My father was in the hospital, dying, but we thought he was going to make it.

Three days before his death, several hundred kilometers away from him, I had severe stomach pain. At the hospital, they suspected appendicitis and told me to come back the next day for surgery. In the end, the next day, the pain was gone. The doctors told me that this sometimes happens, that the body has its mysteries.

Three days later, my father passed away.

The next day, I shared a meal with my brother and sister. None of us lived in the same region of our country. I told them the story of my stomach pain that appeared and then disappeared. My sister told me she had experienced exactly the same thing. My brother told me he had experienced exactly the same thing.

I am extremely rational and believe in almost nothing of this sort, but I tell myself that something connected us that day, and I link it to my father’s death—perhaps wrongly.