Remarkable humans
JUDITH SHAKESPEARE:
July, 15th 1660
When I turned eight and my twin brother was still alive, my father asked me for a big favor. Today, from a distance, I remember it was from that moment on that I stopped eating. My mother tried her best by mixing flavors and colors like a puzzle on my plate to make me eat. But there was no way. I wasn’t hungry anymore. My appetite was gone. Better said, it was stolen away from me on my birthday by my father. Together with my appetite he took not only my drawings and my written pages, but also his love for me.
WRITTEN IN A NEWSPAPER:
February 3rd, 2010
BIOTECHNOLOGY
The story behind our own story: Henrietta Lacks
She died anonymously despite being everywhere. Her cells were extracted from her body without her consent, yet today, they continue to reproduce in every lab worldwide. Although she remains anonymous, Henrietta Lacks is responsible for the most notable achievements of the last decades: polio vaccine, experiments on the moon, nuclear energy, and genetics.
In 1951 a 31 years old black woman, tired of working in the tobacco plantations, arrived at John Hopkins Hospital with a cervix tumor. Cancer, she was told. Her name was Henrietta Lacks, and shortly before she died, doctors discovered in her cells a peculiarity: they were immortal. Once extracted from her body, her cells -called HeLa on her behalf- reproduced infinitely. The science community had never seen something like that. Thanks to this opportunity, scientific developments on various grounds were achieved: the polio vaccine, trips to the moon to observe the effect of gravity on humans, atomic energy developments, gene mappings, drugs for countless medical conditions and diseases, cosmetics, among hundreds and millions of developments. While the scientific community reproduced and commercialized HeLa cells among every lab beyond imagination, Henrietta´s children were unaware of what they had done with her mother´s cells. Ironically, while their mother saved the world´s medicine, they could not afford to see a doctor due to their lack of economic means.
This is the story that Rebecca Sloot brings to her book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the last best seller in the USA. It is a book written after a decade of investigation, which through subtle writing, goes weaving different views, gathers information from relatives, doctors, journalists specialized on the subject, and unprecedented files about a woman that keeps saving millions of lives today. A story of a technological breakthrough and an explicit social drawback in a context of deep racial and gender inequality everyone should know.
JUDITH SHAKESPEARE II
One day, I woke up believing I had a great idea. I started writing metaphors, soliloquies, and sonnets around one same topic. I was trying to give my father the feeling that lies deep inside, like a centrifugal force among the digestive organs. I wrote complete dialogues, creating blood images and dark visions. I wanted him to experience the one thing he did not have: guilt.
But instead of staring at his own hands and seeing my weakened body, he gave birth to what everyone called his great masterpiece. That way, he was able to distribute his own guilt among innocent audiences.
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THE FOURTH WISE MEN
When I saw her shaking hands, burnt, desperately asking for help, I forgot about myself. I forgot about my journey. I just had to help.
And when I finished helping the old lady, I saw a man healing her son. When we looked at each other, I felt we had known each other for ages. I recognized him. He was one of the Three. His face was so profound and mysterious that I couldn’t tell from it if he knew that I meant to join them.
I decided to look for my belongings before introducing myself. And when I went back to where I slept, I found a beautiful newborn inside a basket. There was no sight of its parents. He was abandoned right there between my clothes, and I knew. I knew that my destiny was in front of me. I never made it. I couldn’t join them. But I felt that the Son of God was everywhere.