Sometimes interpreters have to say horrible things. The same horrible things that doctors and nurse practitioners have to say. And when we do, when we as a medical team give bad news, we get to be at to be there in the big, scary moments where people forget themselves - or rather, decide that other people's eyes and opinions don't matter in light of the magnitude of what they're feeling - and react.
One time, I helped tell a matriarch and her family that her grandchild would likely be lost to her. She contained herself until everything had been said, and then let loose her grief. When she did, she began sobbing and praying in the same breath. And where I might have expected her to plead with God for her child's life, as I have seen many people do, she instead began giving heart-wrenching thanks. "Thank you Papito Dios for my children. Thank you Papito Dios for letting me hold him in my arms yesterday. Thank you Papito Dios for the time you gave me with him. Gracias, gracias..." she continued.
Her family rose instantly from their chairs to surround her, and in that clump of sobbing, grieving, praying people I saw the fruit of a long-standing relationship between this woman and her God. It floored me. She must have practiced thanking him for everything she could think of for years. It must be a very routine, normal thing for her to find something to say "thank you" for in the face of difficult, hard circumstances - otherwise how could she have done it in this, her moment of deepest pain?
And the way she addressed God was so familiar and deeply affectionate. A rough English translation would be "Daddy God," but in English, the word "daddy" is mostly used by young children, so it carries a sense of childishness. People pray this way in English too. The idea is that Jesus addressed God in the Biblical text as "Abba," and because through Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection people who choose to follow him have been grafted into God's family as children, they can now call God "Abba" as well. It is translated as "daddy," in English, but it still makes me a little uncomfortable. It sounded even more odd to me in Spanish though, because "papito" in Spanish isn't used in the same context as "Daddy," it isn't used by children. It's actually an affectionate way for parents to refer to children or older women to younger men. She had taken this word "papito" that is usually semi-parental and flipped it. Suddenly it meant "dear daddy God" instead of "little man." Because it's such an everyday word, and because of how easily it rolled off her tongue, it sounded both deeply intimate and well-worn. It sounded like it carried the undercurrent of love you might hear in a pet name used by a couple that's been happily married for 40 years.
For me, hearing her give thanks in such an intimate way to someone she considers to be in control of everything that happens, including this loss, cut me to the heart. And the way she was doing it, too. She was verbalizing the good thing that was being lost and expressing thanks for it in the midst of its being taken away, all toward a being she considers to be in control of both the giving and the loss. She wasn't asking for it back, or asking for the loss not to happen. Not that she won't - this was just her first reaction to the news. But this being her first reaction to her possible loss made her pain more poignant to me, clarified and sharpened it. And I think what shocked me about it was that it displayed such a soft heart, unembittered by the other pains of life thus far. How had she remained so unhardened by cynicism and bitterness, especially toward God, despite surely having already lived through a lot of the usual suffering?
It is almost Thanksgiving here in the United States, a time of year we set aside to be intentionally grateful. Here, my friends, was the fruit of faith that has been mixed with consistent gratitude. I don't fully know what kept this woman's heart soft, but I'm confident that gratitude had a lot to do with it. We take one day each year to focus on being grateful. But in this woman I saw an openness to love and a resilience to pain that can come from making gratitude a consistent habit.
I am grateful for the lesson, and hope to practice it myself.
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