Not lost in translation

Martha Stafford, 83, battled leukemia nine years ago. When she lost all her hair during chemotherapy, she bought a wig, looked up the French words for 8220;cancer,8221; and rarely missed a class. She can8217;t really explain why. 8220;I8217;ve just been there forever,8221; she said. 8220;Though I hate to admit it, because I8217;m not that good.8221;

It8217;s not as if they8217;re all best friends. A few see one another for lunch now and again. And some did travel to France together in the 1980s and 1990s. But they still address one another as 8220;Madame8221; and use their last names. They use the formal 8220;vous8221; when speaking to one another, to show a certain distance and respect. It8217;s just that, together, they8217;re 8220;the French class.8221; For decades, each has been sitting at the same place at the table and although they have long finished their original textbook, each must give a presentation of their choice every week and be prepared to answer questions.

And, over the years, between conjugating verbs and discussing French politics in halting French, they have shared their lives. Births. Deaths. Divorces. Successes. Frustrations. The slow creep of age. 8220;We know a lot about each other,8221; said Hedi Pope, 87. 8220;If you live long enough, it can be very interesting.8221;

The people who have left the French class, save for the occasional man who lasted a semester, have not dropped out. They8217;ve fallen ill with Alzheimer8217;s. Or died.

Diamond never imagined the class would last this long when she came to what was then the YMCA and asked for a job. She said she was a 8220;slender, raven-haired, 20-something8221; with a master8217;s degree in 16th-century French literature and two toddlers at home.

All these years later, Diamond is still slender at 60, but her hair is white. Her toddlers are grown men with toddlers of their own. Her marriage is over. Her parents have died. It has become an old joke that she8217;s either a very bad teacher or that her students are very slow and that8217;s what8217;s taking them so long. It8217;s just that, for her, too, the class has become about more than French. She still takes attendance. She still assigns homework. She still raps authoritatively on the table with her knuckles at the start of class and asks her students to speak in French: 8220;Toujours en francais, s8217;il vous plait.8221;

The class members say they are a congenial group. At times, it8217;s the granddaughter who is living with the boyfriend and isn8217;t married. The son who is giving up his job as an optometrist to become a handyman. Or how hard it is to sell the ancestral home. To stop driving. Or to watch old friends die. 8220;You can say things in French that you can8217;t in English,8221; Stafford said.

Poppy Gardener, 85, missed a few weeks last year when her son was shot and her daughter-in-law killed in southern Virginia. When she came back, she reported in matter-of-fact French what had happened. That was it. No questions. No discussion. The class moved on. Gardener8217;s eyes become misty when she thinks of the class ending, as she knows it must one day soon as they reach what one member calls le dernier age 8212; the last age. 8220;We would miss it,8221; Gardener said finally. 8220;It8217;s become terribly important.8221;

Diamond tried to end the French class in June, but the ladies wouldn8217;t hear of it. The small translation company Diamond started is now a 9 million business with 35 full-time and 800 contract translators. Now, she thinks, is the time for the French class to end. But she can8217;t bring herself to end it. Not quite yet.
-Brigid Schulte LAT-WP