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."