Bridge the Gap

I fidget endlessly in the unforgiving hospital chair, fluorescent lights beaming down, as if to interrogate me. An older woman sits to my right, anxiously rubbing her bracelet in the same worn spot. Her eyes veer from left to right, assessing the generic pictures that hang on these bleak, sterile walls. In her hands, a crumpled flyer suggests carefully worded steps to take regarding terminal illnesses.

Giving in to curiosity, I take a quick peek at the images she has been scanning for the last ten minutes. A father-and-son duo smile back at me in one photo, while an elderly mother and her implied daughter are seated in another. I suppose these pictures intend to elicit hope and ignite feelings of familiarity. However, the woman’s eyes appear increasingly hollow as she fixates on the photographs.

Suddenly, a name echoes from the hallway.

The woman’s glazed eyes instantly regain an ounce of liveliness as she jumps up, abandoning the pamphlet in her now empty seat. Against my better judgment, I listen in on her conversation—a private, intimate discussion that I would never wish upon another.

She is dying—not the woman who gazed longingly at the images of happy families—but rather, her sister.

Her sister stares blankly at the doctor and reaches for the woman’s hand, pleading and desperate to understand the prognosis. The words are floating right in front of her, yet their meaning feels beyond her reach. I can see her arms extending to catch the phrases that escape her, only to be trampled by the next set of strange words.

***

I feel myself drowning in resurfaced memories, dredging up emotions I had forgotten.

Instantly, my mind is transported to my old college apartment, peeling my eyes open from an awful night’s rest. The weight of the world seemed heavy before, but its demand for me to participate in society felt more overwhelming than usual. It felt as though my eyelids never fully lifted and that sleep shackled around my ankles. My view of the world was jaded, leaving behind this empty shell that I was unsure how to dispose of. I could imagine my name called for attendance, and in the same breath, “absent” would cut through the air. Maybe my absence would be a disappointment to some, but others would continue with their lives.

Everyone forgets about you eventually—this is all that went through my mind—as I lay my head back down on my pillow, soaked with unwanted tears.

My professor was not everyone. She did not forget the small details that consumed large parts of a person’s life.

She noticed I missed class, an unusually out-of-character behavior. “Is everything okay?” She asked inquisitively.

We were in her office for my oral exam: an assessment of my Spanish-speaking skills. However, given that such a personable question shattered the academic atmosphere, I resigned to the tears welling behind my facade. Through unintelligible sobs, I poured my heart out to a woman who knew me as a student but treated me like a friend.

“Ah-ah,” she said, waving her pointer finger in the air, “en Español”.

I was stunned. She wished to hear me out, but only in Spanish. I was reaching for something inside me that felt inaccessible. It was as though there was a small child within me, screaming to be seen, but unable to make a sound. What was the Spanish word for “depression”? How do I say it was easier to sleep it all away? These words I was hopelessly searching for were scattered somewhere in my memories, watching me grasp aimlessly in the void for them.

Insurmountable frustration washed over me. These suppressed feelings that were finally ready to be freed have been subdued once more, all because I could not find the right words. I was so close to expressing my grief, only to fall short at the sight of this line in the sand. I thought she was cruel for this. I thought it was brutal of my professor to convey genuine care while placing a known barrier between us.

Now, I realize she was being what she has always been: a teacher.

***

Upon returning to the present, I can see the anguish boiling within the sister. She is scared and unsure of the words tossed about. Her eyes mirror her worries, but her lips remain sealed. Instead, she waits patiently for her own kin to translate that she is dying.

I can only imagine what she wants to say. I can’t embody her feelings of helplessness and defeat, nor convey her suffering. As unease clasps her in its unwelcome hands, the sister speaks in her mother tongue. The language itself is undeniably beautiful, but the fear in her voice overshadows it. She is patching together the right set of words that describe her agony, which, if translated, would lessen their meaning.

The woman standing before the doctor rubs her bracelet and looks tearfully at her sister. She cannot bring herself to interpret the words into existence. They already hang in the air, accessible to those who understand English, but in her sister’s world, these words are just noise—they do not exist with the same weight. She wants to protect the world that her sister lives in, even if it means keeping her in the dark. Perhaps some things are meant to stay out of reach.

Pain engulfs the two women, but in vastly different ways. They stand close in the same room, yet remain incredibly distant in their understanding of each other.

My name fills the space, interrupting my shameful eavesdropping. Finally, it is my time to enter the supposed exam room.

I leave the waiting area to enter a similar room instead, meant for the same activity: sitting.

This time, an older man settles to my left, inspecting all the expensive equipment surrounding us. He kindly informs me that they did not have “all this high-tech fancy stuff” back in his day, to which I cannot help but chuckle.

However, my chuckle soon turns to silence as I watch the nurse go about her routine. She calls him over to her station, rapidly rattling off the actions she is about to perform while weaving in various, confusing device names. As she swiftly moves through the room, making no eye contact with the man, I cannot help but notice the look in his eyes.

His pupils dart back and forth from one unfamiliar device to another. He is in the same vicinity as all the machines and the lengthy words hurled at him, but he feels lost and unsure whether he should ask for clarity. The nurse could nullify his worries with just a few minutes of explanation—the resolution is staring him in the face, about to take his blood pressure. Nonetheless, his mouth starts to open slightly, then immediately closes, as no time is spared for what he falsely assumes are silly questions.

What does it cost to bridge the gap in someone’s understanding?

The man twiddles his thumbs and smiles solemnly at his lap. He likely thinks this is just a sign of the times, an unstoppable force that he must begrudgingly face. The world is growing so distant from him, and yet, all it would take is ten seconds for the nurse to change that.

***

My professor could have let me wallow in my tears, professing my misery in English. But instead, she challenged me to wear a different pair of shoes, to cry tears like someone else who cannot find the words they so desperately yearn to say.

The space between our misunderstandings of the world and of each other might be smaller than we think. However, the question has always been: will we choose to close that gap?