San Diego Elder Translator
"She translates at San Diego hospitals for elderly Somalis—a thick ebony widow who bridges language and culture. When his grandmother needs help, she becomes more than an interpreter. Some translations are of the heart."
Nimco translates life and death.
At UCSD Medical Center, she's the bridge between Somali elders and American doctors. The things that can't be Googled—cultural context, family dynamics, the words that have no English equivalent.
My grandmother needs surgery.
"She's scared," Nimco tells me after the consultation. Fifty-six years old. Two hundred and fifty pounds of cultural expertise. Ebony skin, kind eyes, the patience of someone who's heard every fear. "She thinks American hospitals are where people go to die."
"Can you help?"
"I can try." She takes my grandmother's hand. Speaks Somali—soft, reassuring, the dialect of elders. My grandmother's face transforms from terror to trust.
"Mahadsnid—thank you."
"This is my job." But her eyes say it's more than that.
She stays through the surgery.
Translates for the doctors, comforts my grandmother, explains every beep and tube.
"You didn't have to do this," I tell her in the waiting room.
"She's alone. Her family is across the country. Someone needs to be here."
"Why you?"
"Because I know what it's like." She looks at the surgery board. "My husband died in a hospital. No one translated his final words. I didn't understand the doctors until it was too late."
"I'm so sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Be grateful your grandmother has someone."
"She has you."
"Haa." She smiles sadly. "She has me."
My grandmother recovers.
Nimco visits every day. They talk for hours—about Somalia, about the old days, about things my grandmother never tells me.
"She loves you," Nimco says one evening. "She says you work too hard. Don't visit enough."
"Grandmother says a lot of things."
"She's right." Nimco studies me. "You carry guilt. I see it."
"Can you translate everything?"
"Everything that matters." She pauses. "Including what you're not saying."
"What am I not saying?"
"That you've been watching me. That you come early to the hospital not for your grandmother but for me."
I don't deny it.
"My apartment is near the beach."
My grandmother is sleeping. Visiting hours are over.
"San Diego isn't like Minnesota," Nimco continues. "The Somali community is smaller. Lonelier."
"Are you lonely?"
"Fourteen years." She looks at me. "Fourteen years of translating everyone else's words. Never speaking my own."
"Speak them now."
"I want—" She takes a breath. "I want one night where I'm not the translator. Where someone understands me without words."
"I understand."
"Then take me home."
Her apartment smells like the ocean.
Simple, clean, filled with books in multiple languages.
"Fourteen years," she says, closing the door. "Fourteen years of being the voice for everyone else. No one speaking for me."
"I'll speak for you."
"No." She turns to face me. "I want silence. Just bodies. Just feeling."
I worship the translator.
Without words. Without explanation. My mouth learns her body like a new language.
She gasps as I undress her—ebony curves, heavy breasts, soft belly. The vocabulary of desire.
"Fourteen years—" She's trembling. "I've forgotten—"
I silence her with a kiss.
I lay her on her bed.
The ocean sounds through the window. San Diego moonlight on her ebony skin.
I spread her thick thighs.
Translate her pleasure with my tongue.
She screams wordlessly.
Her hands grip my head. Her body shakes with fourteen years of silence breaking.
She comes three times before she can speak again.
"Inside—" She pulls at me. "Please—"
I push inside the translator.
She cries out—no translation needed.
"So good—" Her legs wrap around me. "Don't stop—"
I communicate with my body.
Every thrust a word. Every moan a sentence. We write paragraphs of pleasure.
She comes twice more.
"Fill me—" She begs. "Please—"
I release inside her.
We lie in silence.
Finally, she speaks.
"Macaan." Sweet. "You understood everything."
"Some things don't need words."
"Haa." She curls against me. "Some things don't."
Six Months Later
My grandmother is healthy.
She's also suspicious.
"The translator," she says in Somali. "You see her a lot."
"She's teaching me the language."
"Waas." My grandmother smiles. "I know what she's teaching you."
She's right, of course.
Grandmothers always are.
"Macaan," Nimco moans that night. "My best student."
The woman who translates hearts.
The language we both finally speak.