Elena Huelva, Álex Lequio and more young people who teach us another way of talking about death

• Cándida Álvarez, infected with HIV: "There is a lot of kindness, but at the moment of truth, 'nanai'. If you know that the girl who sells you the fish is infected, you don't buy it"

• The thin line that separates depression from sadness: "I thought about how to stop suffering"

Perhaps we still have a lot to learn about how to talk about death.

Or cancer.

And young people, who have their peculiar way of talking about things, may have a lot to say about it.

Also in this matter they have established a new dialogue with which, due to their audacity, they manage to pinch the soul of those who only contemplate drama at the end of life.

Is there an alternative?

The Sevillian influencer

20, has taught us that it is.

The young woman, with terminal cancer, has recorded an emotional video from the hospital that sounded like a farewell.

She barely had a small voice anymore, but she took enough breath and stated the situation:

Bluntly and without a hint of leniency, she explained a worsening in her health.

The disease had invaded her windpipe, and she knew what that meant.

But she wanted to make one thing clear: "Whatever happens, I have already won, that my desire has won for all the love and the people I have by my side."

Her words are a symbol of courage and frankness for the millions of people who have been able to listen to her.

The case of Elena Huelva

He was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma in January 2019 and has not stopped sharing the evolution of his disease ever since.

At the beginning of the year, she recounted his experiences in an inspiring book that she has titled with her own battle cry: 'My desire wins'.

Its pages are an invitation to

Her life, continues in the video, will not be in vain because she has fought and achieved what he wants.

"In the end," she adds, "her, life is about living and taking memories and people with you."

For months he has insisted on the value of laughter as one of the few things that are in the hands of the patient.

Now I say goodbye to her, full of expressions of gratitude for the memories, the wonderful people and the love received, she is generating

through thousands of positive comments and messages full of love and encouragement.

Reactions of his followers

His words are a balm at this time of haters, aggressiveness and hate speech on social media.

The young woman makes us take a deep breath and allows her followers to take her hand and

of life with the same affection as if they were at her bedside.

She has created a space of peace around her and that is how she will feel it when that moment of transition arrives.

View this post on Instagram

Crowds of people, friends and strangers, are covering her.

Among them,

who has also sent him a message: "You are my hero, because, like my son, you give all of us who love you a lesson in life."

Her son

.

His vitality until the last day has been remembered thanks to his Instagram.

Artists, journalists, politicians and anonymous people flooded her account with condolences.

Ana is also mourning her, relying on social networks.

Social networks and death

Every year in Europe 6,000 children and young people die from cancer.

According to what Montserrat Lacalle Sisteré, professor of Psychology at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) publishes on the website of her university,

helps to validate what one feels.

And during the grieving process, social platforms can be an

"Before, when our grandmothers or great-grandmothers lost a relative, they wore black for years and that has disappeared. It is possible that those gaps that have remained are being covered by social networks."

Charlie's Farewell

We are little prepared to meet death and generally react badly.

These young people transmit their final filling it with magic.

They accept the possibility of dying as part of life and want to be prepared, without the tragedy that we have always known.

By the way, they will have the certainty that their memory will not be erased.

In August

known on social media as Charlie, passed away.

He was 20 years old and in 2018 he had been diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma of the hip.

She shared pain, falls and relapses with his three million followers.

His way of showing the disease, crudely, but always vital and smiling, made him go viral.

Also the hilarious farewell to him: "Goodbye, sons of bitches. See you in the other life."

Cancer in the spotlight

Death and mourning are no longer a private matter.

Social networks are redefining these concepts and creating a new space to talk about it.

The same is true of cancer.

diagnosed at the age of 22 with breast cancer, recounted her day-to-day life through her Instagram account: mastectomy, recovery and her desire to feel alive.

She showed off her bare sick breasts and bald head without caring what comments she might receive.

She just wanted to feel alive.

Today

and she publishes her Nursing studies with the same sympathy.

View this post on Instagram

The impact on society is very positive due to the force they give off, but sometimes it goes further.

The death of

from Malaga in 2017, when he was only 20 years old, served to mobilize the population in the fight against leukemia, the disease that he was diagnosed with two years earlier.

His appeal triggered bone marrow donations to reach one million, the challenge he set for himself.

Other times they reinforce the importance of prevention and early diagnosis or serve to claim, as Elena has done, "more research for more life".

Different was the controversial death in 2009 of

a former contestant on 'Big Brother', due to metastatic cervical cancer.

When she was already terminal, she decided to sell her wedding, her children's baptism and her death to various tabloid media.

The young woman received 1.45 million dollars for the exclusive of her agony in the last days of her life, money that she wanted to allocate to the education of her children.

Although her story shocked the UK, she opened a bitter debate about the limits of reality television.

The psycho vision

If I'm dying, is it better to shut up and say goodbye quietly without being noticed or sharing the process?

support, assures that there is no magic formula to deal with a cancer diagnosis or to assimilate that we have days, perhaps hours.

"I cannot teach -she says- she the best way to die or live, but I can help

Considering from health what we would do if we were about to die is a complicated exercise" .

The range of possibilities is wide and the only thing that matters, in his opinion, is what helps you to live if you are the protagonist of this story.

No one knows it better than yourself.

His advice is

"Make sure to close each day and each day of this stage in the best possible way. And what is that way? The one you decide. Do not let yourself be questioned, much less criticized. You are the only protagonist of your life. Others As secondary actors, we have the responsibility of accompanying you and loving you, not questioning you or imposing our own way on you. What do we know about dying if we just want you not to leave us?"

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

• lifestyle