My sister and I have always been very close. Since we were very young, we have had a very close and special relationship. Physically we look very much alike, so much so that some people who know us think we are "morochas". Spiritually and character-wise we are very different: while my sister is introverted, quiet, homely, I am more extroverted, sociable and a party girl.

Being older than her, I have always tried to protect her. As I write, I recall the many times I had to stand up to other people just to defend her. If I had to do a job, I helped her, or if I had to buy clothes, I went out with her. I know what her fears are, what her dreams are, what her antics have been. Just as I know her secrets, she also knows what mine are.

_{My sister and me}

Our connection is so special, that many times we have communicated without talking to each other, just by looking at each other. My sister knows what I might be thinking just by looking at my face and vice versa: I can tell what she is thinking just by looking at her eyes. Likewise, on many occasions, we have communicated through dreams or "thought-calling" each other. Out of the blue, her name has come to my mind and I have called her, only to have her pick up the phone and say:

_Sister, I was just about to call you because I need to talk to you.

Last year, this kind of relationship reached such a special degree of connection that I can only think that there are before being in the womb relations.

In June of last year, soon to be a year since that event, my sister was between life and death. Her hemoglobin, due to constant hemorrhages, reached 4. The events of those days are like fragments in my memory, which I sometimes try to put in order, but I only manage to make with them a patchwork quilt like the ones my grandmother used.

_{My sister}

If I had to start from a beginning, I would have to say that it all started when my maternal grandmother died (on June 24). That same day, my sister had her first hemorrhage. As we were in the funeral process, we let that anomalous and terrible incident pass. I must say that that day my sister remained lying in bed and in the evening, when I went to see her, I observed that she was pale and weak. I asked her how she was, and she answered me as people accustomed to not worrying anyone:

_I am well, thank God.

The next day, after burying my grandmother, we returned home and I went into her room. She was asleep and the room was dark. I didn't want to wake her up because I figured she would be tired and upset like everyone else. In the wee hours of the morning, I woke up with a start, it was as if someone was calling me. I left my room and ran to my sister's room. What I saw will never fade from my memory: my unconscious sister wrapped in blood.

After that, the memories are lights and sounds on a freeway: I screamed a lot and everyone woke up; we called a neighbor so we could move my sister to the hospital; my sister saying goodbye to me with my hand clutching it. Me running a mile a mile for hours with a parched mouth.

My sister had lost a lot of blood, so she was very weak. When I got to the hospital, I ran out to the emergency room. Something about me made people immediately look at me and give me an answer. I managed to get a wheelchair. After putting my sister in the chair, I looked for a stretcher-bearer to take her up to the 6th floor because there was no elevator for emergencies. I went up the stairs and I think I jumped because I got there before the elevator. I knew that time was my enemy and so I ran to beat it.