Koda Interpreting…
is very tough. Thank goodness for certified interpreters now
When I was growing up, there was no such thing as a certified sign language interpreter.
There were no laws requiring an interpreter to be present at the doctor’s office, lawyer’s office, courtroom, hearings, and all forms of negotiation.
When an interpreter was needed for something Deaf parents couldn’t take care of in written notes, the responsibility fell to the oldest Koda (Kid of Deaf adults).
That responsibility fell to me just after my 10th birthday when our family moved to Maryland.
When you’re a kid, you may know the spoken language very well but might not understand the concept. Like an escrow.
As a kid, I seemed to be mostly the conveyer of bad news.
We didn’t get a phone installed for over a year. My parents didn’t see the need for one. There was a pay phone booth a short drive away.
I made calls to my grandma from the phone booth in all kinds of weather.
I missed her terribly and sometimes felt lost without her. I was eager to talk to her but was limited to a three-minute long-distance phone call.
Mom always watched with anticipatory eyes and impatience in her hands. She would reach out to shake my arm, a signal that meant “What is she saying?”
But I wasn’t willing to stop and answer questions during those precious 3 minutes.
As soon as I hung up, I would mouth to Mom what I’d been talking about with Grandma. No matter how I tried to stretch the words out, it was never enough.
“You talked for 3 minutes. How can you tell me everything in 1 minute? There must be more. Tell me,” Mom would say accusingly.
How could I explain I couldn’t give her the conversation verbatim. I could only summarize.
My parents were surprised. “You mean, you can’t remember all the words?” they asked wonderingly. And then: “Well because you’re a child. Someday you’ll grow up and remember all the words.”
I didn’t think so, but kids don’t argue with their parents. At least, not in my day.
Because we had no phone, when relatives in New York needed to get a message to my parents in a hurry, they’d send a telegram. Because each word in the message had to be paid for, each telegram tended to say “Call home. Important.”
In that first year we lived in Baltimore, Western Union pulled up in front of our rowhouse several times.
I grew to hate the sight of them.
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We would go to that phone booth in front of the grocery store. The first telegram came from Grandma, and so I had the operator make a 3-minute call to her. We didn’t even talk for three minutes.
I hung up the phone, stunned. My parents were shaking me.
Why hadn’t I talked on the phone for three minutes? Why did I hang up so soon? What was wrong? They were worried and alarmed at my expression.
How does a child tell her mother that her father is dead? Finally, I just blurted it out. I also said where and when the viewing and funeral would be. We would go to Long Island the following day.
I watched my mother burst into tears, and my father put his arms around her. My brother and I hugged her too. I felt awful.
When the next telegram came, it was from the City. I had to call my aunt, Dad’s older sister. This time, it was my Grandma Molly. Dad cried, and I felt guilty for having to tell him his mother was gone.
When that third Western Union car pulled up, I ran and hid in my bedroom. There was no hiding from going with my parents to that phone booth I’d also begun to hate.
The next one was Dad’s older brother, my favorite uncle. It broke my heart.
The fourth one was from Long Island this time. I had to call my Uncle John, Mom’s brother. My mouth was dry. Had something happened to Grandma?
Uncle John’s news, however, was about our house. We’d left him in charge of our Long Island house. He’d rented our house to a family who hadn’t paid any rent. He was trying to have them evicted.
The fifth one was from Uncle John again. He was talking about things I didn’t understand. The mortgage was in arrears and there was no money in escrow. We were going to lose our house on Long Island.
It sounded like Greek to me. The only thing I understood was that the bad people didn’t pay the rent and now our house was being taken away. We wouldn’t be able to go back to Long Island. There wouldn’t be a house for us to return to.
Escrow, escrow. What was it? I told my parents our house was in the rear of a birdcage, for a crow.
Of course, that made no sense and so we went back and forth. Uncle John had to break all the concepts down for me until I understood that since the renters didn’t pay anything, my parents couldn’t make both the mortgage payment on the house and the rent on the rowhouse.
Evicting the family took months. Uncle John tried to use the money in the escrow account to try and keep the mortgage current. There wasn’t a lot of money there and then there was none.
The bank was foreclosing.
My parents were very upset.
I was traumatized. I was having a difficult adjustment and returning to Long Island was something I’d been looking forward to. I missed my Grandma dreadfully. Now we were stuck in Baltimore.
There were so many devastating losses that year.
I was dealing with issues a ten-year-old normally doesn’t face.
But what else was to be done in those days before professional interpreters were available?
Looking back, I didn’t feel resentful or put upon. I loved my parents and would do anything for them, especially if they needed help. It was a family role I slipped on with some difficulty, but I made it fit.
But this Koda made interpreting mistakes along the way. But that’s yet another story.
