Few weeks ago my cat died, he had some heart disease we didn’t know of. When we found out it was too late.

It took two weeks to see him die. Two weeks going up and down to the vet, trying to guess the problem, never having a solution. Leaving it all night while feeling the emptiness in the house, knowing that he might not come back.

And he didn’t. After one of the many night rushes because of his short breath it was the time. Heartbroken we had to let him go.

While this was happening my wife was pregnant and our baby was expected around march 24th. It was the 27th of February when our cat died.

During pregnancy my was commonly had some moments when she expressed some pain through the “Ahhh” during the days. I was always alert when that happened, when we crossed the “One month till birthday” mark, each of that “Ahh” raised a question in my mind “Is this the time when we’ll have a baby? Or is this a problem?”

Many if not all were neither of those.
Then it came march 7th. Rushed to the hospital because of some pregnancy issue, which led to the baby being born earlier than expected, that same morning.

On March 8th the Hospital was locked down thanks to coronavirus. Each and every time I has some coughing I was thinking if I was a possible issue, same for everyone around me.

Now coronavirus is still a problem, and I realized that the sudden death of my cat and the overall pregnancy condition of my wife (+ corona) led me to have some kind of over worrying. If she shout something along the lines of “Oh my gosh” then I’m suddenly thinking at the worst case scenario. If my baby is too still I think “Is she still breathing?” I touch her because I don’t have any signals.

And this because I didn’t have any signals before, neither during the cat disease nor during the last day of pregnancy. No evidence that something was wrong until it was too late.

All went well (well, not for the cat), but I still am too reactive to these things. It’s like death is still asking me to pay a toll, a toll I didn’t knew existed in first place. A toll that each day reminds me of how fragile we are, how we can disappear in one day, with one rush to the hospital.

And this also reminds me how much we should care for the people we love, how much we should cherish them. Because the past is always sure, while our future might not last as much.