Dreams can be fragile, just like the cracked walls of a hospital waiting room. The day I received the news that my mother was pregnant again, I announced my parents I wanted to share a room with my future sister. I was sure she was a girl. However, five months later, sitting in an old wooden chair at the general hospital, I was trying to process the fact that my sister was gone.

It was a cold and rainy September 27, and I cried against a wall hating my mother for losing the baby. She had been told by the doctor to remain in bed, but on Christmas Eve she had gone down the stairs in order to spend time with the family. That same night the cramps started, and the bad news came soon after. I regretted praying to the newborn child who had disregarded all my pleas. “God is a lie”, I said in a quiet voice, only to be quickly reprimanded by the harsh look on my grandmother’s face, but understood by the melancholy in my father’s eyes. God ceased to exist in my own universe against the cracked wall, and all that was left was an undefined bitterness towards my mom. Why had she being so selfish and gone down the stairs? Perhaps if she had just stayed in bed that one night, I would still have a sister to pray for.

My father kept looking at his watch. The 45-minute curettage had taken more than three hours, and my mother was still in surgery. No one had given us any information, even though we repeatedly requested it. Suddenly, the operating room doors opened. The doctor came out, dressed in an unusual way. It took me a couple of seconds to realize he was still wearing his coat, only it was completely stained red. Blood-red. I saw my father turn pale and sob. I saw my grandfather get up and scream medical terms and bad words, all in the same sentence. I saw my younger brother wake up in the hospital chair, and my grandmother take him immediately out of the room. I could see all these different scenes, but all I felt was an unconceivable emptiness and impotence. I did not even understand what the doctor said in those brief thirty seconds. All I could do was think that without my mother, I was nothing. The bitterness, the misplaced hate and all those confused feelings disappeared. Immediately, everything became clear again, and I started wondering about the nature of my emotions. Why had I blamed my mother? She wanted the baby as much as we did, and had taken the risk of becoming pregnant at her age, all because of her selfless and unconditional love. She had always being strong and loving and brave, and now I did not know for sure if she was ever coming out of those swaying doors. I almost fainted, but my father’s hand held mine. “She’s alive”, he said. The unexpected hemorrhage had been controlled. I still had a mother.

It took some time to understand that losing the baby was inevitable; Christmas Eve had just being life’s excuse to take my sister away. Even though losing her was still burning our hearts, I had understood that pain was nothing compared to what we would feel if we lost my mother. Life was not punishing us, it had just set a big obstacle in the way. It also left the strongest member of our small family of four to teach us how to fight and move on together. The dream of the baby sister shifted to a powerful yearning of keeping my mother with me forever. Although walls may crack and break throughout our lives, we always have the opportunity of rebuilding them and making them stronger.