Opinion – Front Line: There will be a future

In December 2019 something extraordinary happened far from Wuhan, in our home. After a few years of more or less peaceful conversations, we decided to have our third puppy. At that time, we still hadn’t heard rumors about the future, and when two lines appeared on the test tape we bought at the drugstore, we celebrated.

We started 2020 breathing new air, Denize taking a postgraduate course in family therapy and finally enrolled in the audiovisual script school. Would you make a movie? Would give!

That’s because while our puppy’s cells were multiplying, the new coronavirus spread in the world. And I, who thought I would have a year more focused on writing, was pulled into the middle of the emergency scenario. An infectious disease specialist, a veteran of the influenza A H1N1 pandemic, I couldn’t and I didn’t.

Right at the beginning of the pandemic I was infected. She, with our baby in her belly, spent the weekend in an aftercare activity. I, with the other two tangled up, woke up in the middle of the night with a fever of 39.5ºC, chills, one hundred and forty heartbeats per minute. I looked at the children sleeping, serene. I confess some desperation controlled with breathing exercise and a few drops of dipyrone. Fortunately, Denize was not infected, my oldest daughter was, but she was almost asymptomatic.

She organized the world: two children in online classes, dozens of students and residents, and countless people reached by her interventions in the media. Our children were thrilled to see their mom on television talking about preventing Covid-19. I, without a clone, spent nights and nights in the hospital.

Daddy, do you like your patients more than your children? Daddy, you’re not the only doctor in that hospital!

Few beds, many tears. Few therapeutic possibilities, many lies. Sequential waves of death formed an epidemic tsunami.

From inside Denize, life overflowed. In September 2020 I took a breath to see our son born, after a long labor, Luís was born uneventfully, and he smiled as soon as he saw the light, and mom’s eyes. In the most difficult times children reminded us where our souls were.

It was not easy to be born isolated. The maternal grandmother touched him after a week in isolation at home. His paternal grandmother and grandfather who live in the next neighborhood took him in their arms after three months, full of vestments. Teary eyes watched through the faceshield.

Despite the challenges, Luís grows serene, loving and communicative. He calls for the brothers and they invent the most beautiful games. When we say we love him, he responds with a kiss. Thankfully, we haven’t lost the ability to kiss and cuddle.

Luís was two years old yesterday, at a time when new cases of Covid-19 are decreasing at an international level, and immunization, despite many inequities, is also advancing. I look at him playfully and thank him for his existence, especially for giving me hope for the future. Let there be life and let there be future!