This week I arrived early to the local Lab Corp to get some routine lab work done. (Bear with me, here.)
It was my second time in two months, so by this time I was no longer surprised by the electronic kiosk in front of what used to be the check-in desk with a friendly, or maybe not so friendly, secretary on the other side of the counter.
(So much for humans there to greet you before they prick you with a needle, to at least say “Good morning. Can I help you?” )
So this time visit, I just walked right up, unfazed, and confidently tapped through the letters of my name and confirmed my insurance details. Then I took a seat, amused by how much I enjoyed the serene landscape photograph on the wall of this bland medical lab. (Thrilling blog so far, right?) 😉
Within 10 minutes, I was one of three people waiting.
Walk in. Tap the screen. Scan your license. Silently sit. Wait and avoid eye contact.
That was pretty much the drill.
A few minutes later, an elderly woman walked in, got halfway to the kiosk, and stopped, frozen, staring at it. “That’s pretty much what I did last time,” I thought to myself.
But then I wondered if she might need help using it — comfort with electronics is a generational thing after all.
But in the next moment, she plopped her large faux leather purse on the armrest of the chair next to me and began to sort through the large abyss inside, presumably looking for her insurance card, ID, etc.
“Okay, she’s got it,” I thought, and promptly spaced out, probably again staring at the landscape on the wall.
One person got called back. Then another. Soon, it was just the two of us.
“Excuse me,” she said to me, bursting the bubble of early morning static in my head. “Can you help me?” she asked with an accent. By the sound of it, I guessed she was Bosnian. (Bit of trivia: St. Louis has the largest population of Bosnians outside of Bosnia itself.)
Of course I could help her! So I jumped up, with a smile, unsure whether she required help due to language, literacy, or familiarity with touch-screens. So, I just dove in, tapping away at buttons.
“Do you have your driver’s license?” I asked her. “What?” she asked. I slowed down and repeated myself. She produced her driver’s license and handed it to me so I could scan it. Now I had to select the reason for her visit today. “Why are you here?” “What?” she asked again.
Darn it, just that quick, I reverted to my normal speech patterns and forgot to slow down for her, so I tried again. She got it.
For a moment, I got embarrassed, really worried that she would be hesitant to share with a total stranger the reason for her visit today. Normally that sort of thing is private!
Yet a language gap prevented her from checking herself in, and forcing her to share private information with … not even the secretary behind the counter who knows everyone’s business, but a random woman in the waiting room: me.
It was all done in a matter of two minutes. As she sat down she smiled at me and in a thick accent, carefully choosing her words, she said, “Maybe next time.” I’m thinking maybe next time she will understand how to use it perhaps?
We both sat down and resumed our obedience to the waiting room silence, though this time slightly uncomfortable with it, I believe both wanting to say something to the other, but knowing the language would be difficult, we simply waited with bowed heads in each other’s presence.
This had me thinking, not just about the need to keep human beings in jobs to interact with other humans. (Electronics make a lot of assumptions about the people walking through the door.) But it also had me thinking about language.
I am endlessly grateful for my Spanish.
If this woman had been a Spanish-speaker, I would have not only been able to help her. I would have been able to say, “Claro que si!” Of course I will help you! I would have been able to chit-chat and put her at ease. I would have been able to smile and talk with her once we sat down, making us both feel better about our morning, ourselves, and our neighbors.
Which is priceless.
In this case, I was able to help. I was able to communicate through facial expressions and body language. I am grateful for that. But I also felt limited. I felt I couldn’t be my full self with this woman… and that bothered me.
It reminded me of the true gift of bilingualism, in my eyes:
the ability to be our full selves with others around us, to serve them fully, to connect with them fully, to smile together with the joy of having passed through the conventional barriers like a spirit through walls.