My kitchen is largely occupied by my old, dirty, warm-brown dinner table.

我的厨房很大程度上被我那张旧、肮脏、暖棕色的餐桌所占据。

It’s seen better days. Every time I sit down, I’m surrounded by splatters of old paint, hot glue and the occasional dab of nail polish (that’s thanks to my older sisters). Whenever I sit at either of our two chairs, I have to be extra careful they don’t fall apart because the legs are held together by a tedious mixture of wood glue, brute force and pure spite.

这个餐桌记录了我那些美好的时光。每当我坐下来的时候，我都会被油漆、热胶水和偶尔的指甲油（这要归功于我的姐姐们）所包围。当我想要坐在两把椅子中的任何一把椅子上时，我都必须格外小心它们别坏掉，因为椅子的腿部简直是由木胶、蛮力和纯粹的怨恨混合在一起的。

The kitchen table itself has been the hub of my family for the entire first half of my life. When I was younger, we (my Gram, Pap and two older sisters) would eat a home-cooked meal, courtesy of my Gram, at that old, dirty, warm-brown dinner table at exactly 7 p.m. every single night.

在我整个生命的前半部分，厨房餐桌就是我家的中心。当我小一些的时候，我们（我的祖母、祖父和两个姐姐）会在每一个晚上7点准时在那个陈旧、肮脏、暖棕色餐桌上吃一顿祖母做的家常菜。

At these family dinners, I would argue with my Pap for fun, watch him get yelled at by my Gram for interrupting me eating my dinner and listen to my sisters either fight or joke; it was always a gamble.

Originally, my kitchen table had five sturdy wooden seats. A couple years later when my oldest sister was 16 years old and I was 8, the chair count lowered to four, as my oldest sister moved out. She fought too much with my Gram and wouldn’t follow the rules, so she left.

在家庭聚餐的过程中，我会和我的祖父争吵、看着他被我的祖母吼叫说“不要打扰孩子吃晚饭”、和我的姐妹们打架或开玩笑；这总像是一场赌博。

最初，我的厨房桌子围绕着五个坚固的木制座椅。几年后，当我的大姐16岁，我8岁时，她搬出去了，于是椅子数减少到4个。她和我的祖母争吵过太多次，且依然不愿意遵守家里的规则，所以她离开了。

Three years later my grandmother was diagnosed with small-cell lung cancer. That triggered a few more changes to our dinner table routine. First, my other older sister started to skip dinners. Not because of the inevitable food quality decline (cancer messes with your taste buds and overall cooking abilities), but because she was never home. I don’t think that she wanted to be around post-cancer-diagnosis Gram.

三年后，我的祖母被诊断出患有小细胞肺癌。这引发了我们餐桌例程的一些变化。首先，我的另一个姐姐开始不再吃晚餐。这不是因为不可避免的食品质量下降（癌症会影响你的味蕾与整体烹饪的质量），而是因为她不再回家。我觉得她并不想陪伴在确诊癌症的祖母身边。

The chair count dropped to three. The dinners themselves after a year or so were much less frequent, not so much because of my Gram, but because my Pap was determined to make Gram rest. She ignored my Pap’s concerns, so it sort of ended up in a middle gray area that I had to live in.

椅子数量下降到了三个。在这之后的一年里，家里晚餐的频率降低了很多，不是因为我的祖母，而是因为我的祖父决定让祖母好好地休息。她却忽视祖父的担忧，所以最终我落入他们中间的灰色区域。

A year and a half after my grandmother got cancer, she died. It may sound quick in words, but it was pretty dragged out. Don’t get me wrong, I love my grandmother, but people with cancer are usually dead long before they die.

在我的祖母得了癌症一年半之后，她去世了。虽然听起来很快，但是这个事情对于我们来说是非常漫长的。不要误会我的意思，我爱我的祖母，但癌症患者通常在去世前很早就已经了无生趣了。

I was there when she died, right smack dab in the middle of our living room. I was on one side of the bed, and my Pap was on the other. Her labored breaths slowed and then stopped. It sounds depressing, but it was sort of a happy moment. The first thing my Pap said was “Give her a hug, you can’t hurt her now.” And, despite the phlegmy cancer smell, I did. We only needed two chairs.

她去世的时候我就在旁边，正好就在我们起居室的中间。我在床的一边，我的祖父在另一边，祖母艰难的呼吸缓慢地停止了。这听起来令人沮丧，但这却是一个让我们得到宽慰的时刻。在这之后，祖父说的第一句话是“给她一个拥抱吧，放心你不会伤害到她。”尽管有痰癌的味道，我还是给了她一个拥抱。现在，我们只需要两把椅子了。

After that, Pap and I, with the remnants of our nontraditional American family, built an extra nontraditional family. It took a while before we stabilized ourselves, because, to be honest, we were low-income before grandma got cancer, but post-cancer was much worse.

在那之后，我的祖父和我，在非传统美国家庭的残余下，建立了一个新的非传统家庭。让我们自己稳定下来，花了我们一段时间，因为，说实话，我们在祖母得癌症之前是低收入家庭，并在她得了癌症后变得更糟糕。

Pap and I cut down on everything. We got rid of our cable, phone and internet. We used less oil, we used less water, we wasted less food, and at times we didn’t have a car because our minivan took up a bunch of gas and liked to break down frequently. But, despite a dreadfully boring WiFi-less and phoneless year, we made it through.

祖父和我开始节省一切吃穿用度。我们停掉了我们的电缆、电话和互联网。我们使用的油更少，我们用的水更少，我们浪费的食物更少。有时我们没有可以用的车，因为我们的小型货车耗油量很大，而且会经常坏掉。但是，尽管没有网路和电话的日子非常无聊，但我们挺过来了。

I still live in the same house, except now it has Wi-Fi. Our kitchen table is still standing, though we took the center piece of wood out so now it’s the perfect size for just the two of us. We don’t have nightly dinners anymore, but sometimes Pap and I sit on the couch and hang out.

现在我仍然住在同一栋房子里，并且现在有了Wi-Fi。我们的厨房桌子仍然站在那里，我们把中间的木头拿出来了，所以现在它拥有着适合我们两个人的完美尺寸。我们不再有家庭晚餐，但有时祖父会和我坐在沙发上闲聊。

Sure, maybe our coffee table chats aren’t the same as our nightly family dinners, and maybe our television doesn’t turn on anymore. Maybe our kitchen has ants, and maybe we have to listen to the Super Bowl on our outdated radio from the ’90s, and maybe, possibly, he is getting sicker now, too.

当然，也许我们在咖啡桌边的聊天与我们的夜间家庭聚餐不一样，也许我们的电视机不再打开了。也许我们的厨房里有蚂蚁，也许我们不得不听从90年代购买的过时的收音机里播放的超级碗，也许，他现在身体也变得越来越虚弱。

I don’t care that my new life revolves around a holey old couch, a grumpy old man, a couple of fat cats and a bearded dragon. I’m content with my Pap, and I’m content with the fact that every night at 7 p.m., two empty chairs surround my old, dirty, warm-brown dinner table in the darkness of my kitchen. These days, the lights are on in the living room.

我不在意我的新生活围绕着一个多孔的旧沙发、一个脾气暴躁的老人、几只肥猫和一条留着胡须的龙。我很满意和祖父一起的生活，我很满意这样的现实：每天晚上7点，在厨房的黑暗中，两把空椅子环绕着那个陈旧、肮脏、暖棕色的餐桌。在这些日子里，客厅里的灯依然亮着。