A week later Mother took a job selling dry goods at half the salary the radio station had offered. "It's a job I can do," she said simply. But the evening practice sessions on the old green typewriter continued. I had a very different feeling now when I passed her door at night and heard her tapping away. I knew there was something more going on in there than a woman learning to type.
When I left for college two years later, Mother had an office job with better pay and more responsibility. I have to believe that in some strange way she learned as much from her moment of defeat as I did, because several years later, when I had finished school and proudly accepted a job as a newspaper reporter, she had already been a journalist with our hometown paper for six months.
The old green typewriter sits in my office now, unrepaired. It is a memento, but what it recalls for me is not quite what if recalled for Mother. When I'm having trouble with a story and think about giving up or when I start to feel sorry for myself and think things should be easier for me, I roll a piece of paper into that cranky old machine and type, word by painful word, just the way mother did. What I remember then is not her failure, but her courage, the courage to go ahead.
It's the best memento anyone ever gave me.

一周后，母亲找到一份卖纺织品的工作，工资只有在电台工作的一半。“这是一份我能胜任的工作。”她淡淡的说。但是晚上她还在那台旧式的打字机上练习着。那晚，我经过她房门时，察觉到有点不同，里面没有打字机敲打的声音。我知道一定发生了比一个女人学习打字更重要的事情。

两年后，当我从学校毕业时，母亲已经拥有了一份办公室的工作，工资高，还是办公室负责人。我相信，在她失败期间她用特殊的方式所学的跟我在校期间所学的一样多。因为，当我在毕业后骄傲地成为一名新闻记者时，她已经在我家乡地方报社当了六个月记者。

现在，我把那台未作修理的绿色旧式打字机当作一个纪念品放在我的办公室，但我不是因为它而想起母亲。每当我为某事纠结想要放弃时；每当我觉得生活不顺心而感到难过时，我就往那台旧式打字机的曲柄上卷一张纸，象我母亲以前那样一个字一个字的吃力地在上面敲打着。它让想起的不是母亲的失败，而是她的勇气，那种让她勇往直前的勇气。

这是世上最好的纪念品。