, natural disasters, darkness in all its shapes and forms.
In a world of insecurity and ambition and ego, it's easy to be drawn in, to take chances with our lives, to believe that what we do and what people say
And it's also true that I am pained, perhaps haunted is a better word, by the memory, suddenly so vivid now, of each suffering child I have come across on my journeys. To tell you the truth, it's nearly too much to bear at this moment to even think of children being hurt and abused and killed. And yet looking at you, the images come flooding back. Ten-year-old Andi Mikail dying from 11)napalm burns on a hillside in Eritrea, how his voice cried out, growing ever more faint when the wind blew dust on to his wounds. The two brothers, Domingo and Juste, in Menongue, southern Angola. Juste, two years old and blind, dying from malnutrition, being carried on seven-year-old Domingo's back, and there is Domingo's words to me, "He was nice before, but now he has the hunger."
Last October, in Afghanistan, when you were growing inside your mother, I met Sharja, aged twelve. Motherless, fatherless, guiding me through the grey ruins of her home, everything was gone, she told me. And I knew that, for all her tender years, she had learned more
There is one last memory. Of Rwanda, and the churchyard of the parish of Nyarabuye where, in a ransacked classroom, I found a mother and her three young children huddled together where they'd been beaten to death. The children had died holding on to their mother, that instinct we all learn form birth and in one way or another cling to until we die.
Daniel, these memories explain some of the fierce protectiveness I feel for you, the tenderness and the occasional moments of blind terror when I imagine anything happening to you. But there is something more, a story from long ago that I will tell you face to face, father to son, when you are older. It's a very personal story but it's part of the picture. It has to do with the long lines of blood and family,
It begins thirty-five years ago in a big city on a January morning with snow on the ground and a woman walking to hospital to have her first baby. She is in her early twenties and the city is still strange to her, bigger and noisier than the easy streets and gentle hills of her distant home. She's walking because there is no money and everything of value has been pawned to pay for the alcohol to which her husband has become addicted.
On the way, a taxi driver notices her sitting, exhausted and cold, in the doorway of a shop and he takes her to hospital for free. Later that day, she gives birth to a baby boy and, just as you are to me, he is the best thing she has ever seen. Her husband comes that night and weeps with joy when he sees his son. He is truly happy. Hungover, broke, but in his own way happy, for they were both young and in love with each other and their son.
But, Danie, time had some bad surprises in store for them. The cancer of alcoholism ate away at the man and he lost his family. This was not something he meant to do or wanted to do, it just was. When you are older, my son, you will learn
He died on the fifth of January, one day before the anniversary of his son's birth. But his son was too far away to hear his last words, his final breath, and all the things they might have wished to say to one another were left unspoken.
Yet now, Daniel, I must tell you that when you let out your first powerful cry in the delivery room of the Adventist Hospital and I became a father, I thought of your grandfather and, foolish though it may seem, hoped that in some way he could hear, across the infinity between the living and the dead, your proud statement of arrival. For if he could hear, he would recognize the distinct voice of family, the sound of hope and new beginnings that your and all your innocence and freshness have brought to the world.
相关单词：punctuation
punctuation解释：n.标点符号，标点法
punctuation例句：
My son's punctuation is terrible.我儿子的标点符号很糟糕。
A piece of writing without any punctuation is difficult to understand.一篇没有任何标点符号的文章是很难懂的。
相关单词：winding
winding解释：n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈
winding例句：
A winding lane led down towards the river.一条弯弯曲曲的小路通向河边。
The winding trail caused us to lose our orientation.迂回曲折的小道使我们迷失了方向。
相关单词：forth
forth解释：adv.向前；向外，往外
forth例句：
The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。
相关单词：slanting
slanting解释：倾斜的，歪斜的
slanting例句：
The rain is driving [slanting] in from the south. 南边潲雨。
The line is slanting to the left. 这根线向左斜了。
相关单词：flickering
flickering解释：adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的
flickering例句：
The crisp autumn wind is flickering away. 清爽的秋风正在吹拂。
The lights keep flickering. 灯光忽明忽暗。
相关单词：standing
standing解释：n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的
standing例句：
After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。
相关单词：veered
veered解释：v.（尤指交通工具）改变方向或路线( veer的过去式和过去分词 )；（指谈话内容、人的行为或观点）突然改变；（指风） （在北半球按顺时针方向、在南半球按逆时针方向）逐渐转向；风向顺时针转
veered例句：
The bus veered onto the wrong side of the road. 公共汽车突然驶入了逆行道。
The truck veered off the road and crashed into a tree. 卡车突然驶离公路撞上了一棵树。 来自《简明英汉词典》
相关单词：ego
ego解释：n.自我，自己，自尊
ego例句：
He is absolute ego in all thing.在所有的事情上他都绝对自我。
She has been on an ego trip since she sang on television.她上电视台唱过歌之后就一直自吹自擂。
相关单词：drawn
drawn解释：v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的
drawn例句：
All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。
相关单词：malnutrition
malnutrition解释：n.营养不良
malnutrition例句：
In Africa, there are a lot of children suffering from severe malnutrition.在非洲有大批严重营养不良的孩子。
It is a classic case of malnutrition. 这是营养不良的典型病例。
相关单词：aged
aged解释：adj.年老的，陈年的
aged例句：
He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。
相关单词：ransacked
ransacked解释：v.彻底搜查( ransack的过去式和过去分词 )；抢劫，掠夺
ransacked例句：
The house had been ransacked by burglars. 这房子遭到了盗贼的洗劫。
The house had been ransacked of all that was worth anything. 屋子里所有值钱的东西都被抢去了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
相关单词：huddled
huddled解释：挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式）
huddled例句：
We huddled together for warmth. 我们挤在一块取暖。
We huddled together to keep warm. 我们挤在一起来保暖。
相关单词：pawned
pawned解释：v.典当，抵押( pawn的过去式和过去分词 )；以（某事物）担保
pawned例句：
He pawned his gold watch to pay the rent. 他抵当了金表用以交租。 来自《简明英汉词典》
She has redeemed her pawned jewellery. 她赎回了当掉的珠宝。 来自《简明英汉词典》
相关单词：addicted
addicted解释：adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的
addicted例句：
He was addicted to heroin at the age of 17.他17岁的时候对海洛因上了瘾。
She's become addicted to love stories.她迷上了爱情小说。
相关单词：exhausted
exhausted解释：adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的
exhausted例句：
It was a long haul home and we arrived exhausted.搬运回家的这段路程特别长，到家时我们已筋疲力尽。
Jenny was exhausted by the hustle of city life.珍妮被城市生活的忙乱弄得筋疲力尽。
相关单词：doorway
doorway解释：n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径
doorway例句：
They huddled in the shop doorway to shelter from the rain.他们挤在商店门口躲雨。
Mary suddenly appeared in the doorway.玛丽突然出现在门口。
相关单词：infinity
infinity解释：n.无限，无穷，大量
infinity例句：
It is impossible to count up to infinity.不可能数到无穷大。
Theoretically,a line can extend into infinity.从理论上来说直线可以无限地延伸。
相关单词：innocence
innocence解释：n.无罪；天真；无害
innocence例句：
There was a touching air of innocence
The accused man proved his innocence of the crime.被告人经证实无罪。
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