He had dreamed a thousand times in his birth, had imagined countless times the soft skin of the little boy who was going to lay on the naked chest, and had often asked the destination what the taste of his first kiss would be. But I had never imagined that the dead child would come into the world.

It seems unnatural to die first and be born later, but reality is relentless. In 2017, 94 deaths were recorded in the mother's stomach from week 22 of pregnancy or during the first week of life in the Basque Country. Many other hearts stopped, of course, before reaching the set time. However, the shade of paternity is not mentioned at the height of the coffee maker of the factory.

The door of the room. She was a midwife. He brought the crib. He grabbed the partner's hand and, almost about to leave his head in the delivery room, begged him from the bottom, as he had done in the last impulse, to grant him love. She remembered what the midwife told them a few hours earlier: when they don't exist, memories have to be born. It was the only time they had to caress him for the first time and for the last time. He put it on the naked chest, he tickled on the soft skin of the little one. They kissed her. It's curious, but in that painful image there was something beautiful.

They collected the sheet covering the child, the cap and the drawing made with the footprints of the child's feet and hands. They realized that the illusion they had sown for 39 weeks was coming out of the room saved in a trunk. The empty stomach and arms, the empty heart even more. For the last time, she looked at her cute nose. “We will never forget you.”

It's hard to hear silence when it's expected to cry. Painful. But it is essential to recognize the death of those who only know the womb of their mother or the cradle of the hospital. Families are entitled to grief; they deserve the freedom to cry; the possibility that what they live by the door of the house will go out into the street. They get too much stabbing: “You are young”, “Another will come”, “Time heals”. It is clear that the only thing we seek is to alleviate the sadness of what accompanies us, but without realizing it we can only harden the pain.

I may be detained in the jail of the hopeful people accused of utopia, but I think to show the truth ignites the wick of normalization. That's why I felt the need to write. I can't close my eyes. It's not allowed. It's my job to help you in the welcome and be next to me when you have to say goodbye.

* The smallest foot is able to leave the usual footprint.