I was planning on making a blog... maybe, before I die. I don't have plans to die, obviously.. but this blog sparked from a need to write off this important feeling. This was born from death, death of my aunt, she still doesn't die. But she is close. Maybe next week she will die. Old, sick, fragile. I know... I sound inhumane, or... simply unrelated to her. But that is far from true, I was with her since young. And it's odd, I don't talk about her. But I have a story. Before studying a simple digital desing college career I was bound to study bionanotechnology. That was a key move. Before all of this part, my days were so similar, all of them, so.... tiring. So... same, boring, uninspired. Some part of me was trained on "greatness" or... a constant intent on being up. Since the slogan of a school I went for more than around a decade. In the begining. I didn't have anything to prove. No pressure or no... desire. no path, no life, no friends. Had some... but I still felt alone. In this empty black void space. Inside it, I was deep alone with my thoughts. I suppose that inside that little head of a 8 years old boy, the most terrible and fearful thing that could happen was death. It was my most profound fear of inimaginable understanding. Just the bare concept of unexistance. It send cold waves on my skin, and it kept me trying thinking about it, like a puzzle with solution. My aunt... the sweetest woman ever. she lived alone, that scared me. I was a very ... "scareable?" child. Whenever I had to go to her house I was not mad completely. Out of everyone, setting expectations, laughing at me... talking about me like and object. She... was genuine, in a way that not even my parents were, she wasl talking about a spark. A little shine of light and hope inside me that she saw when everyone else didn't. She told me that she knew I was bound to do something big. Something... meaningful. I can remember how only she got close to my ear to tell me... I believe in you. I know you'll do. She always believed in me... But in what? what greatness? An emperor? A salary man? A philanthropist? What kind of man should I have to become? I just didn't knew what she meant. For me what was to be successful? Me... A child that yearns every day to only hop on his console and play videogames, a child that day dreams alone. I truly felt alone all those years. But also unmoving, purposeless. what... what greatness. why did she had to repeat me how smart I was, why only her, why did she said it. Why? As I grew that question kept with me, with the more complex understanding from what is death, and passing. I just saw I had no real path upon my feet to see. Until.... I saw something that caught my attention. I don't remember what sparked it initially... But something I was investigating resonated a lot. It was talks about something impossible. The end of aging. Now I don't know what I used to think at that point, but everything was slowly making sense just as I opened my path towards this wonder of a microscopic world. The thesis was simple, at that time I only used to know about one function of the cells. Apoptosis. The cells death, or rather. suicide. To avoid becoming a cancer cell. The interesting part was when I discovered the function of telomerase. The may called tap of telomere, A crucial identifying part in the adn. The thing is, that as aging occurs, we stop producing telomerase, so the tap that protects our dna weakens, causing our DNA to get corrupted, and prompting apoptosis. At the time I thought, well... If we stop producing it, why don't we keep intaking the protein to avoid genes degradation? THAT, that was it. That flashing thought hooked me. That was something I just kept myself wondering, how? How? How is it possible that nobody is watching this? Is this some forbiden knowledge But most importantly... That thing... I got it. That was it. If she meant anything about me, it was because I was going to beat the impossible. This was the spark. this was the greatness. The terrible fear I had about death, clicked in. If I was bound, it was to avoid death. I was set to find the aging solution. It was real, it was not just some science fiction. I could see it, grasp it. Understand it. When I was in 7th grade I decided that I was going to pursue knowledge in biotechnology. A researcher. At the time, I saw my aunt. I had nothing but empathy and love for her. Every time she hosted parties, I just thought. Well, shes gonna sleep alone tonight. I was scared of the darkness. I wouldn't want to sleep alone on a dark house. I saw her.... loneliness... The loneliness gene. So... I invited her every single time. Come to sleep with us. Don't be alone. I just... saw that in her heart she didn't deserve a lonely night. She was so sweet. she was so..... pure. In every man's heart there is darkness. And in all of us, we have sin... We have punishment. But every so often a soul so pure and clear borns. She was one of those very few ones. I couldn't let me see her age. THIS WAS THE SPARK SHE SAW, SHE SAW IT THROUGH ME. She wanted me to... save her. She knew so goddamn much that I would find something. So it was my duty, my purpose to find it. I had her cure. I just... had to find it. I set course to my main objective, got into a bionanotechnology carreer, hold on thight, please. I just need time. I suppose that when I moved out of city I forgot the consequences of my desires, my actions. My... failure and its weight. I failed.... terribly I tried to study... so hard.... But I got out, failed, two classes. Miserably... The so called future and greatness I was meant to fulfill and to obtain.... slipped past me. I had to change to design career. In my mind... My plan was to return to study later, I just... couldn't keep the flow of college at 16, I thought. My aunt got cancer... later... amnesia... Every so often I got to visit her. When she changed house. She forgot how tall I was, how old I was, she was surprised to see me go to college. When she changed to a nursing home. She forgot how tall I was, how old I was, she was surprised to see me go to college, she forgot my name. When she changed to caretaker familiar. She forgot how tall I was, how old I was, she was surprised to see me go to college, she forgot my name. She forgot herself. I looked at her hands, every finger shifting into each other, they hurted her. I was still thinking to myself. I won't fail you. I just need time... I just need to find something... Sometimes I got thoughts about secretly giving her yamanaka factors. Just so I could get more time... But I saw her change from walking to cane, from cane to chair, from chair to bed. Four months ago, I saw her cry... She rembered dad, mom, grandma, brother, sister.... She was at a party with the whole family, young, and old. But she, closer to 90 years old, could only watch, the whole world. just... watching the world move without her. She didn't even knew some of who she was seeing. Even if it was her own family. She just knew that she was old... So old, everything hurt. So old, all she could do is just... observe. I hold her hand. She liked me being close. I choose to believe, she still managed to remember who I was son of. But she got worse after. Yesterday... I saw her... again... and probably for the last time. She is in bed. her organs fail her. She has bloated feet from liquid retention. Her arms are skeletical. Her face is marked with a striking pose of pain, her fingers twisted on each other, and her teeth just outgrown in different directions. I see her in bed, looking confused at what I imagine are just silhuettes, she doesn't know who I am, who is she seeing. She doesn't remember that boy that deeply cared about her. Because that boy has faded into dust among so many other memories, she cant remember how much she lift me up. How much I saw her smile at me, how she used to hug me. Now I see her in bed. In pain. She can't pronouce my name, she can't look at me in the eyes. She can only say. I want to sleep, i feel tired. I want to rest. It... all... hurts... And it's true, it hurts, her body hurts, her legs, arms, fingers, head, nose.. all... hurts her. She can't do anything but to only observe faces she doesn't recognize pass her and move without her, to speak without her. Why her....? out of all people, she... the kindest woman to exist, the purest soul on this earth, Why her? Why is she here suffering a horrible fate, knowing how sick she is, why did she deserve that? Why... couldn't I save her. She guided me, she showed me where should I go. But I deviated. I failed.... And she pays the horrific consequences. Knowing her ever impending doom awaits her. She can't do anything... She feels like she was on beed for years, but it only was some months. Every day is the same day for her. Uninspired. Motionless, Confused, sleeping all day and night, not being able to even drink a bottle of water on her own. She lost track of time, because who wouldn't. I did too, in my worst days. Where every day, without friends, without goals, I went to school as I lost track of time. But she was there for me.... and now.... I just cannot be there for her, I cannot accompany for death, I cannot heal her, I cannot heal her pain, and her fear, I cannot tell her that she will be right, because she just can't. And I do wonder, if she just wants this endless suffering to end. If she just wanted to decide that one day should all be pitch black. I saw her, in what might be part of her final hours. And this is a lesson. for my incompetence and my weakness for I should have just done my fucking part. But I... I... just couldn't I failed her.... I failed her terribly. and now... she executes the worst torture one can have. why did I paid her with this.... Why did I end up owning to her... Things could have gotten differently, but my hubris and desires stray me away. And maybe the path I have chosen sealed my fate. As I will watch everyone else do the same.... All of use will turn into the same cruel fate... And here I am.... writting... drawing... coding..... meaningless shit no one sees. no one cares... Something that doesn't save anyone... not even myself. I just wish to see her smile again. for I truly wish her happiness