My Daughter is an Angel

"Mi hija es un angel, siempre he dicho que ella es un angel." as I dutifully interpreted, "My daughter is an angel, I've always said she's an angel." I thought to myself, "What? Come on, lady. I know you love your daughter a lot and you're scared of losing her, but an angel?"
I had gone to interpret for her just the previous day, and remembered leaving the encounter thinking about how completely unappealing I found this patient. She grunted more than she talked. When she did, it was loud and sharp and sudden. She was mostly engrossed in her own world, no matter how many people were trying to get her attention - unless she didn't like something or was uncomfortable. Then she'd make that known - loudly. She was 3 times the size of most kids her age, and disfigured by her disease. She reminded me of a puppet character from shows like Dark Crystal. Unkosher as it was, I admitted to myself that I couldn't understand what about her so charmed the rest of the staff, who talked about her with an affectionate kind of indulgence.
So of course I was the one who got the call to go interpret for her parents when her condition worsened to the point of fear. Of course when the Chaplain was about to dismiss me and just sit with the family the patient's mother pointed at me and said, "y tú, no te vayas." - "and you, don't leave." (Only very rarely does a patient recognize me in this way as their communicative link to the medical team and ask me to stay.)
As we sat together, waiting for the medical team to do their work and send us word, the parents and the chaplain started to talk. Gradually, as the parents talked, fear's roots of deep love for their daughter were exposed, and fear gave way to reminiscence and reflection. Which is how I ended up having to say of the same patient that I had judged so harshly that she was an angel. Her mother went on to explain how much she had learned from her daughter: that illness couldn't crush her daughter's determined personality; that doctors are wrong sometimes; that there are so many more medical specialties than she'd ever known existed; that her community's capacity for love was way more than she would have imagined; that her neighbors would defend her daughter instead of judging her; that her daughter's illness and disability would, in fact, bring people together. And it was this last that made her say, in affectionate awe "mi hija es un angel."
And me? I repented. "Okay, God," I thought silently at the creator, "I get it, you win. I'm sorry for judging by appearances. I'm sorry for judging this girl you love and made on purpose."

Spoken Word Poetry

In a book I am reading, a character starts spitting rhymes at an open mic night.
"I'd love to do that," I think,
but then I remember
that words come from feelings
and I'm still pretending
that I don't have any.

I'm fine.
Even though most of the time I'm
locked away in some corner of my mind,
the real me afraid that something is wrong,
something HAS to be wrong,
or I wouldn't feel this way.

But what that is, I'm not trying to find out.
Safer to stay on the lookout
for other ways to occupy my days.
So I stay busy.
But my body rebels, dispels
emotional energy through my cells
making muscles I couldn't isolate if I tried
jump and twitch,
and the fears I tried to hide
come oozing out my skin.
I want to cry.
But when I do I feel terrible.
My neck aches.
Since when do necks ache
when it's your heart that feels fit to break?

But I'm still pretending that I'm fine.
My life, is great.
Sure, my boyfriend's undocumented,
but what does that have to do with it?
I'm straight.

And no, it's not a lotta weight,
at least, I can't tell how much it is.
What part of this comes from lack of papers
and what's his.
'Cause when a body tells you you're not worth the dirt stuck to their shoes,
that shit sticks to you.
And then it shapes you.
And when it comes time to leave and cleave,
I'm sorry, I mean to move yo' ass and prove your love
that shit stops you, 'cause you still feel like an old, used piece of gum glued
to the heel of the government's shoe.
So what do I do? I know he's a good man, who loves me, and I love him, too.

Any maybe this isn't the problem at all.
Maybe the wall I put in place to hide my face from whatever it is I can't trace right now
is hiding something else entirely.
How would I know? I don't wanna look back there,
it's scary. Apparently, I'd rather let the fear become nameless,
and the dread become baseless,
and have all the things I can't control LITERALLY make my skin crawl.

I want to be better. I want to make meaning out of suffering,
clear away the cobwebs of pain and shame
from memories and the life in front of me
and become awake to reality.
To put names to my fears
To use my ears to tell my brain that I can't explain or prepare for everything.
That life hurts. But there's goodness in it too, a sweetness you miss if you
hide from the pain by rushing through.

I want to learn to be okay with not being the best at everything.
Not being the wisest in the room or
the first to solve a problem,
the one who doesn't need to be told.
Because I know that for me, not needing to be those things would mean
that I was being bold.
Letting go of needing control and still feeling safe would mean
- shit, I don't know, probably vulnerability.
Which I'm told is the best way to be awake to BOTH joy AND pain.

I want to let out tears, to let them quiet my fears
enough to be able to tell my soul that I'll be okay without control.
To let myself know that the truth is, I've never HAD control because none of us does.
But what I DO have - in abundance, even - is love.