Making ethical decisions in a vacuum is like getting lost and only asking yourself for directions.
This is a combination of the Wit and Wisdom of two people, Xenia Fretter and one other reader who asked not to be named. Thanks to both!
Tag: ouch
Rule 612
You learn a great deal about medical interpreting by being a patient.
The same must be true about interpreting for the police, but don’t.
Rule 611
When a Doctor’s Office tells a Deaf person, “you have to bring your own interpreter,” I just want to ask the name of the wheelchair user they required to build that wheelchair-ramp in front of their building.
Rule 609
Remember, no one goes to the Social Security Administration or the Department of Motor Vehicles or ANY government agency for fun.
(VRS Interpreters, substitute goes to with calls)
Rule 607
Terms For Things All Interpreters Understand:
Conservation of Gibberish:
The amount of effort you wish to expend on explaining to the Client that your interpretation was spot on, but what the Presenter said didn’t make any sense.
Note from Aunt SuperTam: Real Talk with SuperTam
If you did not know it by now reading this blog, I married an incredible and profound person.
Many people have asked me to share the talk my wife gave at my son Harrison’s funeral.
PLEASE DON’T STOP READING! This is an uncomfortable topic, but we need to accept this discomfit because it is literally about life and death.
I am sharing only part of her longer remarks because it is vitally important. You can find the full transcript on my Facebook timeline.
I am happy that it touched so many people and hopefully opened up some much needed dialog on the topics of both mental illness and suicide.
Please remember that these are the words she spoke over my son’s coffin, in a room with about 600 people watching and listening. I say that not only as a kind of trigger warning, and as a way of letting you know the power and strength possible in the human spirit, but also to highlight the sacred nature of her words.
Please share this. Share her full remarks. Share them with people you love or people you just met, but share this message.
Excerpts of remarks given on July 28, 2018, at the funeral of Harrison T Boam by his mother Tammis R Boam.
“…Harrison asked me to say it like it is today. So, we are going to have what I’m calling Real Talk with SuperTam, (because that’s my nickname).
Harrison killed himself. Very few people want to say that. People don’t want to talk about it. People do want to talk about it but they don’t know how. It’s an unbearably painful topic. People keep telling Dale and myself that we are so brave to talk openly about what Harrison did. We never considered any other option. It didn’t feel brave to either one of us, just truthful. When a person dies of heart disease or cancer or pneumonia, we all grieve, but we don’t fear talking about why they died. Mental illness carries a heavy stigma in our society and I believe we share an obligation to have more productive and proactive conversations about a really scary and difficult topic. Mental illness is physical illness. It happens in the brain. Just like MS or Parkinson’s disease; it can be a chemical imbalance, a failure of synapses to connect properly, or an underdeveloped portion of the brain that limits its proper function. It is not different than any other illness. But it is sooo taboo. When the term ‘Mental Illness’ is mentioned, people think in extremes; severe debilitation, psychosis, the inability to work or leave the house, erratic behavior, frightening delusions – scary, scary words, yet mental illness usually doesn’t look like that. It’s depression – from mild to severe, anxiety, ADHD, OCD, Anorexia, Post Partum Depression, Autism Spectrum – it can be an illness or a disorder or a dysfunction. Everyone in this room knows someone who deals with a mental illness every single day. It is often silent and very subversive, and people can feel isolated or hopeless.
Nearly every single person that I talked to, or Dale, or my parents or in-laws or our friends knows someone who has had suicide effect their family. The heartbreaking thing is that suicide is on the rise amongst our youth. Our children are dying and we are afraid to talk about it because it is uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable for me to stand here today and talk about it.
But I am willing to open the conversation. I am willing to answer questions. I will listen to fears and pains, and I will try to offer comfort. I know I’m not the only one willing to do this, but I think one of the problems we collectively suffer from is fear.
Dale and I always try to teach our kids that the devil dwells in darkness and the gospel spreads light. So they should base their decisions on whether or not they have to hide what they do in darkness or if they can do it openly in the light. This is a good foundation for teaching decision-making. However, people often hide in darkness. Not because they are dark themselves, but because they are afraid. We need to learn how to recognize people who are hiding. We must practice seeing what people in pain look like. We need to commit to ourselves that we will be the person. The one who offers succor, in whatever form that takes. We need to ask questions and develop relationships that allow people to open up and be unafraid… The Lord is asking us to be is hands and help his children. We need to seek the one, and we also need to be the one. Be the one who looks. Be the one who asks. Be the one who sees. We have the power to heal.
Our family has been terribly, irrevocably wounded and changed. We are in agony. But we are being ministered to, every second of every day. Because of that, we are already beginning to heal. We have a long road ahead and we accept that, because we do not walk that road alone. The Savior walks that road with us. And so do every single one of you every time you do something that is motivated by love. The road that we walk, the same road you walk, is the path of the gospel. It guides us towards our Father in Heaven…
He did kill himself, but he also died because he suffered from an illness. We do not need to be ashamed of that or hide that fact. Harrison made a choice I wish he had not. He took an action he can’t take back. I know he would if he could. I know he didn’t mean to do this. But we are the ones who are left with the results of his actions. What do we do with that? Do we live within the atonement of Christ? Do we refuse to let fear keep us from speaking when speaking is necessary? Do we reach out, see a person, offer love and provide acceptance? Do we hide in the darkness, or do we shine in the light? I know what Harrison would have us do, and I know what the Lord would have us do.
Harrison, I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, As long as I’m living my baby you’ll be.”
Rule 603
Terms For Things All Interpreters Understand:
Reverse Tennis:
When you are working from ASL-to-Spoken English and the Client suddenly signs, “YES, EXACTLY YOU RIGHT POINT GOOD,” you have no idea what “point” a different Deaf person, who is behind you, made, and let’s face it “TRAIN-GONE,” but you still reflexively turn your head toward the second Deaf person and, whoops, “TRAIN-GONE” what the Client is saying NOW, so you quickly snap your eyes back to the Client only to realize, by the look on the Client’s face, that the Deaf person behind you is making another comment…
