What Doesn't Translate

My mother said a word in the language

she still speaks at home,

the one that lives in her mouth

before English arrives,

and I asked her what it meant.

She tried.

She moved her hands

the way she does when the translation

is already failing,

when she can feel the concept

slipping away

the moment she tries to put it into words

that aren't hers.

"It's like..." she said.

"Like when you have to do something

but you're tired

but you do it anyway

because someone needs you

and it's not a bad thing,

but it's heavy,

and you carry it

because that's what you do,

that's what we do."

I waited for her to finish.

But that was the finish.

There's no English word

for the specific weight

of being needed,

for the resigned grace

of showing up

when showing up costs you something,

for the way love and burden

live in the same place

in the languages she speaks

but split apart

in the language I answer her in.

I said: "Okay,"

like I understood,

but I don't.

I understand the words.

I don't understand the weight behind them,

the culture, the history,

the way that concept is folded into her

the way my English will never fold it into me.

She looked at me—

that specific look—

like she already knew

I'd lost something

she was trying to hand back.

Like she already knew

I was becoming a person

who could hear her

but not quite understand.