Our story begins with an ending. 

Carla Hendricks had Stage 4 uterine cancer. Gathered at her bedside were members of the hospice team, led by Laura Hoeksema, MD, MPH. They were doing their best to keep Carla comfortable.  

All of the other photos in 10:10 10.10: Anatomy of a Moment were taken at the same time on the same day. The images in this section are the sole exceptions — which we’re making because Carla wanted so much to be part of this project. At the appointed hour on the designated date, she was away briefly for a procedure. We caught up with her a short time later, when she was back in her room on the seventh floor of the G Building on Cleveland Clinic’s main campus.

Then again, when exactly does one moment end and the next moment begin?

Across the ages, great minds have dug deep into questions such as this. Theologian St. Augustine contemplated the paradoxical nature of time: The past no longer exists, the future hasn’t happened yet and the present is an infinitesimal point between them. Zen master Dogen Zenji came to the conclusion that each moment constitutes a complete manifestation of reality. Philosopher Martin Heidegger described a moment as a brief flash of self-understanding.

Across the moments of her life, Carla was many things to many people. Daughter. Sister. Wife. Mother. Grandmother. Friend. 

She was born in New York City. Moved to Cleveland. Ran track and cross-country in high school. Went to cosmetology school and ran a successful hairdressing salon out of her home. 

She married Johnny Hendrix and raised three children: two sons — Keith and Damian — and a daughter, Kayla. 

Carla loved plants. Loved cooking. Loved traveling. She told us that she was hoping to be well enough to take a Caribbean cruise around Thanksgiving. The tickets were already paid for. 

Above all, she wanted her granddaughter, Taliyah, to know: She loves her endlessly. 

With her family by her side, Carla would pass away just over two weeks later. She was 45.

Large photograph by Annie O’Neill 
Small photograph courtesy of Johnny Hendrix 

Carla and Johnny 
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, 2018

Our story ends with a beginning. 

Meet Ke’air. He arrived here on Earth the previous morning, weighing in at 6 pounds, 12 ounces. In good time, he’ll meet his 3-year-old sister, Emery. For now, his parents, Brittney Beran and Javonte Douglas, couldn’t be happier to enjoy some quiet bonding time with their newborn son in a sun-drenched room on the fourth floor of Cleveland Clinic Fairview Hospital. 

A physicist will tell you that the smallest meaningful measurement of time is a Planck unit, which is how long it takes for light to travel 10⁻³⁵ meters — roughly 5.391 × 10⁻⁴⁴ seconds. But we know better. The smallest unit of time is surely how long it takes for a mother and a father to fall in love with their baby. 

“Instead of giving our kids everything we didn’t have, we want to teach them everything we didn’t know,” Javonte says. 

“It definitely changes your perspective,” Brittney says. “One day they’re not here. The next day they are. And for the rest of our lives, we’re responsible for this person we’ve created.” 

Ke’air is named after an aunt he’ll never meet. Javonte’s sister passed away in 2023. “Say goodbye to one,” he says softly, “welcome another.” 

The ties that bind run deep in all of us, even deeper than the DNA coding that makes us who we are. Timeless forces tether us inextricably to one another. Those who came before. Those who will follow. And those with us right here, right now. When it comes to this miracle called life, we’re all in it together.

Ke’air’s mom and dad want him to grow up optimistic and open-minded, able to understand others without judgment. They want him to feel free to express his emotions and embrace vulnerability as a source of strength. And they want him to believe in himself the way they believe in him. 

“I hope he’ll know that he can do anything he puts his mind to,” Brittney says. 

They already love him so much. Endlessly. 

What happens when you freeze time and put it under a microscope, like we did at 10:10 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on October 10, 2024? Maybe — just maybe — you catch a fleeting glimpse of the eternal. 

In a solitary moment, the circle of life comes full circle. For some, the journey is winding down. For others, the journey is only just getting started. And for the rest of us, the sweetest mystery goes on, forever unfolding between what was and what will be.

Photograph by Lisa DeJong 

Making Every Moment Count

It’s amazing how much can happen in only a moment. 

I invite you to see for yourself in this special issue of Cleveland Clinic Magazine. Rather than document a day in the life of Cleveland Clinic, we set out to chronicle a single minute on a single day — 10:10 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on October 10, 2024 — across our global health system. In real time, near and far, we saw our mission in action, again and again.

Takeaways from a Moment in Time

You might be wondering: Why 10:10 a.m. on October 10, 2024? How did we come to zero in on that particular time on that particular day? What’s the significance? 

Here’s the thing: There was no preordained momentousness whatsoever. We could’ve focused on an entirely different moment. Which is precisely the point, isn’t it? At any given time on any given day, amazing things are happening here at Cleveland Clinic.