Some of my colleagues have described interpreting as being similar to acting. One coworker talks about how she likes to get into the characters. For practice, she watches movies that have been dubbed into Spanish, just to see how the movie deals with all the normal, crazy things we deal with in speech: things that don't have clear, comfortable equivalents like jokes, idiomatic expressions, and slang.
Another pair of colleagues recently gave an excellent presentation on dealing with death and delivering bad news as interpreters. They made the case that we interpreters, because we speak in the first person, truly inhabit the role of the people for whom we interpret, and therefore deeply identify with them - to the point that we may experience vicarious trauma from hearing - and telling - their stories.
Yesterday I had the privilege of interpreting for a woman who, despite being active and still in possession of all her faculties, is approaching the end of her life. So I did what we do. I wedged myself into a corner next to her chair, in front of the MD and at her side, and started repeating everything everyone said, just as close to how they said it as I could. I soon realized that my patient was intelligent, educated, with a good vocabulary, so I stepped up my linguistic game, reaching for words that maintained the meaning-for-meaning exchange, but belong to more educated discourses.
It was the type of interpretation I deeply enjoy, because there's a certain elegance to it, and it stretches my creativity with language. As I've mentioned before, I'm a very verbal person. When I explain to people what I do, their eyes often get wide and they say, "Wow, learning all that medical vocabulary must be hard!" And it's true, that part is a challenge - one I enjoy, because I find it fascinating. But in reality, there's a relatively small set of words and phrases I use all the time, every day, because if my patients don't know the big medical words, then they don't get used much. We stick to everyday words like "pain," "what's bothering you?" "belly," and so forth. That means that when I know my patient has a command of Spanish that allows me to confidently use words like "abdomen" instead of "panza," and say things like "cuando tratamos estos temas..." instead of "cuando hablamos de estas cosas..." you might not think it's a big deal, but I get pretty excited.
The thing about really reaching into my linguistic resources like that, though, is that it requires an increase in focus and concentration, which also means paying less attention to the world around you. For those two hours - my fellow interpreters are groaning in recognition - it's a long time to concentrate that hard! - for those two hours, my surroundings faded and I paid attention only to the words, and the ideas and emotions in them. And because it was a palliative care conversation, they were very sad words indeed. At points I had to coach myself not to cry, not to let my voice shake.
So all the while I am interpreting, I'm focusing in on the characters, the two people I'm giving voice to, and making sure they understand each other. But I'm also having my own thoughts and reactions to what is going on. So I was surprised at the end of the session, when I actually looked at my patient's face for the first time in a long time, and I had a feeling of coming back into myself. It was like I looked at her, and me, who I am, came back into focus. I remembered that I am young, that I'm not dying, and that she is a completely different individual, unknown to me. But at the same time, I felt such love for her. And when I came back to myself - it was strange - but I had this sense of peace.
It was like the whole time I was interpreting, identifying with her, some part of me inside was panicking and thinking, "I'm not ready for this! I haven't thought about this! This is awful!!!" but when I stopped and looked at her, and remembered that we were separate, I could see what was evident from what she had been saying. That she's thought about it; that she has time to keep thinking about it. That she has deep bonds of love with people she cares about. That she has the strength she needs from God to walk down this path. That she is wise. That she is prepared to go through what is coming to her. That this was her struggle, and it was ok.
Going home, I remembered that moment, and I cried. I prayed and told God all the things I'd wanted to tell her, the things I'd been thinking in the back of my mind as I spoke her words. And I cried because I was sad that this loving, hard-working, mature, normal sort of woman was facing death. And I cried mostly because the dignity with which she faced it was breathtakingly beautiful.
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