SUSIE BUFFETT INTERVIEW
苏茜·巴菲特访谈
BECOMING WARREN BUFFETT
成为沃伦·巴菲特
KUNHARDT FILM FOUNDATION
昆哈特电影基金会
SUSIE BUFFETT
苏茜·巴菲特
October 8, 2015
2015年10月8日
Interviewed By: Peter Kunhardt
采访者：彼得·昆哈特
Total Running Time: 57 Minutes
总时长：57分钟
TITLE On her father’s interest in everything
标题 谈父亲对所有事情的兴趣
03:12:45:03
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
You know, he was talking the other night about some baseball something and he knows more stats and more history and more, you know everything. He absorbs everything, and—but the amazing thing is that he remembers it after he absorbs it; it sticks there somewhere so I—I just think he reads for—you know, for whatever’s there. It’s a lot of business but he’s also very interested in what’s going on in the community, he’s interested in the sports all over the country, particularly the Huskers. You know, everything. It’s amazing to me how much he knows and retains.
你知道，有天晚上他谈起棒球方面的某些事情，他知道的统计数据、历史还有其他各种东西都比别人多。他能吸收所有东西，但令人惊讶的是，他吸收之后能牢牢记住，总能保存在脑海里某个地方。我认为他只是随便阅读，只要感兴趣就看。他看的大部分都是商业方面的内容，但他也很关心社区发生的事情，他对全国的体育运动都很感兴趣，特别是内布拉斯加大学哈士奇队。他对所有东西都感兴趣。他的知识储备和记忆力简直令我惊叹。
TITLE He is an intense worker
标题 他工作很投入
03:14:02:22
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
No one’s ever asked me that before, and I—clearly my immediate answer is yes or no. He’s an intense worker, but I don’t know if that’s the same as being a hard worker. Not that he wouldn’t work hard, and doesn’t work hard, but he’s at the point in his life now where I think, you know he has a lot of control over what he does with his time so I think he worked harder when I was younger, in the sense that he spent—well I was gonna say he spent more time at it but he still spends a lot of time at it. You know, he would live at the office. If he could live at the office, he would just have the bed there and live there so I still don’t know the answer to that, I have to think about that.
从来没人问过我这个问题，我第一反应显然是回答“是”或“否”。他的工作确实很投入，但我不确定这是否就是勤奋工作。并不是说他过去不努力，现在也不是不努力，而是他如今已经到了一个阶段，我觉得他对自己的时间安排有更多掌控。所以我觉得在我小时候，他工作更卖力一些，因为他花了更多时间——我本来想说他以前花了更多时间，但其实他现在依然投入了大量的时间。他过去恨不得住在办公室，如果可以，他真的会在办公室放一张床住在那里。所以我其实还不知道怎么回答这个问题，我得再想想。
TITLE On her father singing her to sleep
标题 谈父亲唱歌哄她入睡的回忆
03:15:00:12
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
He used to rock me to sleep at night and sing ‘over the rainbow’ so I have this insanely sentimental attachment to that song, and he actually did a karaoke version that I have on, somewhere on a cd in my house, as a gift for me one time. He—he would just—I think the house was a little crazy with Howie and so he would come home and sit in the bedroom with me and rock me to sleep and sing which was really a lovely memory for me and—and you know the song is just, it’s huge for me, that song is really, that’s why I have all these Wizard of Oz things around the house.
他过去总在晚上摇着我入睡，给我唱《彩虹之上》，所以我对这首歌有着异常强烈的情感寄托。他还专门录了一次卡拉OK版送给我，现在家里某张CD里还保存着。我想可能因为家里有豪伊，家里气氛比较吵闹，他回家后会来到我房间，坐在床边摇着我入睡，一边唱歌，这对我来说真是非常美好的回忆。这首歌对我而言意义非凡，这也是为什么我家里会摆满《绿野仙踪》相关物品的原因。
TITLE Warren as a father
标题 作为父亲的沃伦
03:15:49:22
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
He was there physically. He was for me, and I think my brothers would have a different answer for this, for me, he was more present I think. I remember one day coming home from school and there was a big box on the dining room table and there was a new dress in it and there was a Slo Poke sucker. I was about 8 years old and my dad took me to the ballet. Now, at the time, that’s all it was. It was great but it was that. Now that I’m older, I’m sure my mother forced him to do it. I’m sure he didn’t wanna go but I never knew that at the time. So he would do stuff with me that was very sweet and thoughtful and so—and he—and he was always there. I mean he was there for homework help, although it was sort of hopeless to get math help from him because he could get the answer and then he couldn’t explain how he got it so it didn’t really matter but he was—and he was at the dinner table every night. Very present at the dinner table. I mean I’ve always had a very strong sense of how much it mattered to him to be—you know, in the house and there. And I have a very close relationship with him now. I think I’ve always had a very close relationship with him. But he wasn’t—you know, he wasn’t the dad out in the backyard throwing the football and he wasn’t really the dad, you know, sitting in the bedroom at night reading the stories with us, but I always had the sense he was there whenever we needed him. Well he was there whenever we needed him, ‘cause he was physically present. A lot of my friends had dads that travelled a lot. My dad was in the house and there. So I always, I guess there was some sense to me he was always available for anything. I never felt like if we went in the room and he was reading, which he was always reading, he was always reading, that we couldn’t interrupt him or talk to him. Or that he wouldn’t have time for us or that—you know—that didn’t happen.
他在家里总是很“在场”。对我而言，他确实如此，也许我兄弟们会有不同的答案，但在我看来，他更有存在感。我记得有一天放学回家后，餐桌上放了个大盒子，里面有条新裙子，还有一支斯洛波克棒棒糖。我当时大概8岁，爸爸带我去看了芭蕾。当时我觉得这就是普通的事情，很开心但也仅此而已。现在回想起来，我猜一定是妈妈强迫他去的。他肯定并不想去，但当时我并不知道。他会陪我做很多非常贴心且周到的事情。他总是陪伴着我们，比如辅导作业，尽管数学辅导是无望的，因为他只会得出答案却无法解释过程，但他每晚都在餐桌边陪伴我们。他很看重家庭陪伴。虽然他不是会陪我们在后院玩球的爸爸，也不是晚上坐在房间陪我们读故事书的爸爸，但我一直都觉得只要需要，他就在那里。很多朋友的爸爸经常出差，但我爸爸总是在家。我一直觉得无论何时都可以打扰他，即使他总是在阅读，也总有时间陪伴我们。这种情况从未改变过。
TITLE On her father’s thought process
标题 谈父亲的思维方式
03:19:27:21
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
Well I always told my mother we’d have to talk in sound bytes because—and sometimes I have gone to his office, once in a while, not very often, and said, “I need ten minutes of attention. Focus here.” And—and if you can’t do it, I’ll come over to your house tonight because if the phone rings and you’re gonna answer it, we can’t be doing that, right just—right now. And he’ll do it. He—he—I’ve never had him say, you know, no to that but I don’t ask for it very often. And it’s not because he doesn’t want to, it’s ‘cause I don’t think he can do it that often. So if you learn to talk in sound bytes and he can just hear what you need, he will—you know, then he’s there. But I learned that early on. If you start going into some long thing, unless you’ve explained to him ahead of time that it’s gonna be a long thing, and you need him to hang in there, you lose him.
我经常对我妈妈说，我们跟他讲话得简短扼要。有时候我偶尔去他办公室，不是经常去，会跟他说：“给我十分钟专注的时间，集中注意力。”如果你做不到，我晚上再去你家找你，因为如果电话响了你又要接，那我们现在就不能谈了。他会答应。我从来没听他说过不，但我也很少提出这样的要求。这不是因为他不想给我注意力，而是我觉得他很难经常做到。所以如果你学会了简短明了地表达需求，让他一下子听明白，他就会集中注意力。但我很早就学会了，如果你开始长篇大论，而之前又没跟他说明会讲得很长，需要他耐心听完，你就会发现他走神了。
03:20:27:14
You lose him to whatever giant thought he has in his head at that time that he was probably thinking about before you came in and really wants to get back to. And he gets back to it sometimes while your mid-sentence if you—if you don’t catch him right there.
你会发现他的注意力跑到了他脑中正在琢磨的某个重大问题上，这个问题很可能在你进门前他就在想，并且急于回到这个问题上。如果你不及时把他的注意力拉回来，他甚至可能在你说话说到一半时就已经溜号了。
TITLE On her mother’s support for her father
标题 谈母亲对父亲的支持
03:20:55:04
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
You know I’ve always said she’s the reason Berkshire Hathaway is Berkshire Hathaway. Because my mother totally supported him, enabled him, you know, she—she got it very early that he was gonna be this—I mean I don’t think she knew what he was gonna turn into but she knew that there was something big there and he needed that space and that support to let it happen and she did that, and I don’t think most women would’ve actually been able to do what she did, at all.
我一直都说，伯克希尔哈撒韦之所以能成为今天的伯克希尔哈撒韦，关键在于我母亲。因为我妈妈全力支持他、帮助他实现梦想。她很早就明白他将成就一番事业——虽然我觉得她未必能预料到他的成功规模，但她知道他的潜力巨大，他需要空间和支持才能发挥，而她提供了这些。我认为大部分女性根本做不到她所做的这些事。
TITLE On her father’s positive impact on so many
标题 谈父亲对许多人的积极影响
03:22:50:16
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
He’s an amazing person, starting with his integrity, and there’s not, you know, an ounce of greed there in him, and never has been and never will be. He doesn’t—he doesn’t really care about the money. He’s doing what he does—what he loves to do and by accident, you know he makes a whole bunch of money doing it. But if he—if he didn’t make a whole bunch of money, he’d be ok with that, as long as he was doing it. I think there’s a competitive piece of him that wants to do it better than anyone if he can. But the mark of that by accident is the money in this. It’s not—it wouldn’t matter if it was something else, if it was something he loved and he was doing really well.
他是个了不起的人，首先体现在他的正直上。他身上一点贪婪的成分都没有，从未有过，也永远不会有。他并不在意钱，他做这些事只是因为热爱，赚钱只是无意中的附带结果。如果他做这些事没有赚到很多钱，只要能继续做，他也不会介意。我觉得他内心有一份好胜心，想做到最好。但钱只是这种成功的附带标志。如果他热爱的事业是其他东西，而且也做得非常好，那么即便没有赚到钱，他也不会在意。
TITLE How Warren handled money with his kids
标题 沃伦如何教孩子们理财
03:23:39:02
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
We grew up in this very normal sort of situation I would say, kind of the regular father knows best kind of situation. He—we got an allowance, we all walked right out the door the minute we got it and went to three different drug stores and bought candy and magazines and did whatever we did with it. And I’m sure he’s told you the slot machine story. So yeah, he’s no dope. “Here kids, put your money in the slot machine.” Then of course he opens the back and gets all his money back. But he wasn’t—he wasn’t really—my mother was more, you know, the person who dealt with the money in the house when we were kids. And I worked and had my own—I had this thing in my room, it wasn’t a piggy bank but it was where I dropped all my paycheck money from my job. So I never felt like he was cheap or whatever word you wanna use for him, thrifty? Yeah I mean there’s the famous story about the kitchen with me. I had some trouble with that one just because I thought I was asking for a loan, I was not asking him to give me the money. I thought, oh come on, can’t you do this. But I think—I used to joke with my mother, I said “I’m gonna be on the cover of People magazine someday homeless.” Because my dad will be like this super rich guy and you know we’ll all be wandering around but he’s—he definitely loosened up as we’ve gotten older. I think part of it is that—well part of it’s my mother of course, she I’m sure was just poking at him I’m sure for years. The other part is I think, you know, he’s got three children now who are adults, and we’re not gonna turn into different people, Whatever we are, we are and you know, it’s not that bad so it doesn’t make him nervous anymore. But I, you know I just—basically I think he’s been right.
我们是在一个非常普通的家庭环境中长大的，那种典型的“父亲最清楚”式的家庭。我们领到零用钱后马上跑出去，到三家不同的药店买糖果、杂志之类的东西。他肯定告诉过你那个老虎机的故事。他可不傻：“孩子们，把钱投进老虎机吧！”然后当然，他打开机器背面又把钱全部取了回来。但实际上我们小时候，家里管钱的是我妈妈。我自己也工作，在房间里放了个类似存钱罐的容器，每次赚到钱就放进去。所以我从没觉得他吝啬或节俭。不过那次关于厨房装修的事情我确实有点不开心，因为我只是想借钱，不是要他白送。但总的来说，我觉得他的方法是对的。
TITLE Her mother
标题 她的母亲
03:25:55:21
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
Well the first thing that comes into my mind is she was and I think almost everybody who ever knew her would say this; she was one of the best people you’d ever know. She was completely non-judgmental and could see the good in anyone. I always used to say, she could explain to you why Jeffrey Dahmer cut those people up and put them in a freezer and you know, poor Jeffrey, he must’ve had this happen and that happen, he didn’t really mean to do this. I mean my mothers the only person who could find some good in everyone and I think everybody felt like they were her best friend because she— and the reason they would have felt that way is because the care and interest she had in them was genuine. I don’t know how she did it; I mean sometimes I just think you know, it was very real. I called—I called her at the Plaza hotel one time years ago, she and my dad were in New York. They had just gotten there, my dad answered the phone. He said, “Well mom’s out in the hall, she’s been out there with the bellman for about half an hour.” I thought well, of course she is. Pretty soon she’s gonna come back, she’s gonna know all his kids name, she’s gonna be sending a check for the daughters dance camp. She’s—and—and she’ll call him in a few months to check and see how things are going, ‘cause she’ll care. She was very, very unusual that way and it was—you know—it was 100% authentic. I’ve never known anybody who had so much ability for unconditional love and complete just sort of acceptance for who you were—whoever you were.
我首先想到的是，我妈妈是一个非常好的人。我想几乎所有认识她的人都会这样说。她完全不会评判别人，总能看到每个人的善良。我常开玩笑说，就算是杰弗里·达默这种把人肢解后放冰箱里的杀人犯，她也能替他说情：“可怜的杰弗里，他一定是经历了什么痛苦的事，他并不是真的想这么做。” 我妈妈是唯一一个能在每个人身上找到闪光点的人。我觉得每个人都觉得自己是她最好的朋友，因为她对别人的关心和兴趣都是真诚的。我不知道她怎么做到的，但有时候我觉得这份真诚特别真实。好多年前，她和我爸刚到纽约，我打电话到广场酒店找她，我爸接的电话，说：“你妈在走廊里，跟那个行李员聊了半个小时了。”我心想，这很正常。过不了多久，她就会回来，知道那个行李员孩子们的名字，还会寄张支票给他女儿去参加舞蹈夏令营。几个月后她还会打电话给他，问问他们家最近怎么样，因为她真的关心别人。这一点非常特别，而且百分百真实。我从没见过像她这样对人充满无条件的爱，完全接受每个人原本样子的人。
TITLE On how her mother helped her father
标题 她母亲是如何帮助她父亲的
03:28:13:11
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
Well it’s a little hard for me to talk about early on ’cause I was you know, busy being three. But I know he came—he was a very awkward, insecure young man. I mean I’m sure he’s told you, they had a special room for him at the school, because he was such a problem and he—you know I mean he—he was—which I always like to tell especially young people because I think, you know, if you screwed up, or you know, look—look what this guy turned into. And not just the money but the person that he is, the human being that he is. So anything’s possible, pretty much. But my mother, I’m sure as she did with everyone, but did it in a much more intense way with my dad. I mean she can see the good in everyone, she could see the potential. She, I think understood how much pain was there. And she was really good with people who were in pain or had experienced some personal pain and she was very good at sort of—you know she functions—functioned in a lot of ways as a therapist honestly, cause she would ask a lot of questions, she cared deeply and then she would sort of help you think about things differently.
要谈早期的情况对我来说有点困难，因为我当时才三岁。但我知道我爸年轻时是个非常笨拙、不自信的人。他肯定告诉过你们，学校里甚至专门为他准备了一间房间，因为他实在太难管教了。我特别喜欢跟年轻人分享这一点：如果你觉得自己搞砸了，看看他后来变成了什么样子吧。不只是财富，而是他这个人本身。所以一切都有可能。但我妈妈，她虽然对所有人都这样，但对我爸更是用心。她总能看到每个人的优点和潜力。她也能理解人内心的痛苦。她特别擅长帮助经历过痛苦的人，某种意义上她确实像个心理治疗师，因为她会问很多问题，深切关心你，然后引导你换个角度思考问题。
03:29:35:11
I think with my dad, she talked to him about a lot where the pain was coming from, why, you know, whatever was going on with him was going on. She probably heard him—I mean I’m sure that some of the things he probably said to her early on about how successful he might be, or what he wanted to do or— I’m sure she probably thought, oh right, we’ll see but then of course it came true. But she would’ve been very supportive and nurturing and you know, I—he—you know, like I said, he was present in the house physically and he was there but he was upstairs reading all the time and she really in some ways had to develop her own life outside of that which I completely get but—yeah I mean she was always so loving towards him and so, she would—you know she would always publicly talk about you know, how great, how smart, how wonderful which she believed and its all true. I just think it was sort of over the years, it just sort of—you know it was what he needed. I don’t know how to describe it exactly. I mean they had a very, you know, physically together, they were very sweet with each other.
我觉得我妈妈跟我爸聊过很多关于痛苦的来源，为什么会这样、他心里究竟发生了什么。早期他可能跟她提过一些他未来会多么成功、想做什么的计划，我想我妈当时或许只是想“好吧，走着瞧”，但最后这些确实成真了。她总是非常支持、关爱他。我爸一直在家，但总是待在楼上看书，我妈在某种程度上必须发展自己独立的生活，这点我也完全理解。但她总是非常爱护我爸，经常公开夸赞他多优秀、多聪明、多棒，她确实是这么想的，这也都是真的。我觉得这些年里，这种鼓励正是我爸所需要的。他们关系亲密，举止甜蜜。
03:31:44:21
You know, she was so physically affectionate with him and he was with her but I don’t know if he would have been that way if she hadn’t sort of initiated all of it and sort of made him comfortable. But she was very— they were very—they were very, you could tell they loved each other. It was—it was very clear to me that they did.
我妈妈经常主动对我爸表达爱意，我爸也回应得很好，但如果不是她主动，我不知道我爸能否做到这么自然。但很明显，他们非常相爱。这一点我看得特别清楚。
TITLE On how her mother served as a therapist
标题 谈母亲如何扮演治疗师的角色
03:32:23:14
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
My mother came from such a different kind of childhood, so it certainly wasn’t from her personal experience that she was you know, able to do that. You know, she did that with so many people, on a smaller level of course ‘cause she wasn’t married to them and living with them but she was somebody—I mean that’s why—I mean she had all these people who you know, she functioned—she functioned as a therapist for a lot of people because she would listen to people about their family stuff, and their personal stuff, and you know, whatever was going on in their lives and would sort of talk them through it and get them to look at things differently, think about things differently and feel better in the end.
我母亲的童年经历和我父亲完全不同，她之所以能做到这些，肯定不是因为自己的亲身经历。但她确实帮助了很多人，当然规模更小一些，因为她并没有和这些人结婚生活在一起。但她确实是这样的人，这也是为什么她身边总有那么多人依赖她，她几乎就是他们的心理治疗师。她会耐心倾听他们家庭的烦恼、个人的烦恼，以及他们生活中发生的各种事情，然后帮助他们理清思绪，让他们换个角度看待问题，最终让他们感觉好受一些。
TITLE On her parents coming from conservative families
标题 谈她父母都出身于保守家庭
03:33:23:08
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
It’s—It is interesting to me that they both came from these very conservative republican families so similar in so many ways, and my—both sets of grandparents were actually friends separately. Yeah I—it—I still sort of think—how did this—how did they both come out the way they did, because it’s completely not—you know what they were getting at home from their parents at all. I mean my Grandpa Thompson was—he had this little chair we called his nest when he was older; he’d sit there and he had all his stuff around him and there were two pictures, little cut-out black and white pictures taped on the wall next to him and one was my mother, and one was Ronald Reagan. You know so, it’s just—it’s funny to me, I don’t—I’m sure it was my mother who—but I will say my dad probably from his dad still had a deep sense of sort of what’s right and sort of, human rights and I—I mean so he would have gotten this, some of the integrity part of him would have come from his father, so it—it just got sort of morphed into a liberal-democrat kind of thing. But I’m sure my mother—you know she got involved in this panel of American women and it was a big thing and a lot of civil rights work going on in Omaha in the early 60’s and she was very active and my dad was there, I’m sure she’d come home and talk to him about it and you know, I—I think he probably just agreed with her and felt like she was doing the right thing and—and—yeah but I—I do think about that periodically, about how strange it is that they both came out of these—super nice people, I mean my mothers parents could not have been more—they were wonderful people. But—and part of Grandpa’s thing, I mean I used to think you know, part of grandpas thing was he would just kind of poke at you to get you to argue with him. So I’m not—I—I—you know sometimes I think he said things he didn’t even think were true to get you to think about what you were saying and argue with him. But he still had Ronald Reagan’s picture taped next to him.
我觉得很有意思的是，我父母都来自非常保守的共和党家庭，这两家在很多方面都非常相似。而且我的外祖父母和祖父母各自之间本来也都是朋友。我现在仍然在想，他们两个怎么会变成后来这样的呢？因为这跟他们从父母那里接受到的家庭观念完全不一样。我记得汤普森外公年纪大时，有张他经常坐的小椅子，我们称之为他的“鸟巢”，他就坐在那里，周围摆着他所有的东西。在他旁边墙上贴着两张黑白的小照片，一张是我妈妈，另一张是罗纳德·里根。所以对我来说挺滑稽的——我想肯定是我妈妈影响了我爸爸，但我也承认我爸爸从他父亲那里继承了一些深刻的道德感和人权意识，这部分的正直感应该是源自他父亲的，只是后来逐渐演变成了自由派民主党人的思维方式。我妈妈参加过“美国女性委员会”，那是1960年代初奥马哈市一项重要的民权运动，她非常积极地参与其中。我爸爸当时也在，她肯定经常回家跟他讨论这些事，我想我爸爸大概就很同意她的观点，认为她做的事是对的。我偶尔还是会想到，他们俩怎么会从这样极好的家庭背景里走出完全不同的道路。我的外祖父母都是特别好的人。外公有时候会故意挑衅我们，让我们和他争论，有时我觉得他甚至说些自己也不相信的话，只是为了激发我们的思考，和他争辩。但即便如此，他还是在旁边贴着里根的照片。
TITLE Her paternal grandparents
标题 她的祖父母（父亲的父母）
03:35:51:15
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
I—I’m the oldest grandchild on that side. So I was ten when grandpa died and we spent a huge amount of time with all of my grandparents actually when we were kids, so I have a lot of memories of grandpa. We used to take these rides out in the country and they had—I still can’t figure out now how we did this, but they had a car that had like a luggage rack thing along the back? I guess, I don’t know, I don’t think it was that unusual at the time and my cousin and I used to flip around on the luggage rack and—we spent a huge amount of time with—with all of my grandparents when we were kids so I have a lot of memories of grandpa and then my grandma didn’t die until I was I don’t know what, 30 some years old so I remember her very well. I st—you know—both—I—I remember all my grandparents.
我是家里这一代最大的孙辈。祖父去世时我10岁，我们小时候跟祖父母们都相处了很多时间，所以我对祖父有很多记忆。我们过去经常到乡下兜风，他们有一辆汽车，后面居然有个类似行李架的东西？我现在都搞不明白我们当时怎么做到的，可能当时这也没什么稀奇的吧。我和我堂兄弟姐妹们就经常坐在那个行李架上玩。我们童年与祖父母们度过了很多快乐时光，所以我对祖父印象特别深刻。祖母去世时我大概已经三十几岁了，所以我对她的记忆也特别清晰。实际上，我对所有的祖父母都有深刻的回忆。
TITLE Her paternal grandmother
标题 她的祖母（父亲的母亲）
03:36:56:11
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
She was a tough cookie. You know, I didn’t personally experience anything you know, with her; I got along with her actually quite well. And I—but you know, I was also the one who was here and I was—at the end of her life, the last few years, I was the one, you know taking her to the doctors, paying the bills and I did a lot of stuff at the end, the last probably 5 or 6 years for her so—
她是个很坚强的人。我自己倒没有亲身体验到她难相处的一面；其实我和她相处得非常好。而且，在她生命的最后几年，我一直陪伴在她身边，带她去看医生、支付账单，最后五六年里，我为她做了很多事情。
TITLE Omaha in the 1960’s
标题 1960年代的奥马哈
03:37:57:03
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
I was in high school – I mean I graduated in 1971, so I was—in junior high and high school in the 60’s in Omaha; there was a lot more going on here than probably people think that weren’t here and I was in a very racially mixed high school so we had plenty going on actually in school too and my mother was very active in the North Omaha community and was physically present and involved with a lot of agencies in North Omaha doing her Panel of American work—American women, and she was right there on the ground working. My dad was 100% supportive but—I—and I think the only reason he probably wasn’t more there is— it was—he was—you know, he was doing his job. So, but—he was completely supportive, and you know he did do some things. He—he helped start the boys club here with his uncle Fred. He—and he was quite active in that. He helped start the black bank here and then of course he tried to join Highland Country Club, the all-Jewish country club while his friend Nick Newman tried to join the non-Jewish club, basically to force it to happen. And—he was—and he was—he cared a lot about that because it was something I think he thought he could do and he could make it happen and it mattered that it happened, so he was—he was not doing a lot personally but he did a few things in a big way and he was 100% behind my mother.
我当时在念高中——1971年毕业的，也就是说，我在60年代的奥马哈上初中和高中。奥马哈当时的社会活动比大多数外地人想象的要多很多。我所在的高中种族混杂，学校里就发生着许多社会运动。我妈妈在北奥马哈社区非常活跃，她亲自在那里参与许多社会机构的工作，推动“美国女性委员会”的工作，她一直都亲自到现场参与。我爸爸则百分百支持她，但我想他之所以没有更多地直接参与，主要是因为他需要专注于自己的事业。不过，他完全支持我母亲的行动，他也做了一些具体的事情。他和他的叔叔弗雷德在这里一起创建了“男孩俱乐部”，并积极参与运作。他还帮助创立了当地的一家黑人银行。此外，他曾申请加入由犹太人组成的高地乡村俱乐部，同时他的朋友尼克·纽曼尝试加入非犹太人俱乐部，实际上是为了推动打破这种隔离现象。他非常在意这些事，因为他觉得自己可以做一些努力让改变发生，而这种改变非常重要。虽然他亲自做的事情不算多，但每一件都意义重大。他对我母亲则始终百分之百地支持。
TITLE On her mother’s singing
标题 谈母亲唱歌的经历
03:40:10:09
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
She was singing all the time when we were kids. She—it was—most of that happened after I left, being the oldest of the three of us. And she loved—I mean she loved singing and when she got sick actually, one of the things she was most worried about was that she wouldn’t be able to sing again. But she—I think when—once Howie and I were both gone, and my dad being the character that he is—I mean I think she figured out she was going to have to figure something for her life because my mother would never in a million years have been happy being Mrs. Warren Buffett. I mean that is so not who she was. And so staying in Omaha I think would have meant to her, oh gosh, you know getting involved in all kinds of stuff that just—it was so not her thing, it—it would of killed her, she couldn’t have done it. So I think the singing was a great outlet for her. She loved it. She saw it as—you know I think it was something that was just her. And my dad loved it too; I mean he was so supportive of that and so I think she started to think—I—probably once Howie was out of the house for sure, she started to see the writing on the wall here and you know just started trying to figure out how she could at least have some more—as she called it, you know, a room of her own. Which ended up being outside—not a room in Omaha. So it was partly the singing but I think it was also—you know, Howie, well that came later, I was gonna say Howie married a woman with four great girls and then they had their own child. And you know, it—it—it started to morph into this thing where there were a lot of grandchildren and you know she just wanted to spend more time travelling around and doing things. But I was so kind of not there during the singing stuff. You know, I knew it was happening but I only saw her sing a couple times because I lived in California at the time.
我们小时候，妈妈一直都很喜欢唱歌。但她真正开始经常演唱，主要是在我离家之后，因为我是家里三个孩子中最大的。她热爱唱歌，当她后来生病时，她最担心的事情之一就是以后可能再也无法唱歌了。但当我和豪伊都搬出家后，加上我爸爸又是那样专注于自己事业的人，她就意识到必须为自己找些事情来做，因为我母亲绝不可能只当个“沃伦·巴菲特太太”而感到满足，那根本不是她的性格。所以对她来说，如果一直待在奥马哈，就意味着要去参与各种她根本不感兴趣的事情，那对她来说太痛苦，她无法承受。因此我觉得唱歌对她来说是一种非常好的释放，她热爱唱歌，她认为这才是真正属于她自己的东西。我爸爸也很喜欢她唱歌，非常支持她。我想她在豪伊搬出去后就意识到了这一点，开始计划拥有更多自己的空间，她称之为“属于自己的房间”。最终，她选择离开了奥马哈，去寻找这种空间。唱歌是原因之一，但后来随着豪伊成家，有了很多孙辈，她也想花更多的时间到处旅行，做她喜欢的事。不过唱歌这件事我当时并没有经常参与，我虽然知道她在唱歌，但由于我那时住在加州，所以只看过她现场唱过几次。
TITLE On her mother’s move to California
标题 谈母亲搬去加州的经历
03:42:53:07
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
I do remember—I—I—it was devastating for him and I came home because I—I—I—I can’t say I was mad at her exactly, but I kept thinking, how can you leave him? He’s so—he can’t function by himself. He can go to the office and do all that stuff but I’m not sure he knows how to make a piece of toast. So I came home, I was—I—you know I—I had a hard time understanding it; I understand it really well now but I had a hard time understanding it at the time. It—I stayed home for—and I live—I stayed at the house with him. I don’t know if he remembers this. It’s funny because I remember a lot about it but I remember doing his laundry at one point and you know, whatever, it got done and I folded it and took it upstairs or something and he said, “Well that was fast.” And I thought, he probably doesn’t know it—he probably thinks it takes 6 days to do the laundry. I don’t know, he’s never done anything like this. But I stay—I just stayed with him because I was so worried about him and I—I think I was home for at least a month, then I went back to California, I’m not sure what I was doing with my job, now that I think about it but—then I—I—I don’t remember talking to her a lot about it at the time but you know I mean, every—life went on and everybody got used to it but it was a hard time.
我确实记得——那次妈妈搬去加州对我爸爸来说非常打击。我特意回了趟家，倒不是说我真的生她的气，但我一直在想，你怎么能离开他呢？他根本无法独自生活。他是能去办公室处理那些事，但我甚至怀疑他连烤一片面包都不会。所以我就回家陪他。我当时很难理解妈妈的决定，现在我是完全理解了，但当时确实无法接受。我在家陪着他，不知道他还记不记得这段经历。这事现在想来挺有意思的——我记得很多细节。有一次我帮他洗衣服，洗完烘干折好后送到楼上，他惊讶地说：“这么快就好了？”我心想，他可能以为洗衣服要六天吧。我猜他从没做过这种家务事。我当时就是因为担心他才一直陪在他身边，大概待了至少一个月才又回到加州。现在想想，当时工作方面我也不知道是怎么安排的。我记得我当时并没有跟妈妈谈太多这些事情，不过后来一切生活照常，大家也都逐渐适应了。但那段时间确实很难熬。
03:44:43:00
I know it was a hard time for him. I mean I can’t even imagine what he felt like. In fact I did make a joke at one point, I said you know, mom could—we could make a tape of mom yelling, you know, “Bye Warren, I’ll be back later!” And then have the door slam and you would just think she was here because he was always off reading and doing something, you know and he didn’t—I don’t think he knew what she was doing most of the time you know. You know, she was off doing stuff either with the kids or in the community and then she had—you know we used to joke—we had that little—we had a door hangar that had Lucy from Peanuts in her—you know, her little psychiatric booth that says the doctor is in and we would hang it on the door at the house because she would go—she would leave the house at like 11, 11:30 at night and be gone for hours and she would be driving around seeing what I used to call her patients and that’s what she would do. She would drive around and visit people who were having problems with whatever and you know, listen to em. So she wasn’t really spending time with my dad; that was the funny part. So you know, that’s why I told him at one point, I said, “we could just make a tape of her, you’ll think she’s here then.”
我知道对他而言，那是一段非常难熬的时光。我甚至无法想象他当时的感受。事实上，我当时开过一个玩笑，说我们可以录一盘妈妈喊“再见，沃伦，我晚点回来！”的录音，然后配上关门的声音，这样他就以为妈妈还在家里了。因为他总是在某个角落看书或忙自己的事，多数时候我觉得他根本不知道妈妈在做什么。妈妈经常要么和孩子们在一起，要么参与社区活动。我们以前有个玩笑：我们家里挂着一个门牌，上面画着《花生漫画》里露西开着“心理咨询小亭子”，写着“医生正在营业”。妈妈通常在晚上11点或11点半出门，一去就是几个小时，开车四处探访那些我戏称为她“病人”的人们，听他们诉说生活的困扰。所以实际上她跟我爸相处的时间并不多，这也是很有趣的一点。所以我当时才会跟我爸开玩笑说：“我们干脆录个她的声音，你就能感觉她还在家里了。”
TITLE On her father meeting Astrid
标题 谈她父亲与阿斯特丽德相识
03:46:21;16
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
Well yeah, and there’s many versions of this story, and I can only tell you my version, because I—and I think this is true, although I’ve heard so many other versions so who knows what’s true. I knew Astrid before my parents did. Astrid was friends with other friends of mine. She’s older than I am but—but she used to work down there in the old market and I would be down there when I was home. I lived in California but when I came home, everybody hung out down there and we were down there so I knew her—I didn’t know her well but I did know her before my parents did. And then she got to know my mother from being at the French Café. So—and Astrid’s a very sweet person, she’s a—she’s a true caregiver, really. So my mother had told multiple women, I mean I can name em but I won’t right now to sort of look in on him you know, because as we all know, he can’t turn on the light switch. So, I mean my aunt Dotty was one. So there were several women friends of his who I think were calling him up to go to movies, not to date him, just to hang out, give him something to do. So Astrid was one of them and she—you know I—I don’t think my mother, well I’m almost sure that its true, asked Astrid to move in with him, that I’m sure did not happen. I think that was a surprise, but I also think, you know what, my mother made the choice to move so something’s gonna happen eventually. So I think that my dad knew As—well I’m sure he knew Astrid before my mother moved because she was down there at the Café when my mother was singing and Astrid was around the house actually sometimes. My mother was having parties with people that were, you know, involved at the French Café and that she knew from the market.
是的，关于这个故事有很多版本，我只能告诉你我所知道的版本。我想这应该是真的，但我听到过太多不同版本，也不好说到底哪个是真的。我比我爸妈更早认识阿斯特丽德。阿斯特丽德和我的一些朋友是朋友。她比我年长，以前在老市场区工作，我每次从加州回家时也经常去那里玩，当时大家都喜欢在那里聚会，所以我认识她，虽然不是特别熟，但肯定早于我爸妈认识她。后来她通过法国咖啡馆认识了我母亲。阿斯特丽德是个非常好的人，一个真正很会照顾别人的人。我母亲当时叮嘱了好几位女性朋友去照看一下我爸爸，因为我们都知道，他连电灯开关都不会用，比如我姑姑多蒂就是其中一个。有几位女性朋友会时不时给他打电话，约他去看电影，并不是约会，只是陪他做些事情，阿斯特丽德就是其中之一。我几乎确定我母亲并没有要求阿斯特丽德搬进去住，这点我确信没有发生过。阿斯特丽德搬进来对我们来说都是一个意外，但我觉得我母亲自己做了搬离家的决定，那么最终总会有些变化的。我爸爸肯定在我母亲搬走前就认识阿斯特丽德，因为妈妈在法国咖啡馆唱歌的时候，她也经常出现，有时还会来家里。妈妈经常和咖啡馆或市场认识的人举办聚会。
03:48:32:22
And Astrid was around, she—she’d been in the house before—I think before—I know before my mother left. So I don’t think it was quite the setup that people make it sound like. I think there were more women—this sounds kind of weird but—there were more women—you know she’d asked a bunch of her friends; check him out—check in on him, take him some soup, go to a movie, you know whatever, and Astrid was one of them and you know, she ended up staying.
阿斯特丽德当时就在附近，她之前肯定来过我们家，肯定是在我母亲搬走之前。所以我不认为像外界传的那样，好像是我母亲特意安排的一样。我认为实际上当时是有很多女性朋友——说起来可能有点怪——我母亲曾请她们去看看我爸爸，给他送点汤，陪他看电影之类的，而阿斯特丽德只是其中之一，最终她留了下来。
03:49:25:12
And mother and Astrid were very close. You know, they really, really loved each other. I have the sweetest card that my mother saved that Astrid wrote when she was sick; I don’t think it was the last time she was sick, I think it was another time, I’m not sure but—I mean it’s just a very beautiful card Astrid sent, saying how worried she was about her and she loved her and strange as it may seem to people, I always think, you know, who cares? If it’s working with the people directly involved, who cares what anyone thinks? You know, I think that my mother was—she loved Astrid as a person and I think she also was glad that she was there because she loved my dad; she wanted him taken care of and happy and Astrid is—there’s no one better than Astrid. I mean she’s just—she loves my dad, she wouldn’t care if he had one cent. I mean she just loves him. And so that was—you know, it worked well for everyone. Astrid didn’t want to be out travelling with my dad, my mother and my dad travelled together and you know, went to visit the grandchildren and did stuff with some of my dads friends in New York who now have become friends with Astrid too, and you know in this very weird way it worked. And I do remember one time my mother telling me that a friend of hers, and I will not name the person because she is still alive said, “you know, I—I wish I could have done that.” You know, she said. And—I—you know I think that it was very—you know, it was unconventional and I’m sure it looked weird to people but nobody was faking anything. I mean my mother wasn’t acting like she liked Astrid or Astrid wasn’t acting—you know, it was all—it was all real and it worked, you know.
我母亲和阿斯特丽德关系非常亲密，她们真的非常喜欢对方。我手里有张非常感人的贺卡，那是妈妈生病时阿斯特丽德写给她的。我不确定是不是妈妈最后一次生病时写的，但卡片内容非常美，表达了她对妈妈的担忧和爱意。也许外人看起来觉得这有些奇怪，但我觉得无所谓，只要直接相关的人觉得合适，那谁又在乎别人怎么想呢？我知道我妈妈很喜欢阿斯特丽德这个人，她也很高兴阿斯特丽德陪伴在我爸爸身边，因为妈妈爱爸爸，希望他有人照顾，有人陪伴，而没有人能比阿斯特丽德做得更好。她是真的很爱我爸爸，即使爸爸身无分文她也不会在乎。所以这种安排对每个人来说都很合适。阿斯特丽德并不想跟我爸爸到处旅行，而我妈妈则陪爸爸一起去看望孙辈，还一起拜访我爸爸在纽约的朋友们，这些朋友后来也和阿斯特丽德成为朋友。这种奇妙的关系竟然运作得很好。我记得有一次我妈妈告诉我，她的一个朋友（我就不提名字了，因为她还活着）跟她说：“你知道，我真希望我当年也能这样做。”我认为这种关系虽然有些不传统，在别人眼里看起来可能奇怪，但绝对是真实的。我妈妈不是假装喜欢阿斯特丽德，阿斯特丽德也不是假装，一切都是真的，而且相处得非常融洽。
TITLE On her father, her mother, and Astrid’s relationship
标题 谈她父亲、母亲与阿斯特丽德之间的关系
03:51:23:18
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
We had Christmas together every year until 2002 was the last Christmas, ‘cause 2003 she was sick. Yeah I mean it was just, you know it just turned into this new normal and everybody was fine with it. You know my kids never didn’t know Astrid. Astrid was like—in some ways, Astrid was—you know she was more present in their life in a lot of the time than my mother just because they went over to their house—when they were little they were over at the house all the time spending time with her so the younger kids didn’t know anything different. I don’t know how they ever sorted it out in their head when they were younger, why grandpa—with Christmas he’s with grandma and—you know, I don’t know. But you know it just—, and it—it probably took a few years to figure out how it was gonna all work and—but then it just turned kind of turned into what it was and everyone kind of understood it.
直到2002年，我们每年圣诞节都会一起过，2003年妈妈生病，所以那一年没有再一起过圣诞节。后来一切逐渐形成了一种新的常态，每个人都能接受这种安排。我的孩子们从来不记得没有阿斯特丽德的时候。某种程度上，阿斯特丽德在他们的生活中出现的频率甚至超过了我母亲，因为孩子们小时候经常去他们家，常常跟她待在一起，所以较小的孩子们并不知道情况曾经有所不同。我不知道他们小时候是怎么理解这些的，比如为什么爷爷圣诞节时跟奶奶在一起——我也搞不清楚。但可能花了几年时间，大家渐渐摸索出一种相处模式，最后就自然而然地稳定下来，每个人也都习惯了这种状态。
TITLE On her mother’s illness
标题 谈母亲的病情
03:52:39:12
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
Well I actually was in Arizona with her in October of 2003 and she’d had the biopsy the day before she came to Arizona so I was with her in Arizona at this Fortune most powerful women conference and she’d told me she had a biopsy the day before and I didn’t really think much of it and so we got home and the biopsy results were not good. It was stage IV oral cancer and I still didn’t really know what that mean because I’d never known anybody that had oral cancer so, and you know, some cancer is not horrible and some is a death sentence and oral cancer I think is sort of somewhere in between. So she called me and told me this and I think—I think I looked it up on the Internet. I can remember where I was sitting when all of this was going on. It was such a weird thing because at the time, what I read was it’s black men who drink and smoke. And I thought, ok she’s none of those things. Including she didn’t smoke or drink. So my dad, I can’t—I think I may have called my dad and told him not to look on the Internet which I’m sure he already had done, so it wasn’t too long after that.
2003年10月，我和妈妈一起去了亚利桑那州，她在来之前一天刚刚做过活检。当时我们正在亚利桑那参加《财富》最具影响力女性大会。她告诉我前一天刚做了活检，我当时没太在意。但我们回家后，活检结果非常不好，诊断为第四期口腔癌。当时我并不知道这意味着什么，因为我从没接触过口腔癌患者。我只知道有些癌症不是很严重，有些却是致命的，而口腔癌介于这两者之间吧。妈妈打电话告诉我这个消息，我记得自己好像去网上查过。我甚至还能记得当时自己坐在哪儿。当时查到的资料很奇怪，说口腔癌多发于抽烟喝酒的黑人男性。我当时想，她完全不符合这些条件，她根本不抽烟，也不喝酒。我可能给爸爸打电话，提醒他不要上网查资料，但我想他早就已经查过了。这些事情发生得都非常快。
03:54:17:07
We did go—so she and I went to New York to visit the doctor at Sloan Kettering; she knew she wanted to do it in San Francisco but she just wanted to get-have somebody else to look at her X-ray’s or whatever they had. So—or biopsy report. So we went to see this doctor in New York and on the way in the cab she said, “Now, if I forget to ask the question, will you please remember to ask him if I can still color my hair after I have the surgery?” So I was like, “ok.” So we were in there for like this awful thing, and we’re leaving and I said, “you forgot to ask the question mom.” She said “what?” I said “she wants to know if she can still color her hair after this surgery?” He said, “yes, that’s ok.” So, and then we flew back to California and I—I’m sure at that point we’d already scheduled everything. And it was quite a big surgery and it had turned out to be less than they thought it was gonna be. It was still I think like 12 and a half hours or something. They had thought they were gonna have to take some bone out of her leg to rebuild some bone in her mouth, but they didn’t have to do that. If they had to do that, I can’t imagine how much worse it would have been but they still had to take a whole bunch of tissue from her arm to put inside her mouth after they did you know, the stuff they had to do with her tongue. So I—we all—we were all there and my dad and my brothers left after a few days and it was—it was really awful for a while. I mean she was in the ICU and it was really awful. She couldn’t talk; and she couldn’t—I mean she had a tracheotomy and it was really bad. And then I stayed with her for a month I think and then I really was with her for the next about four months or so with a few short exceptions.
后来，我陪她去纽约斯隆凯特琳医院咨询医生。她决定要在旧金山治疗，但希望另外一个医生再看看她的X光片和活检报告。在出租车上，她跟我说：“待会如果我忘了问，你一定帮我问医生手术后还能不能染头发。”我说：“好的。” 看诊时太紧张了，离开时我提醒她：“妈妈，你忘记问那个问题了。” 她说：“什么问题？” 我说：“她想知道手术后能不能染头发。” 医生回答：“没问题，可以染头发。” 后来我们飞回加州，那时已经确定了手术时间。手术很复杂，但最终情况比预想的好些，原本以为要从腿上取骨头重建口腔骨骼，后来没用这么做，但仍取了很多手臂的组织修复口腔。手术持续了大约12个半小时，非常艰难。家人都在，爸爸和我兄弟几天后离开，她在ICU里度过了一段非常痛苦的时光，不能说话、不能吞咽、不能进食，还做了气管切开术，非常糟糕。我在医院陪伴了她大概一个月，之后的四个月基本上也都陪在她身边，只有少数几次短暂离开。
03:56:14:04
I came home for Christmas because it was the first Christmas we were gonna have without being in California so I came home a little bit off and on. But I really stayed almost the whole time. My dad came out every weekend. It was hard, it was not—it was hard, I mean because it was such an awful; she couldn’t talk, she couldn’t swallow, she couldn’t eat, she couldn’t—you know, it was terrible.
圣诞节我回家待了一小段时间，因为那是我们第一次不在加州度过圣诞节。实际上我几乎一直陪伴着她。我爸爸每个周末都会飞过来看她。那段时间特别难熬，因为情况真的很糟糕，她不能说话、不能吞咽、不能吃东西，各方面都很糟糕。
TITLE On her father’s reaction to her mother’s illness
标题 谈父亲对母亲生病的反应
03:56:44:05
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
I mean he—you wanna see him read the paper, that’s when he reads the paper. The morning—the day she was going into surgery that morning, he and I were in the hospital room with her and they were gonna take her in ten minutes and she said to me “come in here, come here.” So we went to the bathroom, and he’s you know like this, reading the paper. I’m sure he’s crying behind the paper, he’s just sitting there. And she said, “now he’s a wuss.” She said, “I told him,” they were gonna do whatever they do initially and within 45 minutes they would know if the cancer had spread. So she said, “I told him, if the cancer’s spread, I want them to close me up and not do anything else,” she said, “and I don’t think he’s gonna tell them that’s ok, I think he’s gonna tell them to do whatever they can do.” So she said, “you have to make sure he does that.” I said “ok.” So fortunately the cancer hadn’t spread but—and then they took her off into the operating room and about 45 minutes later, Doctor Eisley came in and said it hadn’t spread; this is—this how freaked out my dad is. So—and we all are but this is—this is really huge. Doctor Eisley comes in and says, “it hasn’t spread, you know, we’re gonna continue, now it’s gonna be a long time.” And we said ok. And so he walked away and my dad looked at me, and he said, “what did he say? Did it spread or not spread?” I said, “no, it did not spread.” He said, “Oh ok.” And then he felt like we could go get something to eat. You know, that’s—it was—it’s funny, there’s some of it he can’t—you know he just can’t. The thought of something happening to her was for him, was the worst thing that could happen. But she—you know she came out and I think he probably needed to go home at that point. He needs to go disappear into his office and he knows she’s got excellent care and he knows I’m there and you know I’m gonna call him if there’s any reason to call him. And he showed up every weekend and—
你知道，他平常根本不会那么专注看报纸，但那时候他却一直盯着报纸看。她进手术室的那个早上，我和他在病房陪她，医院马上就要把她推进手术室了，她把我叫到一边：“你过来一下。”我们俩进了浴室，我爸就坐在外面，一直盯着报纸看。我知道他一定在报纸背后偷偷流泪，他就坐在那里不动。妈妈对我说：“他现在完全是个胆小鬼。”她跟我讲：“我已经告诉他，医生一开始手术后45分钟就能知道癌症是否扩散了，如果癌症扩散了，我希望他们直接把我缝合，不要再做任何手术了。但我担心他不会同意，他可能会要求医生不惜一切代价继续治疗。所以你必须确保他按我的意愿做。”我说：“好的。”幸运的是，癌症并没有扩散。大约45分钟后，艾斯利医生过来告诉我们癌细胞并未扩散。当时爸爸的精神状态非常紧张，我们所有人都一样，这消息对我们太重要了。医生告诉我们：“癌症没有扩散，我们会继续手术，接下来时间还会很长。”我们说：“好的。”医生走后，我爸看着我说：“他说什么？到底有没有扩散？”我说：“没有扩散。”他说：“噢，好吧。”然后他才觉得我们可以去吃点东西了。说起来有些好笑，有些事他就是没办法面对。一想到妈妈可能会有事，他就觉得那是最糟糕的事情。妈妈顺利完成了手术，我想他当时可能真的需要先回家。他得躲到办公室里静一静。他也知道妈妈有很好的照顾，而且我一直在她身边，如果有什么问题我一定会及时告诉他。他每个周末都会赶过来。
03:58:56:12
The first time he showed up actually it was kind of funny, he call—it was probably a week later or something; he called me and he said, you know, “let’s go to Johnny Rocket’s when I get there, get some dinner.” And I said “ok, but,” I said, “we have to get—I have to get mom in bed first.” Now, she’s in bed in the hospital but there’s like a whole thing that has to happen. I said, “I have to get her ready for bed before I can leave.” He said, “Well how long does that take?” I said, “Well, it takes about two hours.” “It does?” “Yeah.” But it was great because he came and he sat in the room and he watched all the stuff we had to do just to get her ready to kind of go to sleep for the night. And then we went to Johnny Rockets and you know, he was—he was good. We surprised him the one time that she—when she finally took the thing— they had removed the tracheotomy thing, whatever it is. And we didn’t tell him that when he got there that time that she was gonna be able to talk. And so that was kind of a fun moment, and he walked in.
他第一次来看妈妈时发生了个挺有趣的事。大概是手术后一周左右吧，他打电话给我，说：“等我到了，我们去Johnny Rocket’s餐厅吃晚饭吧。”我说：“好吧，但我得先把妈妈安顿好。”虽然妈妈已经躺在医院的病床上了，但每晚都要进行一整套护理程序。我说：“我必须帮妈妈做好睡前准备才能离开。”他说：“这得花多久？”我说：“差不多两个小时吧。”“要这么久？”“对。”后来他来到医院，就坐在病房里看着我们做完所有照护工作，把妈妈安顿睡觉后，我们才一起去了Johnny Rocket’s。他那天表现得很好。还有一次我们给了他一个惊喜，那时妈妈的气管切开管终于拿掉了，她终于能讲话了。我们当时没告诉他，等他再次来到医院，一进门听到妈妈开口说话，他真的很惊讶，那一幕非常难忘。
TITLE Her mother’s love of U2
标题 谈母亲对U2乐队的热爱
04:00:15:06
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
She loved U2 and, so at night, every night when she went to bed, I always say went to bed, she was already in bed, but when she went to bed, we would—she had a feeding tube so—and she couldn’t talk so she would write these notes to me. It’s funny; I have a huge pile of paper of all the notes she wrote for me when she was sick. She didn’t know I kept them, sorry. ‘Cause some of them were so funny. But she would write me a note every night of the songs she—we had the Rattle and Hum DVD which is an old DVD and she loved it and we—she’d write the songs that she’d wanna listen to that night and the last song was always, ‘All I Want Is You’. So we would play the song—we would show them on the DVD, the songs, and then we would shoot the pain meds in the feeding tube, and the sleeping meds and then we’d put on ‘All I Want Is You’ and she’d go to sleep to that. So in November, I was in Washington in the Library of Congress at something with Bono and he said, and they hadn’t met either. He said, “how’s your mom doing?” And I said—I said “she’s, you know, she’s doing fine.” I said, “She listens to—she watches to the Rattle and Hum DVD every night before she goes to bed every night.” He goes, “really?” And I said, “yes” and I said, “and she listens to different songs every night but we always end on the same song.” So, when she died, he called and he said, “I wanna come sing the song at her service,” which was really sweet.
她非常喜欢U2乐队。每天晚上她“上床睡觉”的时候——其实她早就已经躺在床上了——我们都有一个固定的流程。她插着胃管，无法说话，所以会写小纸条给我。有趣的是，我现在还留着她生病时写给我的那一大堆纸条，她当时并不知道我会留下来，对不起啦（笑）。有些纸条真的特别有趣。她每天晚上都会写下自己想听的歌名，我们当时有一张旧的《Rattle and Hum》DVD，她特别喜欢，每晚都会选几首歌听，最后一首永远是《All I Want Is You》。所以我们会按DVD播放她写下的那些歌，然后我通过胃管给她注射止痛药和安眠药，最后放《All I Want Is You》，她就听着这首歌入睡。那年11月我在华盛顿国会图书馆参加一个和Bono有关的活动，他那时还没见过我妈妈，他问：“你妈妈怎么样？”我说：“她挺好的。”我告诉他：“她每天睡前都会看《Rattle and Hum》的DVD。”他说：“真的？”我说：“是啊，而且每晚听的歌不同，但总是以同一首结束。”后来她去世时，Bono打电话说：“我想在她的追思会上唱那首歌。”那真的是非常温暖的举动。
04:02:04:23
She met him on May 10th, which is his birthday and mothers day that year. They—Bono and Ali and I think both of the girls, Jordan and Eve were in New York, and we were there, it was after the Berkshire meeting. And I mean, she was like a little kid. She was so excited, so excited to meet him. And—so they came over to the Hotel and we had lunch and you know, just—we had the dining room and the suite and it was really nice and they—they just had a very instant—really wonderful connection and he brought her, over on my wall over there, this very amazing painting that he did of her as a total surprise. And actually, He told me when he, the—Katrina, his assistant had asked for a picture of my mother for this painting that he wanted to do and we sent him the picture that’s in the painting over here which is her in Ghana; she was dancing with a lot of women in Ghana. And Bono said to me, “you know, It was so interesting when I got that picture ‘cause,” he said, “most people send you know, sort of you know—a head shot” but he said “I got this picture of your mother, it sort of captured who she was even though I didn’t know her.” So he did this really, very cool thing that’s over there for her. And they just had a w—and then she and I went to France and stayed at his house in Eze in late June, just before she died. That was—She wasn’t sure she was gonna make the trip, but it gave her such energy to be there. On the way home, she never went to sleep, she had the headphones on and she was listening to U2 the whole way and—just Howie said, “what happened down there,” he said, “she’s like a new person.” So it was very—it was a short but very lovely relationship.
她在5月10日那天见到了Bono，那天既是母亲节，也是Bono的生日。Bono、Ali，还有他两个女儿Jordan和Eve当时在纽约，我们也在那里，那是伯克希尔年会之后。她就像个小女孩一样兴奋，真的非常激动能见到他。他们一家来到我们的酒店，我们在套房的餐厅里共进午餐，气氛非常好。他们一下子就建立了很棒的联系。Bono还送了她一幅他亲手画的画，现在就挂在我那边的墙上，完全是个惊喜。他告诉我，是他的助理Katrina向我要了一张我妈妈的照片，为了画这幅画。我们寄去的那张照片是她在加纳拍的，她当时正在和一群当地女性跳舞。Bono对我说：“我收到那张照片时真的很特别，大多数人都会寄那种证件照，但你妈妈那张照片让我即使从未见过她，也一下子感受到她是怎样的一个人。”所以他为她画了那幅很棒的画。之后，我和妈妈在6月末一起去了法国，住在Bono位于埃兹的小屋里，那是她去世前的最后一次旅行。她本来不确定自己是否能坚持完成这趟旅行，但到了那儿后她精力充沛。回程时她一路都没睡，一直戴着耳机听U2的歌。豪伊还说：“她在那儿发生了什么？她就像换了一个人。”这段关系虽然短暂，但真的非常美好。
TITLE On her mother’s death
标题 谈她母亲的去世
04:04:20:11
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
No she did not die of cancer, I think everyone thinks that. She died of a stroke. She had—she and my dad had gone to Cody, Wyoming which they did every year with a bunch of friends, Herb Allen has a ranch there, and I was in Boston at the Democratic Convention and for some reason, I decided to come home a day early and I had come home, I was dead tired from being up way too late every night and I was gonna watch, I think it was John Kerry was gonna speak that night and my dad called and said, I need Doctor Eisley’s phone number. This was I don’t know, 8 o’clock at night or something and I—I didn’t ask why or anything, I just thought “boy, this is not good, whatever it is.” I got him Doctor Eisley’s phone number and then he called back about 45 minutes later, maybe not quite that long, and he said, “something happened to mom, I’m in an ambulance, you need to come.” Now, I thought well, he would call me if she stubbed her toe. So we’re gonna figure this out. I said “ok.” So I called NetJets and got a plane and he called back again and he said, “you need to find your brothers and bring them,” so I said “ok.” So, I call—Peter was in Omaha, and I called Peter, and I said “there’s a plane at midnight.” And Howie, I found Devon in the Walgreens in Indiana on her cell phone. And I said, “where’s Howie?” And she said “he’s on his way to South Africa, he’s on a plane.” So I said, “ok, I don’t know what’s going on,” I’m still in my head thinking, we’ll get this figured this out.” So I said “just have him call me when, you know he lands.” I think Devon gave me the phone number of somebody who was picking him up or something. Anyway, somehow I figured out what I was supposed to do. And Peter and I got on the plane, and I packed a bag for like three weeks ‘cause I, totally in my head, I’m thinking, ok we’re gonna call in the nurses, we’re gonna call in Kathleen, my mothers assistant forever, the most amazing person, and we’ll fix this. So, ‘cause my mother had this little group of nurses that had taken care of her. So How—Peter and I landed, I don’t think I talked—I—well I think I did talk to Howie, right before, we must have just landed before I took off. I said, “I don’t know what’s going on but I’ll call you.” And so we got to Cody; It’s the weirdest thing for me, I was in the hospital with Mrs. Graham after she fell. And so there was a lot of sort of déjà vu, Herb, it was during a Herb thing and it was in a hospital that’s there for skiing accidents and not, you know, people having strokes and—
不，她不是因为癌症去世的，尽管很多人都以为是。她是死于中风。她和我爸去了怀俄明州的科迪镇，他们每年都会和一群朋友一起去那儿，赫布·艾伦在那有个牧场。当时我在波士顿参加民主党全国大会，莫名其妙地决定提前一天回家。我太累了，连续好几晚都睡得很晚。我本来是打算看那天晚上约翰·克里发表演讲，结果我爸打电话来，说他需要艾斯利医生的电话号码。当时大概晚上八点，我也没多问，只是直觉告诉我，这肯定不是好事。我把医生的电话发给了他。过了大概四十五分钟，也许还没到那么久，他又打来电话说：“你妈妈出事了，我在救护车上，你得过来。”我心想，他如果只是脚趾磕到都会打电话给我，那现在肯定是大事。我说“好。”然后我打电话给NetJets叫了一架飞机，他又打回来，说：“你得找到你弟弟们，把他们带来。”我说：“好。”我打给彼得，他在奥马哈，我告诉他：“有架飞机午夜起飞。”豪伊当时在飞往南非的航班上，我是在印第安纳州一家Walgreens药店里打给他女友Devon的手机找到她的。我问：“豪伊在哪？”她说：“他在去南非的飞机上。”我说：“好，我不知道发生了什么，但我们会搞清楚的。”我让她等豪伊落地后让他打电话给我。我想Devon还给了我一个接机人的电话。总之，我设法安排好了这些。然后我和彼得上了飞机，我还带了够三周的行李，因为我当时的想法是：我们会叫来护士们，叫来凯瑟琳——我妈妈一直以来的得力助手，一个非常了不起的人，我们会解决这个问题。因为我妈一直有一小队护士照顾她。我想我和豪伊是在我起飞前刚好通了电话，我跟他说：“我不知道发生了什么，但我会联系你。”我们到了科迪。说起来很奇怪，我之前也陪葛兰姆夫人进过这家医院，那种感觉非常像似曾相识。这家医院主要是处理滑雪事故的，并不是专门应对中风病人的……
04:07:33:18
So we went into the hospital room and my dad was sitting there. He’d been sitting there all night holding her hand. I was so proud of him because he hadn’t done any you know, excess measures or whatever. You know, he—he—when it came down to it, he knew what he was supposed to do, and he did it—which was nothing. She had a little oxygen thing on her face and I thought this was so interesting because she had told me a few months earlier that her biggest fear was dying—suffocating, and dying. And so I thought, well, she’s not gonna be gasping for breath, so that’s good, she didn’t want that. My dad went to sleep then, and Peter went to sleep and I sat with her and my one regret is that I didn’t bring my iPod. I thought, oh she would have loved to have some music playing, but I forgot that part. So I sat with her and I just kept putting my hand on her heart to see if she was breathing and at one point, you know I didn’t feel anything. So I went out and I got the nurse and I said, “can you come in here?” She said, “No, she’s gone.” So I have to say, one of the worst moments of my life was waking my dad up to tell him that. It was horrible, and a total shock, you know she’d been fine. She’d been fine, they went off to Cody, and she was fine. And they were having dinner and, you know, she didn’t feel well after dinner and she had the stroke. So—
我们走进病房时，爸爸就坐在那里。他整晚都在握着妈妈的手。我真的为他感到骄傲，因为他没有让医生做任何过度抢救的措施。他很清楚自己该怎么做，他也确实做了——什么都不做。妈妈戴着一个小氧气罩，我记得几个月前她还跟我说过，她最害怕的就是窒息而死。我当时心想，还好她没有挣扎着喘气，这正是她不希望发生的事。后来爸爸睡着了，彼得也睡了，我就坐在床边陪着妈妈。我唯一的遗憾就是没带iPod。我心想，她肯定会很喜欢有点音乐伴着她，但我忘了带。那晚我一直坐着，一直把手放在她心口，看她是否还在呼吸。后来有一刻，我摸不到了。我出去叫护士，我说：“你能过来一下吗？”她看了我一眼，说：“她走了。”那是我人生中最痛苦的时刻之一：我必须叫醒我爸爸，告诉他这个消息。这真的太可怕了，而且完全出乎意料。她本来一切都好，他们一起去科迪，一切都正常。晚饭后她觉得身体不适，然后就中风了。所以——
TITLE On her father’s reaction to her mother’s death
标题 谈父亲对母亲去世的反应
04:09:34:02
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
You know, he just was sad, crying, sad. I thought, in my head at the time, I thought, in my head at the time I thought, God, I don’t know if he’ll ever get out of bed, this is like the worst thing ever. And—but he did, I mean but we—so we went—took a while to get out of the hospital because they have to do all of this stuff with you know, she’s in Wyoming, we have to move her out of the state and all this—there’s just a lot of paper work that goes on then. And you know he had to do stuff with Mark Hamburg at Berkshire and make sure that whatever stock wise—you know, all that stuff and there were a few people that I needed to call because I didn’t want them to hear it on the news, I mean obviously Howie but there were a couple other people, so I did that. And I sat in the room with her, I didn’t—for some reason I didn’t want her to be by herself. So everybody kind of went into their little jobs we had to do and then we flew her home. And it was the day before my birthday, so I got home and I went to the mortuary, did what I had to do at the mortuary, my dad got under the covers, and I got home from the mortuary and the door bell rang and it was the UPS man with my birthday presents from my mother, which I opened last year. I waited ten years, yeah.
他就是难过、哭泣、非常难过。我当时心里想的是，天啊，我不知道他还能不能从床上起来了，这对他来说简直是人生中最沉重的打击。但他最终还是挺过来了。我们在医院也花了一些时间才离开，因为她是在怀俄明州去世的，我们必须把遗体运出州，还有一大堆手续需要办理。他也得和伯克希尔的马克·汉堡处理一些关于股票的事务。而我这边也得联系一些人，因为我不想让他们从新闻上得知这个消息——当然包括豪伊，还有其他几位朋友，我也一一通知了。那段时间我一直坐在妈妈的病房里，不知道为什么，我就是不想让她一个人待着。然后大家各自投入到需要处理的事务中，我们把她送回了家。那天正好是我生日的前一天，我回家后去了一趟殡仪馆，处理该办的事情。我爸爸躲进被子里。我从殡仪馆回来时，门铃响了，是UPS送来的包裹——是妈妈提前为我准备的生日礼物。我直到去年才打开那个包裹，我等了十年。是的，十年。
TITLE On her mother’s memorial service
标题 谈母亲的追思会
04:11:00:14
SUSIE BUFFETT:
苏茜·巴菲特：
She told us the music, she wanted only family and she—yeah—and then she had one thing she wanted me to read, she had—she had given us some stuff. The only thing she didn’t tell me was where to put her ashes, so I figured, well she must’ve figured I could figure it out because that’s the only thing I didn’t know, but she had been telling me since I was, you know ten years old—what funeral—we had a joke about her funeral music. So all of a sudden, she died, and I thought uh-oh, now I have to remember all of those songs, which I remembered all but one. So I had Brad Underwood come over and he put together this whole thing of the music for us and—and then we actually put—had played one of Peter’s songs, and then we ended the service with her singing, here’s to life because it just seemed perfect. So yeah, I mean the funeral music has been queued up for years.
她早就告诉过我们她想在追思会上播放哪些音乐，她希望只邀请家人参加。她还指定了让我念一段话，她提前准备了一些材料。唯一没告诉我的是她希望把骨灰撒在哪里，所以我想，她可能觉得我可以自己想明白吧——这是她唯一没告诉我的事。其实从我十岁起，她就一直跟我聊她的“葬礼歌单”，我们还为此开玩笑。所以当她突然离世时，我心里一紧：“糟了，我现在得回忆起所有那些歌。”好在我只忘了其中一首。后来我请了布拉德·安德伍德来，他帮我们把整套音乐整理出来。我们还播放了彼得创作的一首歌，最后以她演唱的《Here's to Life》作为追思会的结束曲，那首歌简直再合适不过了。所以说，她的葬礼音乐，其实我们早就准备好了。
04:12:06:00
Well then Bono—the first call I got when we landed was him saying “can I come sing?” And I thought, well it’s gonna be so little, I don’t know if it’s worth your time really, but he said “no, I really want to do this.” So he—he flew in with Ali, his wife and Bobby Shriver and practiced with Mike the night before, my son. Mike played the guitar and Bono sang. Which was amazing of him and beautiful.
我们一落地，第一个打来电话的人就是Bono。他说：“我可以来唱一首歌吗？”我心想，这个追思会规模那么小，真的值得你特地来吗？但他说：“不，我真的很想这么做。”于是他和妻子Ali，还有鲍比·施赖弗一起飞了过来。头天晚上他和我儿子Mike一起排练——Mike弹吉他，Bono演唱。这真的是太动人、太美好了。