Koda Terp
A Koda is a kid of Deaf adults.
When I was about 4 or 5, I had my first experience with oral (lipreading interpreting).
We were living the next street over from Grandma’s house and I was spending a day with her.
We’d just sat down for lunch when we heard unholy screaming.
We looked out the picture kitchen window and I was terrified to see my mother running toward Grandma’s house. She was carrying my younger brother in her arms, and they were both screaming frantically.
Grandma and I ran outside to meet them.
My brother’s arm was dangling limply, his face scrunched up with pain as tears flowed down his cheeks.
I found myself between Grandma and my mom, who was in hysterics. Grandma turned to me and asked, “What is she saying?”
I could hardly make the words out. Mom didn’t hear Junior (Pete). She was outside hanging clothes. She came inside to fetch more laundry. She was gesturing now but I didn’t understand. I didn’t know how washers with rollers worked but Grandma did. Grandma ran back into the house to wake Grandpa.
We all went to the emergency room.
The doctor and the nurse ignored Mom, speaking to my grandparents.
We were ushered into a room with a gigantic machine hovering over a stretcher bed.
They continued speaking to my grandparents. I watched as Grandma then turned to Mom and slowly began mouthing to her.
I wondered why the doctor and nurse didn’t speak to or look at my mother, who was still sobbing. I wondered why Grandma was moving her lips so slowly without speaking.
The doctor said he wanted my brother on the table so they could X-ray his shoulder. Grandma pointed to my brother and then to the table.
Mom got up and tried to put him onto the stretcher bed, but my brother fought against it, wailing, and trying to cling to her with his good arm.
The nurse spoke soothingly to my brother. “Do you like Lassie? You can see Lassie, but you must lie down very still and look into the camera.”
That calmed him down at once. I felt a pang of jealousy. I wanted to see Lassie too. “Look up,” the nurse said, “and don’t move.”
The machine made noises and then stopped. As the nurse helped my brother sit up, he realized he’d been had and started screaming again. Mom soothed him and calmed him.
We had to go back into the waiting room while the X-rays were read. Finally, the doctor came back. Once again he spoke to Grandma and not to Mom. I heard the words “dislocated, not broken” and “there will be a scar.”
We had to go back into another room so that the doctor could push hard on my brother’s shoulder. That took a lot of effort because Pete didn’t want any more doctors and fake Lassies. Whatever the doctor did hurt because Pete began sobbing louder. I couldn’t hear what the doctor was saying to Grandma. I saw a mark on Pete’s shoulder. It wasn’t bleeding but his shoulder was swollen, and the skin seemed pulled tight.
After the doctor left, I watched Grandma mouthing again to Mom. I realized one thing: she was again telling Mom what the doctor said. I was puzzled. Maybe the doctor only talked to Grandma because she was the oldest mom there.
On the way home, I heard Grandma and Grandpa talking about what happened. Mom was doing the laundry and went outside with the first basket of clothes to hang. Another load was going in the washer commonly in use those days. It had a pair of rollers on top of the machine.
When Mom came in after hanging the clothes, she saw Junior with his arm pinned to the shoulder between the rollers. He was screaming and crying. She must have been too far from the kitchen to hear him, I thought. I wanted to ask questions but didn’t know how to phrase them.
Pete recovered. He still has a scar.
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Another time, Mom was doing yardwork as my brother and I played. A neighbor was walking by and stopped to admire Mom’s garden. It’s so pretty, the woman gushed. She loved flowers but just didn’t have a green thumb. Mom smiled and nodded, smiled, and nodded. The woman walked on.
Mom turned to me and said, “What did she say?”
I was surprised, but I remembered what Grandma had done at the hospital so I mouthed slowly, “Your flowers are beautiful.” Mom looked both happy and relieved. Years later, I realized she’d been relieved to have reacted appropriately to the woman’s comments.
When we lived on Long Island, I didn’t interpret much for my parents. There were hearing family members all around us who used their lips to convey information to Mom and Dad.
Sometimes there was a phone call, and I would mouth the message to them.
Sometimes we’d watch a TV show we all enjoyed. There would be an important scene that involved a lot of fast talking. Mom or Dad would tap me on the shoulder, and I would mouth what was happening.
My full Koda interpreting and advocacy roles took place the very night we moved to Baltimore.
We arrived late in the afternoon. It was December and as twilight started to fall, my parents were surprised and upset to learn there was no electricity or heat in our house.
Dad had paid the deposit for our utilities, and the landlord was supposed to have Baltimore Gas & Electric (BG&E) turn everything on the day we moved in.
Mom was sick, running a fever.
Dad had the receipt for the deposit he’d made and there was a phone number on it.
We didn’t have a phone installed yet, so Dad and I drove around looking for a payphone. There was a grocery store not far away with a pay phone in front.
This was one of those phone booths you see in old movies and TV shows — the kind Clark Kent changed into when he became Superman.
I dialed the number, and the operator told me how many coins I needed to put in. Dad had plenty of change in his pockets.
The lady I talked to first asked to talk to a parent. I explained that my father couldn’t hear well enough to talk on the phone. She seemed taken aback to be speaking to a child.
I explained what happened. She checked the records and said Mr. Landlord had scheduled the utilities to be turned on two days from now.
“But that’s wrong. My daddy said to turn them on today,” I said. “It’s cold, and we’re hungry. We can’t cook.”
The lady put me on hold and got her supervisor.
The man sounded grumpy. He apologized that someone had gotten the date wrong, but he couldn’t do anything about it.
Dad was watching me through the door of the phone book. He looked very worried, and I knew it was because my mom had a fever.
Somewhere inside me, I felt a burst of energy and strength. “My mommy is sick,” I told him. “She has a fever. My brother might be sick too and he’s littler than me. We are so cold. If we don’t have heat, Mommy will get sicker. Maybe my Daddy and brother will get sick too. We need it now.”
He insisted it was too late to do anything about it now.
“Then tomorrow,” I said. “My mommy needs hot soup and heat so that she can get well.”
The man agreed that the utilities would be turned on as soon as possible the following day.
I hung up and let my father know. His face brightened with relief, and he pulled me into a hug. He told me with his words that he was so proud of me. We then drove around until we found a Chinese restaurant. We were able to get hot soup for my mother as well as something for Dad, Pete, and me.
I always thought I would be a writer when I grew up. I was making up stories and writing them down all the time.
I didn’t realize then that I would become a certified sign language interpreter for the Deaf when I grew up. I have been an interpreter/advocate for over half of my life and loved it.
That’s yet another story.
