birth

Birth.
Death, when understood as an anticipated farewell, is natural — we live with that burden, we are aware that it will happen, and at times we think about that moment. We imagine the people who will be beside us, what they will say, and which memories they will keep of the moments we shared.
Being born dead is different; the sorrow belongs only to those who remain. For science, it is a stillbirth; for religion, it is a child who departs, carrying a suffering that lingers unfinished through time. So small, and already condemned to death.
On the day of the birth the condition was already known, the clothes were ready, there were no flowers, and the toys had been replaced with a beautiful holy card on which one could read: “António / I was not born to live, I was born to die.”
The bed waits, empty.