The girl who overflows love through her eyes

I still remember the day my mother announced to my father that she was pregnant. I don't really know what was going through their minds, but for me, that moment was a great milestone. I was six years old and I could not understand the impact of a baby on my life.

I followed all of my mother's prenatal appointments. They were a very happy moment for me because mom’s pregnancy brought us together at last. Her pregnancy made us friends again sharing the good and bad moments. In the morning I could hear the baby's heartbeat in the doctor's office and, some hours later, stay next to my mother in the bathroom when she threw up all her dinner. That's how I realized from an early age that life has its ups and downs.

There was a garden at the entrance to the doctor's office. I couldn't always keep up with all of Mom's exams, so I used to wait for her in the waiting room. Lucky for me, there was a big window that allowed me to see a profusion of small flowers in a huge garden. Flowers of all sizes and all colors. Sometimes I tried to count how many new flowers the garden had gained since my last visit, but most of the time those little flowers served as inspiration, they guided my thoughts. As I looked at them I imagined what that baby inside my mother’s belly would be like, if the baby would become my friend, if the baby would like my toys, if the baby would like me.

On April 20, 1985, I arrived at that hospital like someone arriving for a Pearl Jam concert. I arrived with the certainty that something extraordinary was waiting for me. And indeed it was. My little girl had arrived into the world through a Caesarean at the end of the day.

I stood in front of the nursery window and saw a small garden where babies of various colors were spread over several cribs. But I was looking at one small flower, in particular, my sister. She squirmed like someone who had just woken up or who was learning the new dimension of space that she would have from that moment on. Life in the cocoon was over. And that's when the most beautiful moment happened: My sister turns her pink face to the maternity window and opens her eyes. And the first person she saw in this world was me.

When her little eyes looked into mine I could almost hear them say “hi, no worries, I already like you”.

I spent nine months imagining what that baby would be like if the baby would be a boy or a girl, fat or thin, white or black, bald or hairy. But I had never imagined that my sister would have such beautiful eyes and that they would overflow so much love for me in such a short time.

It's so good for me to keep this memory of my sister's birth. It’s a memory that warms my heart, that gives meaning to everything that we live. The birth of my sister was the most beautiful learning about how love is born. My sister is more than a person who shares DNA with me. I share my history with her. She is my companion in so many events, my daughter in so much care, my mother in so many hugs.

Where does so much love come from? And what will all this love we feel for each other turn into when we're not here anymore? I don't know what will happen after our death, but I would like our love to turn into energy, into light, and that when our time in the Universe runs out, it returns to Earth and turns into little colorful flowers scattered across the grass. Little flowers that, one day, will inspire someone's thinking.