Awful Coincidence

Today was harder than some days.

I'm in Salt Lake City, Utah, for mentor training (basically, learning how to be a good mentor to new interpreters). It's an incredible learning opportunity from a guru in the field of interpreter mentorship, and the information is like gold dripping from the lips of royalty. But I'm not fully here today.

Part of it is that I woke up at stupid o'clock in the morning, and that always robs me of some of my brain power. Part of it is that I don't really like this city. But part of it is you.

At the same time as this training there is another training in the same building for trilingual interpreters and I keep running into people I know. The topic of Jorge Dieppa's tragic murder keeps coming up, over and over and over, and I haven't resolved that yet. I'm not ready to discuss his senseless death with the proper amount of respect and outrage it deserves because every time I start to feel sad for my teacher I feel guilty; his death is so tangled up in yours in my head that I can't process it until I process yours better.

Jorge was my Spanish interpreting teacher for the trilingual training course I attend every summer. He was a genuinely nice person, and a fabulous teacher. He was jovial, always with a kind, supportive word. He had this incredible smile that he started every class with that made his students feel like he really loved being there with them, that he wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world. He had high standards for us, but he did everything in his power -- from silly impressions of different accents to a concerted effort to fully understand our work with Deaf people -- to ensure that we were always able to meet those standards. He loved his work and he loved his students, and we loved him.

On July 6th, he was kidnapped in Ciudad Juarez and was murdered by his captors when he attempted to escape.

I learned of this a week after your death. It hit me hard; suddenly I was bawling like I hadn't even cried for you yet. It wasn't an indication of my level of grief that this news broke me like the other had not, it was more..the last straw. I was stretched so thin that a dead bird might have shattered me. But even so, this reaction triggered this deep-set guilt that I can't let go of.  I haven't allowed myself to think about Jorge since the day I found out, because somehow I feel that I need to give you your well-deserved mourning period, that it needs to be pure and untarnished by any other sadness, before I am allowed to explore my feelings of loss concerning my teacher. I know that doesn't make logical sense, and I know you would not begrudge me sadness about Jorge or think it could in any way interfere with my abiding sadness over your departure. But that crazy moment where my dam burst and my reasons for purging got all tangled up and wires-crossed did permanent damage to my logic center on this issue. I just...can't.

And so now, here I am, surrounded by people who are sad for Jorge but don't realize how sad they should be about you, and I am trying to fake the level of interest in conversations about this revered community figure that I am supposed to have, and I am tired. I don't want to. But the world spins madly on, and on, and on...and I want off tonight.

I know this is not a healthy coping skill, but I curled up with a bottle of wine and my dessert and pretended like the world had disappeared. I'm wine-infused now and ready for bed, but I felt like I needed to tell you this before I slept.

Goodnight, Brother Moon.