For all of them, it started much as it will for you: a strangely persistent itch at the back of the head, a discomfort on the left side, a lump fingered in the shower. Something it became impossible to ignore.

Then came the trip to the doctor, the encouraging words from friends, the dropped voices and then the news, which – despite all the evidence – continues to surprise us all, to seem like an error, an appalling clerical mistake from Satan.

对那些人来说，这一切都是这么开始的，你也不会例外：脑袋背后一阵阵莫名的瘙痒、身体左侧的不适、淋浴时摸到的一个肿块。然后这越来越难以忽视。

然后就是医生的门诊、朋友们的慰问、压低的细语声，然后消息来了——尽管证据确凿——它还是震撼了所有人，仿佛它只是一个差错，是撒旦骇人的文书失误而已。

Nelly: “After I received my diagnosis, I cried every day.”

Some submit at once, a few vow to fight what science insists can never be vanquished, most veer painfully from hope to despair.

Nelly：“在我收到诊断书后，每天以泪洗面。”

有些人当即投降，有些人誓要与所谓科学表明的不可能斗争到底，而大部分人，痛苦地从希望踱向绝望。

Sarah: “When I first heard, I said we’re going to fight this, we’re going to beat this…”

The American photographer Andrew George took his camera into the hospices of California that we would otherwise never dare to visit.

He wanted unremarkable people, but they emerge as anything but. Their story will be ours, an idea that today still remains almost impossible to admit to ourselves or to pay due homage to, through the rounds of ordinary distractions and commitments. We seem, day to day, simply so eternal, unfortunately for us…

The dying have momentous things to say to all of us, even when they say them in simple unschooled words. Their pronouncements become like those of prophets; they have gone ahead of us to tell us the truths we don’t have the courage for right now. These men and women, none of whom have more than a few days left to live, speak with the clarity, the lack of pretension, the utter sincerity of the damned.

Sarah：“当我第一次听到时，我说我们要与它搏斗，我们会打败它的......"

美国摄影师Andrew George把镜头转向了加州的临终关怀院，那些我们可能永远不敢踏入的地方。

他想拍的是平凡人，但是他们却显得如此非凡。他们的故事也会成为我们的故事——由于种种生活琐事，这是一件我们到今天都不太可能向自己承认或怀有足够敬畏的事。一天又一天，我们看起来好像能活到永远，不幸的是......

临死之人有很多重要的话要对我们说，哪怕是简单淳朴的词句。他们的话如同出自先知之口；他们先于我们一步，述说的是那些我们现在还没有胆量接受的真相。这些男男女女，时日无多，他们的所言是将死之人的去伪存真。

Abel: “You have a one way ticket, don’t waste it!”

The dying are the great appreciators of this world: they notice the sunshine on the roller blind, the laughter of a grandchild, another breath… And they know what spoilt ingrates we all are, not stopping to register the wonder of every passing minute. They were once like us of course. They know they wasted decades and from their beds, they strive to tell us of their folly and warn us of our own.

Abel：”你只有一张单程票，别浪费了它！“

临终的人是这个世上最好的欣赏者：他们会注意窗卷帘上洒下的阳光，子孙的笑声，又一次的呼吸.....他们还知道我们是多么的忘恩负义、不知感恩，竟然不会停下珍视每一瞬间的美好。当然他们也曾像我们一样。他们发现自己挥霍了几十年的光阴，所以在床前，他们力图借自己的愚蠢来警醒我们。

Kim: “There’s so many things to enjoy and we don’t enjoy them.”

It is the time for confession and for admissions of weakness. This is no occasion for pride. You can admit all the many things that went wrong, the evasions, cowardice, bitterness and betrayals that are the hidden mortar of every life.

Kim：“有那么多美好的事情，而我们却没有珍惜。”

是时候忏悔和承认软弱了。这不是自大的时候。你可以承认所有的错事，那些日常生活中被埋藏的逃避、懦弱、苦楚和背叛。

Donald: “Even though my ex-wife remarried and loved another man, I still love her.”

The things that the dying cherish most have no connection with what is deemed important by the competitive world. Childhood is always mentioned, the time when death had no presence yet, when there were only nightmares that could be comforted away by a loving hand. Now the nightmares have colonised the days. This is worse than any ghost or zombie a childhood imagination could have dreamt up.

Donald：“虽然我的前妻再婚，爱着另一个男人，但我仍然爱她。”

临终之人最珍视的那些事物和俗世所看重的东西毫无关联。童年总会被提起，那个时候死亡还没驾临，连噩梦也会被一只深情的大手轻轻抚平。而今噩梦全被那些时光占据。这却比孩提时所能梦见的任何一个孤魂野鬼都让人绝望。

Chuck: “Some of my favourite times were as kids; me and my brothers used to play baseball and my mom would join us.”

We may want to cry, for them and of course, as it should be, for us.

Death is the great re-organiser. It refashions ambition, it encourages us to attach new value to things we hardly would have thought of as goals of any kind.

Chuck：“我最喜欢的时光之一就是小时候，我和我的兄弟们一起打棒球，还有我妈妈也会加入进来。”

我们可能会想哭，会是因为他们，也应该是因为我们自己。

死亡是个伟大的重塑者。它重塑了志向，激发我们为从前从不当回事的事物赋予了新的价值。

Irene: “I would love to be seventy years old.”

We will leave very few traces. Our monuments are shockingly small, but all the more genuine and heartbreaking for being so. We can count ourselves lucky for living on in the hearts of a few for half a decade or so.

Irene：“我很想活到70岁。”

我们会留下很少的痕迹。我们的印迹小得惊人，也更显诚挚而悲伤。如果我们还能在一些人心中活上5年，就可以自称是幸运的。

Odis: “I’ll be remembered for my red beet jam and quilting…”

Every age should be in search of effective ways to keep death in mind. Once we would look at skulls or at martyrs, hourglasses or withered flowers. Now we can accompany a photographer down the linoleum departure gates of the dying. The task of art is to give us access to experiences it is otherwise hard to get hold of and to render their moral vivid to our distracted imaginations.

The images are desperately sad but not necessarily depressing. Rather than try to crush us with the remembrance of death, they are on the side of life, they give us new determination to make sure the coming days are not wasted like so many others have been.

It no longer matters quite so much whom we squabbled with and what our anxieties may currently be about. With death in mind, we are set free from things that shouldn’t constrain us in the first place: our fears, wrong preoccupations, false values.

Unfortunately, we’re likely to forget the wisdom on offer here within hours. We’ll be back to losing perspective – and overlooking the sunlight and the charm of the breeze. These are the sort of ungrateful minds we all have – which is why we continuously need the resources of art to renew our connection with the unbearable but deeply necessary truths.

Odis：“我会因为红甜菜酱和编织活儿被人记得..."

每个时期都应该寻找有效的办法谨记死亡。之前我们可以看看尸骨、烈士陵、沙漏或是残花。现在我们可以随着摄影师探访铺盖下将远去的临终之人。这个艺术的目的是为我们提供一个体验的契机，这历历在目的景象很难被常人所见，也无法通过我们涣散的想象呈现。

这些图片哀而不伤。与其说试图拿死亡来击垮人们，不如说他们是站在生命的另一边，给了我们新的决心，不要像他人一样随意挥霍未来的日子。

我们和谁争执过，或我们正为什么所烦扰都不重要了。心怀死亡，我们从那些本就不该束缚我们的事物中得到了解脱：我们的恐惧、错误的成见、虚假的价值观。

不幸的是，没过一会我们就会轻易忘记这些教训。我们又会少了那双眼睛，忽略阳光和微风的魅力。这就是我们不领情的心智，这也是为什么我们需要不停地用艺术这些手段来重新认识那些，难以面对但却必须正视的真相。