I’ll be there for you

I roll my eyes a little, pout a little deeper, here we go

again. “Hello, I’m calling regarding our life insurance policy- yes… my mom is here.” I see the flash before her eyes, the preparatory breath before jumping from the highest diving board. She takes the phone reluctantly. Already, she holds it as far away as possible, as if distance will conceal the cracks in her language. 

“Hello… yes…Grace” She over enunciates each

word, sweetens her voice, and retreats back behind a kind smile. Once again, she is the nice woman in the corner with the broken english and ever-smiling crescent moon eyes. She becomes a caricature; so paper thin that she is almost see-through, that if I flip the page, she will disappear.

“Can you please speak with my daughter? She can

communicate better.” 

8 years later, I can still “communicate better.” I haggle

for prices with the gardener; I attend my brother’s parent-teacher conferences; I greet the world with a “Thank you so much, sincerely, Grace.” Sometimes I am annoyed, I drag my feet and joke about identity theft. I am too busy, too young, too not her. 

I remember when she tried; when she played english

soundtracks in the car and we watched Friends to learn English and american humor. But as I was getting sucked in, falling in love with the characters and whimsy of the show, my mother’s crease between her eyebrows deepened. Each laugh track another joke she didn’t catch, another failure, another barrier to the world. She watches with yearning at the multi-dimensional characters on screen, and I want to give her the lines that I know are in her heart. 

           She asks me about pronunciation; has me repeat words on the car hundreds of times. Does your tongue touch the front or back of the roof of your mouth? Does it come from the top or bottom of your throat? One day she asked me about “color.” How is it different from “collar?” We repeated and analyzed each movement of my mouth until the words became foreign and sounded unfamiliar even in my ears. Color, culler, cooler, caller, cullor, collar. She kept her shoulder squared and lifted her head, keeping a vice-tight grip on her pride. And I realized why she suddenly began to doubt and overthink a simple word that she recites as an art teacher hundreds of times a week. Someone had laughed at her, “Ohhh, oh my gosh, you mean color? It’s not collar!! Ha! As in dog collar!” 

I can see the sorrow, the shame, the frustration behind

her eyes. I can hear the gears in her head ticking, rewinding the moment over and over again. I can feel the new heaviness in her, the weight of inadequacy, the clenching of shame. I know, because I am one half of her, one half of her flesh, her mind, her heart.

I regret each eye roll, each sigh and complaint;

because I know that she already spends hours translating, double checking, battling every second of self- doubt. I see her smile, and I see her break a little more. And all I can do is promise to face the world for her, from scheduling my grandmother’s appointments to my brother’s playdates, I decide that she will be the most well- spoken, gracious, confident, and poised person. I will help her come to life; I will make her real enough to touch, real enough to laugh and cry. 

I am not crafting a persona, directing an entirely

new character, I am simply translating beyond her words. I am revealing the poet who stays up in the silence of the night to write lyrics in beautiful, dancing calligraphy; the teacher who holds hands and sings with her kids; the mother who can give all of the comfort and reassurance in the world with a single touch; the woman who radiates light when she tells a story, the women with her own magnetic field of never-ending love.

When her eyes stop smiling for the world, they deepen

to reveal a universe of multi-dimensional emotion, thoughts, and ideas. I think of  everything she has given me (freely and unintentionally): her voice, her words, her confidence, her independence, her hope. I just pray that she has enough left of herself, that I’ve written enough lines for her to be tangible, touchable … and real.