suppose you’re all excited about what’s
going to happen so I’m gonna ask you
again how do you feel how do you feel
and I want you all to reply with the
word good yeah how do you feel nice nice
so every time that I’m gonna ask you a
question I want you to give me that
response okay how do you feel my brother
and I we were born in a city in the
center of this country and in this city
there was a square and on this square
there was a large building a large Tower
it’s called the dome tower and when my
brother and I were little our father
took us to that tower we climbed up on
stairs all the stairs and until we were
on top of that building and we watched
out all over the city
and we could see how its surroundings
and we felt so free how do I look a
couple of months later I didn’t feel so
free I was 5 years old one afternoon I
was sitting in my room with my back
against the radiator I was reading a
book my mother came rushing in she said
Benji grab your coat
almost in the hospital almost my brother
he’s one and a half years older he was 7
at the time and they found out he had a
brain tumor in the hospital my parents
left me in the waiting room there were
nothing but chairs and two swinging
doors with big windows in them and
through those windows I saw the room on
the other side and everything was white
the walls the floor the beds the code of
the doctor he stood on one side on the
of the bed and he told my parents on the
other side I’m sorry but your son has a
brain tumor if we don’t operate he might
die but at this moment he’s too weak for
surgery we need to see what we can do
there were sadness and seriousness my
father held on to my mother my mom she
took my brother by the hand and with the
other she stroked through his hair and
my brother the top end of his bed was
slightly lifted and with the dull gaze
he just glanced through the room and
then his eyes stopped at the door and
through the windows he saw me and I saw
him and I saw their sadness and the
terror in his eyes and I saw the
seriousness and I felt his pain and I
couldn’t I felt an impulse coming up I
couldn’t help it I couldn’t stop it and
I did and I saw a little light appearing
in his face
and he started to smile and now he was
laughing and my parents they looked at
me they also started to laugh and at
that moment the doctor comes walking in
he sees my brother laughing and he sees
that my brother is not too weak he
prepares for surgery and a week later my
brother is being operated it takes him
two months to fully recover how do you
feel after those two months my brother
is fully healthy the only thing that was
left was a big scar in the back of his
head it looked like a zipper and after a
hospital my brother always was ashamed
of that scar in the first years he
always wore a cap and he turned it to
the back to cover the sky and when he
reached the age that a cap wasn’t always
appropriate he kept his hair long to
hide his scar now that was my brother’s
relation to his hair my relation to hair
was a bit different
when I was 15 years old there was a girl
and I was into her and one day I walked
up to her I told her you’re beautiful
and she walked away
ouch that hurt it and it took me five
years to find a way to deal with that
ouch five years of feeling shitty on a
regular basis five years of realizing
that I’m not gonna look like the man in
the like the models in the magazines
anymore but after those five years when
I finally found a way to deal with it
apparently baldness is a family thing
because my brother started losing his
hair also at an early age and for my
brother it was a different case for him
it wasn’t just not matching up to his
idea of perfection anymore for him it
was losing the cover of his scar now
imagine what that means imagine that you
have a body part that you’re ashamed of
and perhaps you do and imagine that you
would be standing here and that everyone
could see that part of your body that
you was ashamed of imagine how that
feels that’s how my brother felt so he
did everything but accepting his
baldness he went to see a doctor he
started taking pills he considered the
transplantation of hair at the age of 23
everything but accepting it now one day
was in the summer we went to a football
match we were in a stadium and we were a
little bit late and the stands were
filled with people so I had to stand
behind my brother and as the match is
about to begin a random guy reaches out
for my brother’s neck and he traces the
scar and he screams out it’s the don’t
our the happiness is all over his body
and I want to respond to that happiness
and I look to my brother and I see that
my brother doesn’t move he doesn’t move
he does everything to block any
reference to a scar out of his awareness
I feel all the happiness leaving my body
I feel in prison
and I let the moment pass how do I feel
after that day in the stadium my brother
fully focused on his job until last
November in November he had to go
somewhere he went for five weeks to
Colombia and in the first three weeks of
his travels I didn’t hear anything from
him I remember it was a Sunday in the
morning I woke up feeling very sad
late afternoon I went for a walk along
the water I was alone I heard the sound
of the waves and the sadness comes
through and I start to cry the tears run
over my cheek and I don’t know why I’m
crying I don’t understand what the
reason for my tears is I can’t grasp why
the only thing that I feel is that I am
crying for a reason and that I need to
keep on crying until I’m out of tears so
I cry and I cry and I cry until there’s
no tear left I sit down at the water
I watched the movement of the waves my
phone rings a video call
I open the screen and I see my brother
for the first time with no hair he
thank you [Applause]