Allen Cook and his daughter Melissa were renovating her house in Westfield, New Jersey, last week when they found a crack in one of the ceilings. What they discovered within turned out to be part of a beautiful, heartwarming love story.
上周,在阿伦·库克和他的女儿梅利莎重新装修他们位于新泽西韦斯特菲尔德的一座房子时,他们在其中一个天花板中发现了一条裂缝,并居然在里面发现了一个美丽、感人的爱情故事。
"The envelope was old and yellow. It has never been opened. It was unbelievable when my son-in-law started reading it. In the letter she was talking about the baby she was going to have," Allen Cook told CNN.
阿伦·库克在接受CNN采访时表示:“信封已陈旧、发黄。这封信从未被打开过。当我的女婿开始读这封信时,这简直令人难以置信。在信中,一个女孩提到自己将生孩子了。”
The story -- which could be straight out of a great movie plot about love and its mysterious ways -- begins in 1945.
这个故事开始于1945年,其中的爱情及其神秘的出场方式简直可与电影大片的情节相媲美。
Dated May 4 of that year, the typed letter was written by a woman named Virginia to her husband, Rolf Christoffersen. At the time, he was a sailor in the Norwegian navy.
1945年5月4日,一位名叫维吉妮的女子打印了这封信,她是写给自己的丈夫罗尔夫·克里斯托弗森的。罗尔夫那时是挪威海军士兵。
The envelope was marked "return to sender" and never found its way to her husband -- until last week. Allen's daughter used the Internet to find the phone number of someone named Rolf Christoffersen and gave him a call, leading her to his son in Santa Barbara, California.
信封上印着“退给寄件人”,也就是说直到上个星期这封信都未能成功寄给她的丈夫。随后,阿伦的女儿在网上找到了一个名叫罗尔夫·克里斯托弗森的人的电话,并给他致电,这样才找到了他在加州圣巴巴拉市的儿子。
"Someone called me at my office. They just Googled my name because I have the same name as my father. Melissa asked me where I grew up and I told her. She told me she had the letter. This is how I found out," Christoffersen's son, 66, told CNN.
罗尔夫的儿子今年已经66岁了,他向CNN透露:“有人打到办公室来找我。他们在谷歌上找到了我,因为我的名字和父亲一样。梅利莎问我是在哪儿长大的,我告诉了她,她说她手上有一封信。这样我就明白了。”
The younger Christoffersen wasn't yet born when his mother Virginia wrote the letter, but he says her words are very special to him. His mother, who died six years ago, wrote about her love for her husband.
当他的母亲维吉妮写这封信时,小克里斯托弗森还没有出生。不过他表示,母亲的信对他来说非常特别。他的母亲于六年前去世,在这封信中表达了对父亲的爱。
"I love you Rolf, as I love the warm sun, and that is what you are for my life, the sun about which everything else revolves for me," she wrote.
信中是这样写的:“我爱你,罗尔夫,就像我爱暖暖的太阳,你就是我的生命中的太阳,其他所有一切都围绕着太阳而转。”
Seventy-two years later, her words were finally heard by her husband.
72年后,她的这些话语终于被丈夫听到了。
Christoffersen immediately called his father, who is now 96 and also lives in California, and read the letter to him over the phone.
小克里斯托弗森马上打电话给96岁的父亲,他现在也在加州住,并在电话中将这封信读给父亲听。
"I was so surprised after all these years. I was very happy to find out that a letter like that existed. I am still very emotional," the elder Christoffersen told CNN.
老克里斯托弗森告诉CNN:“在经历这么多年后,我感到非常惊喜,还有这样一封情书存在,我真的非常高兴。到现在我还非常激动。”