https://everythingspeakstome.com/files/original/abc694fa92ef2146b8eab379cc6c63ac.pdf 33549fd273b8a83af6870e9a84fb827b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource After The Rise ... Description An account of the resource Using elevations and water level projected on EyesOnTheRise.com, these speculative fictions explore the world that was Miami after sea levels rise 6 or more feet. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Administrator Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Please post your written submission in this field. The images you would like to include should be posted as attachments below. From Pain to Teachings I didn´t really mean it, but I was so frustrated that I could not help my grandmother. Every time I see her, I just think about why this is happening to her because I do not find any reasons. Fuck! I wonder how she can act as if nothing were happening. I try to understand the way she thinks and the perspective she has about life but I can not do it, it´s just stupid. It´s incredible how she can have more energy to life than me, and I just have a 17-year-old but I just find this world too contemptible. I can not smile for more than five seconds because I feel I do not deserve to be happy, I know my parent´s death was my fault, if they had not driven to the hospital to take me to the doctor, they would be fine, and everything would be different. My parents died in a car accident when I was 2 years old on the way to the hospital one night when I was very sick. I wonder how would be my life if they would be still alive. Perhaps the world would be a little less sad. Suddenly my grandma Alicia knocks at the door and I hide my diary. She smiles at me and asks me if I want to go for a walk. Almost obligated not to let her alone, we leave the house and start walking around the island on which we live. Alicia tells me the stories her grandmother Amanda told her when she was young as me and how much she enjoyed traveling with her husband Jonny. My Abuelita always has been my company, I am of few friends and I prefer being alone but my grandma always has been next to me, she is more than my grandmother, she is my mom and my best friend. While we walk, we see the little island shining because of the sun, and I ask my grandma how the city of Miami was when the sea level had not risen yet 8 feet. Alicia tells me that Amanda said that Miami in 2022, one hundred years ago, was a big city where everything was unified by huge streets, there were a lot of cars and people used to drive so fast, the jetskis were used to have fun not for daily transport as well as the ferries, the cruises by then were just for tourism purposes, and they were tall buildings along the coastline of Miami Beach which is weird to imagine. Listening carefully to the stories and with a lot of surprise imagining how that city looked like -I say, “I wish I could live in that city, you know, today everything is so boring,” -She replies astonished, “Why would you want that Esmeralda?” -I answer with sadness, “Well, being honest with you, I just would like to share with you when you were healthy because I hate seeing you suffering, especially when you have stomach cramps.” Sitting on a bench looking at the sunset, I confess to Alicia how afraid I am of her gastric cancer which has already metastasized. -I say whispering, “I am frightened of the day when you can not bear the symptoms and when your body gives up,” -Alicia hugs me, “Don´t worry darling, I´ll be fine, just live the present moment with me, and focus on what makes you happy, I´m just an old woman enjoying her lasts days, I want to teach you that life is more beautiful than you can imagine even when there are a lot of difficulties,” -I start crying, “but grandma, what I am going to do without you?” Trying to calm me, Alicia continues hugging me and when the sunset ends we come back home. The next morning, I wake up early because I have to go to the grocery store and the ferry for the morning departures at 8:00 am, which takes me to Cruise Market at Old Miami Beach Island. At the ferry station, I pick the newspaper up and see a notice that says there is a medication that can cure any cancer hidden in one of the most important hospitals in the city. Full of excitement, I run back and come to tell Alicia about the advertisement. -“Are you crazy?” my grandma screams, “How are you going to go looking for the medication?” She touches her head concerned, “It can be too dangerous! No way, you lost your head!” Knowing I am not going to get her permission, I go to my room and write a letter to her telling her that I´ll go and I´ll be fine. I leave the letter on the dinner table and leave home. I have a mix of feelings, I feel anxious, nervous, afraid, and excited at the same time. Despite I know is going to be hard to get the medication, I am determined to do it. I must go to the Atlantic Ocean Hospital but for that, I have a long way. I come back to the ferry station at Dadeland Island and take the ferry that leaves me at Doral Island so I can rent a jetski from there. When I arrive at Doral Island, I ask for a map so I can trace my route. First, I must pass by Little Havana Island, then Downtown Island, and finally Old Miami Beach Island where the hospital is located. The jetski that I rent is not as fast as I imagined but is working well. Driving on the ocean, feeling the wind on my skin, and seeing the boats and the modular buildings where people live around me, make me realize that there is a whole world outside of my room that I was not completely aware of because I live constantly in a bubble. I am surprised by the city and how people through the years have learned to live according to the circumstances that human actions produced for the Earth due to climate change. I arrive at the zone of the cruise, where all the hospitals, malls, markets, and banks are located. I drive slowly among the cruises and start to look for Atlantic Ocean Hospital, after a few minutes I find it. I go in by the back gangway and walk like a cat very stealthily. I hide behind the wall of the hall while I check what is on my way. I see a group of women on the staff of cleaning and services and I see two security men overseeing the cameras of the hospital. Going around, I see a room that says “Services Equipment”, I go in and find the uniform of staff that I put on me. I never thought I was ended in a situation like this, dressing up as the lady of the service about to use a drug to sleep the two chiefs of security of one of the most important hospitals in the state. I am risking my freedom because if they discover me, probably, I will spend the rest of my life behind bars in jail, but no matter how I am decided to get it. My heart rate is faster than ever and my hands are shaking. I make some coffee and spill roofies on it that I get years ago from one bad friend that I use to have. I check the hall to see if is someone there. The is hall empty so I open the door and get out. I take a deep breath and move forward. Arriving at the desktop where is the security men, I kindly offer him the coffee. -Smiling I say, “Good afternoon, I have brought you a cafecito to make it more pleasant this time of the day. I hope you enjoy it.” They drink the coffee while I sweep the hallway and after a few minutes, they get to sleep and I proceed to turn all the cameras off. Then, carefully, I take off the security ID card of their jackets to open the laboratory where the medication is. I look at the map of the hospital that is tightened on the wall open the door, and moving fast my eyes to find where the laboratory is the alarms start to sound. Fuck! I don´t have time. My hands keep shaking, and I feel how my heart pump. Finally, I pinpoint where is it and go as fast as I can. I use the ID card to open the door and start looking drawer by drawer but I do not find the medication. My breath is each time faster and I start sweating. I turn my head, and I see a little jar inside a glass box. Behind the box, I see a label in red and white that says “Handle with care, fragile, to cure any cancer”, it also has instructions about how to use it. -I say whispering, “Yes! This is what I am looking for!”. Without thinking too much, I keep the jar in my bag and get out by the same gangway where I get in. The jetski is waiting for me and I drive back home. -Alicia as soon as hears the door opening says forcefully, “Esmeralda?” I leave my bag in my room and go to the star where she is. -I greet her with fear waiting for a scolding back, “Hi grandma, I am here, I told you I was going to be okay” -Alicia is mad and answers me in a rude tone, “Did you get the medication?” -“Yep, I did it,” I tell her. -She says annoyed “I hope none saw you, it was a huge risk, you know the consequences if they find it was you, right?” -“Grandma, I risked for you, I had to get it, and I know is going to be worth it, you´ll see.” In the night, when the moon is full, and it´s looking at the stars, Alicia takes her first dose of the medication, she is lying in the bed and I am next to her. I caress her hair and tell her how much she means to me. The next day, she gets up with heartburn, coughs with blood, vomits, and has stomach cramps and indigestion, the same symptoms she has had during the last two years. I can see how much pain she feels when I look into her eyes, her glance asks for help and I cannot do something, which breaks my heart. Alicia has learned how to live with pain, and I wonder how she does it. I go into her room and bring her some tea chai, her favorite. -I ask, “Which is pain for you Grandma?” -She answers with interest, “Oh Esmeralda, that is a good question”. Alicia takes a deep breath with difficulty and looks at me saying, “Well, suffering makes part of life, and I have learned how to bear the pain without resistance. Pain for me is not suffering anymore but evidence of how strong I am. I can say now, after living all these 70 years, that I am grateful for the pain that has come to my life.” -Surprised, I ask again, “Why would you be grateful for that? Is not that insane? Being grateful for pain? I do not get it in any way!” -Alicia looks at me with sympathy, “Oh darling, through the years, you are going to realize by yourself that life is beautiful with all the shades and all the colors.” We stay in silence for a few minutes, and I kiss her forehead. -I kiss her head, “I admire you, Grandma, you are the strongest person that I know,” On the second day of taking the medicine, Alicia wakes up much better than yesterday. -She tells very happily, “I did not feel so well since two years ago before I got sick.” -I jump with happiness thinking that the medicine is doing effect, “I know this was going to be worth it.” Alicia feels better and I decide to take her to one of my favorite spots in Palmetto Bay Island. We go to a cafeteria that is on a boat and offers the service to sail while eating some cookies and drinking some coffee. We look at the sunset and we stay quiet, while I realize, I have not felt peace before, maybe I was living inside a bubble thinking that everything was against me but now I can see some color. Alicia and I came back home after a long afternoon to enjoy the sunset, the sound of the ocean waves, the birds singing, and the wind bristling our skin. Alicia has the symptoms again on the third day of taking the medicine. She continues feeling pain, and I just hope tomorrow be another day where she feels like yesterday. On the fourth day, nothing happens, it looks like the medicine is not working. I am so stupid to think medicine was going to cure a disease that the doctors said it no has cured. However, hope is the last that I lost. On the fifth day, she gets worse and the symptoms increase. It has passed one month since she took the medication and she has not felt better. -Very seriously, Alicia says from the kitchen, “Esmeralda I want to talk to you,” I go to the kitchen to see what is going on. -She points at the sofa, “Sit down, I want you to hear me well”. -I get scared, “Alicia what is happening? I am getting afraid.” -With watery eyes and a down voice, “I think the moment has come, I feel how my breath is slower each day,” -With the voice faltering I say, “No grandma! You will be fine, I promise you, you will, you will, you will.” She hugs me, and it feels like the last hug, so I feel her smell of roses to remember it always. Then, we go to her room so she can lean back. -She caresses my hair, “Thank you for the love you have giving me all these years, you have been the most beautiful gift your parents left me.” My eyes are crying and light as the blue of the sky and my heart is full of melancholy. It looks like is harder for her to breathe. -I say feeling my heart is broken, “Do not worry for me, I will be okay abuelita, you just make sure to protect me from the sky,” -She answers serenely, “I will be with you everywhere and every time, each time you see the sun, remind I am with you, and in the sunsets, go to your favorite spot where you took me once and write for me everything you feel, and please, come true your dream of writing your book for me and I will applaud from the sky.” .My tears are falling down my cheeks and I tell, “Rest abuelita, you can go to say hi to my parents”. After a few seconds, she closes her eyes and her breath goes. It´s been six months and I see her everywhere where I go. I see her green eyes in the flowers, I see her tenderness in the animals, I feel her joy when I feel the sun on my skin, and I feel her presence in my life even more than when she was here because now, she is never far from me. Her departure is like a scar that has been converted into a star. She has gone but she saved me. Now, I understand that I deserve happiness and that my parent´s death is not my fault. In the past, death for me was suffering, the end of life, the end of a smile, and the last embrace. Before death was heavy tears falling on the cheeks, on repentance, were words encased in a glass jar without being able to leave, it was darkness. Death was an event never desired, its word and pronunciation frozen space, now the concept has transcended to another plane, just like the soul when it dies. Now death for me is the door to a new life, it is a new opportunity, it is a new awakening, it is a blink of an eye. To die for me is to be reborn, clear the soul and renew life, attend, and pay attention to our inner process. Death is the bridge between conscience and unconsciousness, between pain and love, death is an invincible source of new life, because everyone who dies is reborn from a last sigh, from a last heartbeat, from the last tear, from the last pain. Death soaks with vividness the air that now becomes warm in the transmutation of suffering to joy, death has the power to create and build with ashes and crying, it has the ability to give movement to all that one day was stagnant. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource From Pain To Teachings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Maria Laura Garzón Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 04/17/23