That night I promised myself I’d never be wordless when you needed me to speak for you. So began my career as our family’s official interpreter. From then on, I would fill in our blanks, our silences, stutters, whenever I could. I code switched. I took off our language and wore my English, like a mask, so that others would see my face, and therefore yours.

Because his offering extended me into something worthy of generosity, and therefore seen. It was that very moreness that I wanted to prolong, to return to.

I’m not telling you a story so much as a shipwreck—the pieces floating, finally legible.

Thanks to Elaine Scarry and her book, On Beauty and Being Just, for its intelligent, rigorous, and luminous complication of the subject.” [acknowledgements]

Before I spoke, someone gave me a Luxo lamp as a present to commemorate the moment. Extemporaneously, I thanked the group and told them I was going to use it to illuminate our castle. It has ever since.