突然，一个小女孩从铁丝网那边走来。经过我面前时，她停了下来，忧伤的眼睛注视着我，似乎是在说她理解我的感受，但不知道我为什么会在这里。被一个陌生人如此凝视，我感到非常不好意思，我想移开目光，但视线却无法从她身上移走。这时，她把手伸进口袋，掏出一个红苹果。噢，我有多久没见过这样的苹果了！她谨慎地左右看了看，然后面带着胜利的微笑，一下子把它抛过铁栅栏。我跑过去将它捡起来，用冻得发抖的手捧着它。在这个充满死亡的世界中，苹果无疑是生命和关爱的表达。我抬起头来，发现那女孩已经消失在远处了。
第二天，我鬼使神差地在同一时间又来到靠近铁丝网的同一地点。她真的又来了。她再次给我带来了苹果，并且带着同样甜蜜的笑容把它抛过铁栅栏。这一次我接住了苹果，捧着让她看，她眼里闪烁着光芒。接下来的七个月，我们每天都这样相见。可是有一天，我听到了一个骇人的消息：我们将被押往另一个集中营。
第二天，我见到她时，难过得说不出话来，但又不得不说：“明天，不要给我带苹果了！”我告诉她，“我将被押往另外一个集中营。”在我还能控制住自己的感情时，我转身从铁丝网旁跑开了。我实在不忍心回头。
一晃数月过去了，噩梦依然。但对小姑娘的思念，一直支撑着我度过了那些恐怖、痛苦和无望的日子。噩梦终结，战争结束的这一天终于来临。幸存下来的人获得了自由。我失去了一切珍贵的东西，包括我的家庭。但我仍然惦记着那个小女孩，并把对她的记忆一直珍藏在心底。在我移居美国开始新的生活后，这段回忆始终激励着我好好活下去。
岁月流逝，转眼到了1957年。我定居美国后，一个朋友想撮合我和他认识的一位女士约会，我勉强答应下来了。她叫罗玛，人很好，跟我一样，也是移民，因此，至少在这一点上，我们有着共同之处。
“战争期间，你在哪儿?”罗玛柔声细语地问道，以移民之间相互问及那段岁月所特有的体贴的方式。
“我在德国的一个集中营。”我答道。
罗玛陷入遐思，似乎想起了某些痛苦而又略带甜蜜的事情。
“你怎么了?”我问道。
“我只是想起了过去的一些事，赫尔曼。”罗玛解释道，声音突然变得无比温柔，“你知道吗？小时候我住在一个集中营附近。那儿有一个男孩，一个小囚犯，很长一段时间，我每天都去看他，我常常给他带苹果。我把苹果抛过铁栅栏丢给他，那时他是多么的开心啊。”
罗玛重重地叹了一口，又接着说：“很难描述当时我们对彼此的感觉——毕竟，那时的我们很小，情况允许时，我们也只是相互谈上几句而已——但我可以告诉你，里面包含着很多爱。我猜测他可能被杀害了，跟其他无数人一样。但我实在不愿这么想，所以老想起和他相处的那几个月里他的样子。”
我的心猛烈地跳动起来，我直视着她问：“是不是有一天，那个男孩对你说‘明天不要给我带苹果了，我将被押往另外一个集中营’？”
“嗯，是啊。”罗玛颤声应道。
“但是赫尔曼，你怎么会知道这件事呢？”
我握住她的手答道：“罗玛，我正是那个小男孩。”
接下来便是长长的沉默。随着时间面纱的撩开，我们再也不能将眼睛从对方身上移开，我们认出了彼此隐藏于双眼后面的那颗心，我们曾是深深爱恋的朋友，而我们从未停止过对对方的爱恋、以及对彼此的思念。
最后，我说：“罗玛，我已经与你分离过一次了，我再也不想与你分开。如今，我重获自由，我希望永远与你在一起。亲爱的，嫁给我好吗？”
罗玛说话时，我再一次从她眼睛里看到了当年的那种光芒，“好，我嫁给你。”
与罗玛重逢至今将近40年了。战争年代，命运让我们首次相聚，并向我作出了希望的承诺，如今，它让我们再次团聚，践行了这一诺言。
1996年的情人节。我带罗玛去参加奥普à·温弗里的节目，在这个全国性电视节目中，在数百万观众面前，我要向她表示敬意，告诉她我心里一直想说的话：
“亲爱的，在集中营里，当我饥饿难耐时，你给我送来了食物。如今，我仍然饥饿，是那种永远得不到满足的饥饿：我只渴望得到你的爱。”
康复医院里的婚礼
Where Love Lands
佚名 / Anonymous
by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
No one knows where love's wings will land. At times, it turns up in the most unusual spots. There was nothing more surprising than when it descended upon a rehabilitation hospital in a Los Angeles suburb—a hospital where most of the patients can no longer move of their own accord.
When the staff heard the news, some of the nurses began to cry. The administrator was in shock, but from then on, Harry MacNarama would bless it as one of the greatest days in his entire life.
Now the trouble was, how were they going to make the wedding dress? He knew his staff would find a way, and when one of his nurses volunteered, Harry was relieved. He wanted this to be the finest day in the lives of two of his patients — Juana and Michael.
Michael strapped in his wheelchair and breathing through his ventilator, appeared at Harry's office door one morning.
"Harry, I want to get married, "Michael announced.
"Married?" Harry's mouth dropped open. How serious was this? "To who? "Harry asked.
"To Juana, "Michael said. "We're in love."
Love. Love had found its way through the hospital doors, over two bodies that refused to work for their owners and penetrated their hearts — despite the fact that the two patients were unable to feed or cloth themselves, required ventilators just to breath and could never walk again. Michael had spinal muscular atrophy; Juana had multiple sclerosis.
Just how serious this marriage idea was, became quite apparent when Michael pulled out the engagement ring and beamed as he hadn't done in years. In fact, the staff had never seen a kinder, sweeter Michael, who had been one of the angriest men Harry's employees had ever worked with.
The reason for Michael's anger was understandable. For twenty-five years, he had lived his life at a medical center where his mother had placed him at age nine and visited him several times a week until she died. He was always a raspy sort of guy, who cussed out his nurses routinely, but at least he felt he had family at the hospital. The patients were his friends.
There even had been a girl once who went about in a squeaky wheelchair who he was sure had eyed him. But she hadn't stayed long at the center. And after spending more than half his life there, now Michael wasn't going to get to stay either.
The center was closing, and Michael was shipped to live at the rehabilitation hospital, far from his friends and worse, far from Betty.
That's when Michael turned into a recluse. He wouldn't come out from his room. He left it dark. His friends drove more than two hours to see him. But Michael's spirits sagged so low, no one could reach him.
And then, one day, he was lying in bed when he heard a familiar creaking sound coming down the hall. It sounded like that same, ancient, squeaking wheelchair that girl, Juana, had used at the center where he used to live.
The squeaking stopped at his door, and Juana peered in and asked him to come outdoors with her. He was intrigued and from the moment he met Juana again, it was as though she breathed life back into him.
He was staring at the clouds and blue skies again. He began to participate in the hospital's recreation programs. He spent hours talking with Juana. His room was sunny and light. And then he asked Juana, who'd been living in a wheelchair since age twenty-four, if she would marry him.
Juana had already had a tough life. She was pulled out of school before finishing the third grade, because she collapsed and fell a lot. Her mother, thinking she was lazy, slapped her around. She lived in terror that her mother wouldn't want her anymore, so on the occasions when she was well enough, she cleaned house "like a little maid".
Before the age of twenty-four, like Michael, she had a tracheotomy just to breathe and that was when she was officially diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. By the time she was thirty, she had moved into a hospital with round-the-clock care.
