twist of fait accomplis

Meredith, who works as an ASL interpreter, has a recent entry about having to interpret news for a patient that he has cancer.

I imagine my face was a combination of my feelings about the news, my annoyance toward the doctor, the neutrality he was presenting, and the sympathy I'd been expecting him to show. I probably ended up jumbling everything and really confusing the patient.

Sometimes it's hard to remember that the interpreters you see signing are people and not machines translating words into hand gestures without emotion.