自考英语综合一上册 lesson 16

　　[00:00.00]Text  Remembering Tracy Bill

[00:06.40]This year,my husband David and I celebrated 1 the 22nd birthday

[00:12.75]of a man we had never met.

[00:16.82]His name was Tracy Bill Marsh 2,

[00:21.19]a tall handsome young man who worked in a pizza shop.

[00:27.14]Last summer,he was supposed to have been best man at his brother's wedding.

[00:33.99]But on the night of December 8,1992,

[00:39.76]Tracy got off work and stood in the pizza shop's parking lot talking to friends.

[00:48.72]Tracy jumped up on the hood 3 of a friend's car,

[00:53.86]as they had done a hundred times before.

[00:58.44]This time,though,Tracy lost his balance and fell.

[01:04.08]His head struck the pavement,hard.

[01:08.23]One of his friends rushed inside to call an ambulance,

[01:13.80]then he phoned Tracy's father,Bill Marsh.

[01:19.15]Bill raced to the hospital,where he was joined by Tracy's mother,Cory.

[01:25.32]She knew from the way the doctors talked there was little hope.

[01:32.16]Tracy had a broken skull--one doctor said he had never seen one so bad.

[01:39.92]Standing next to her son,

[01:43.68]Cory remembered that Tracy had once mentioned organ donation.

[01:50.05]Maybe I can spare another family this sorrow,she thought.

[01:55.80]When the time came,

[01:59.17]she and Bill signed the forms permitting his organs to be taken out.

[02:05.83]Tracy Bill Marsh died the next day.

[02:11.19]Twenty-four hours later,in a Boston hospital,

[02:16.05]Tracy's liver was transplanted into my husband,David,

[02:22.00]who was suffering from an incurable 4 liver disease.

[02:27.46]Months after his operation,

[02:31.59]David and I sent our unknown donor 5 family

[02:37.47]letters in care of the New England Organ Bank.

[02:43.03]As information about donors 6 was kept secret,

[02:48.20]we could not know where and to whom to send our thanks.

[02:54.05]But the donor's parents wished to meet someone

[02:59.04]who had gained life through the gift of their son's organs,

[03:04.29]so the organ bank agreed--for the first time

[03:09.47]--to bring together two families linked by the most bittersweet relationshiop.

[03:17.12]We were to meet Bill and Cory Marsh in a hotel room

[03:22.40]about halfway 7 between our homes.

[03:27.07]David and I arived an hour before the meeting.

[03:31.72]I placed fresh flowers,drinks,cheese and crackers 8 on a table.

[03:38.49]When the door opened,my heart stopped.

[03:43.14]We saw a middle-aged 9 couple.

[03:47.00]For a few seconds,we stood staring at one another.

[03:52.33]Then Cory and I hugged.Bill held out his hand to shake David's.

[03:59.91]His grip was electric,and David could feel that he didn't want to let go.

[04:06.47]Bill's first words to David were"Are you okay?"

[04:12.11]I hugged Bill and saw tears behind his glasses.

[04:18.06]"That's it for the tears,"he said,smiling.But it wasn't.

[04:23.71]We talk for 3 hour and a half.

[04:28.38]The marshes 10 showed us a picture of Tracy Bill.

[04:33.42]We learned for the first time how he had died

[04:38.28]--and something of how he had lived.

[04:42.44]He was a generous,good hearted young man

[04:47.01]who loved the outdoors and was never happier than when he was working under the hood of his car.

[04:54.45]Evenings,Tracy and his friends would set up floodlights in the garage,

[05:00.93]and Bill and Cory would go to sleep listening to the boy's laughter

[05:07.70]as they repaired cars.

[05:11.35]Carved on Tracy's gravestone is a car rolling down a mountain road.

[05:18.20]We learned something about Bill and Cory,too.

[05:22.95]Cory can't bring herself to throw out Tracy's best-loved pair of blue jeans,

[05:30.81]and she avoids the supermarket aisles 11 that carry his favorite foods.

[05:36.77]Every morning,as she gets in her car for work,

[05:41.42]she says good morning to Tracy.

[05:45.39]Bill and Tracy shared a love of stock-car racing 12.

[05:50.85]I said that David,while recovering from his operation,

[05:56.13]had renewed an old interest in stock-car racing.

[06:01.27]I mentioned that recently David got this crazy idea of taking a course somewhere down south

　　[06:09.53]where he could learn to drive a stock-car.

[06:13.89]Bill said instantly,"Tracy Bill would have loved that."

[06:20.66]When it was time to leave,we felt awkward.

[06:25.33]Enough had been disclosed about our lives to stay in touch.

[06:31.68]Now David and I know where to send our prayers.

[06:36.96]For the Marshes,seeing David and knowing he was well seemed to ease their suffering.

[06:45.32]I'll never forget seeing the tall David bending over Cory,

[06:52.37]her arms stretched around his wait as a mother would hug a son.

[06:58.93]For a long time they held each other tight.

[07:03.99]It was hard to know if she was saying hello or goodbye.

[07:11.12]Maybe she was saying both.