2010

According to Wikipedia "2010 (MMX) is a common year that started on a Friday and is the current year. In the Gregorian calendar, it is the 2010th year of the Common Era or of Anno Domini; the 10th year of the 3rd millennium and of the 21st century; and the 1st of the 2010s decade. The United Nations has designated 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity and International Year of Youth."

I started writing this well over a month and a half ago and, to be very honest, I can't even remember what I was going on about in my head. Maybe something like the youth of a new and promising decade, maybe something really hopeful.

It is so funny how 15 minutes changes so many lives forever... How such a short fraction of time can change a whole crowd's inner beings and lifestyles... How sometimes a new dawn brings such a devastating avalanche of events.

Friday, February 5th, 2010 will be a date I will never forget. Unforgettable while disgracefully sad... Part of me, a HUGE part of me, ceased to exist in this world that day. And I can only talk about my pain as a fellow, limited mortal.

I was only 1 when she was born. She came into this world as a special body, for she was born with The Blue Baby Syndrome. Right from the start she beat the odds: everyone who knew what they were talking about claimed she wouldn't last much.

Her chest was opened and invaded at merely 45 days, a trial to repair what was supposedly defective. A "broken heart." "She'll die," they said, "Her journey here is a short one." She refused to.

Once again, at 3, her chest was opened. Once more, profetic predictions poured in: "She's not going to make it..." How wrong were the Mr. Know-it-alls... She made it.

A nearly perfect student, a lively and happy girl, a revolutionary and controversial teenager, a complete woman and lover...

Passionate about any and everything she put her heart into, she touched many lives.

Change for the better arrived everywhere she set foot in, and the truth was nearly always told by her luscious lips.

She survived two open-heart surgeries, innumerous illnesses during childhood, major love deceptions, two university degrees, a master's degree, heartbreaks, sorrows, losses and longings...

Our Sociologist, our nurse, our master, teacher... the union of two breeds and the center of our family. She was US.

And how can I compare this starting decade to those 15 minutes she spent in her bathroom, dying? Her broken heart gave in... How can I imagine even a second without her bodily presence in my life? How can I breathe clearly again? Where is my reason, the guiding voice in my head? How can I go through life without my Sissy, my friend, holding my hand? Why aren't I going to see her brood???

So, for me, 2010 is a hallmark. Not a celebration of youth, but the presence of death. Of pain. I will never, ever, be the same again.