One Ordinary Day at a Time
I started writing CranioDad because I wanted to understand what it meant to be the father of a child born with craniosynostosis.
At the time, I thought I was writing about surgeries.
Hospitals.
Recovery.
Fear.
Fourteen years later, I realize I wasn't documenting a diagnosis.
I was preserving a family.
One ordinary day at a time.
Truth be told...
I also hoped these words might someday find someone else.
Not years from now.
Not while casually browsing the internet.
I hoped they would find a father sitting in the middle of the night.
In a cold, dim hospital room.
Where the clock somehow seems louder than it should.
Where every beep from a monitor pulls your eyes away from your child.
After hearing a word he had never heard before.
Craniosynostosis.
If that father ever finds himself here...
Welcome.
Take a deep breath.
I can't promise your path will look like ours.
It won't.
Every family walks a different road.
But I can promise you this.
You don't have to walk it alone.
Some traditions are chosen.
Others are handed to you.
This is one of ours.
Every year, before the sun has fully decided whether it wants to rise, alarms go off in our house.
Coffee is poured.
Kids wander through the kitchen wrapped in blankets and sleep.
Someone forgets something.
Someone always does.
Backpacks.
Pillows.
Phone chargers.
This year...
It was me.
The alarm went off at 4:45.
Later than I wanted.
I stretched my back before my feet ever touched the floor, one of those quiet reminders that forty isn't twenty anymore.
Outside, the world wore that pale gray color that only exists just before sunrise.
The fields were still.
The trees barely moved.
Even the birds seemed content to wait a little longer before beginning the day.
We left about ten minutes later than planned.
Not enough to matter.
Or so I thought.
The roads north were nearly empty.
Lake country slowly giving way to Virginia.
Somewhere around the halfway point, with Richmond drawing closer mile by mile, it hit me.
My coffee.
Still sitting on the desk in my office.
Waiting patiently for me to come back home.
Too late to turn around.
Too early to really care.
One more reminder that some mornings begin before your brain catches up with the rest of you.
McDonald's was always part of the plan.
It usually is.
Breakfast for everyone.
An iced coffee for me.
Simple.
Familiar.
Part of the ritual.
The kids got their breakfast.
The coffee was exactly what I needed.
My breakfast...
Never arrived.
Which, strangely enough, seems to be becoming something of a tradition.
At some point you just laugh.
Every annual trip develops its own little quirks.
This year's apparently began with a forgotten cup of coffee...
...and a breakfast that never caught up with me.
Traffic stayed surprisingly light until Richmond remembered it was Richmond.
The last two miles took longer than the fifteen before them.
Funny how life works that way sometimes.
Those roads used to be part of my everyday life.
When my wife and I were first married, they carried me home.
Later, they carried me to work.
Now they carry my family somewhere entirely different.
Not simply to a hospital.
To one of the places that helped shape who our family has become.
The VCU Medical Center stretches across several city blocks.
Buildings connected by bridges.
Parking garages.
Clinics.
Hospitals.
Thousands of people beginning thousands of different days.
But one building always catches my eye.
Not the Children's Hospital.
The one standing across the street.
Richmond's Old City Hall.
Gray granite.
Green copper roofs weathered by time.
Slate shingles.
Gothic windows.
The clock standing watch over everything below.
I've admired that building for years.
Every time we come, I find myself looking at it again.
Some buildings simply demand your attention.
Three hours into our day.
More than one hundred and twenty miles behind us.
We checked in right on time.
7:45.
And somehow...
Our day hadn't even really begun.
We had only been sitting in the waiting room for a few minutes when a familiar face walked through the door.
An old friend.
Not the kind you meet for dinner every month.
The kind you only ever seem to see in places like this.
One of the beautiful things about the cranio community is that we all seem to orbit each other.
Enough families.
Enough appointments.
Enough years.
Eventually your paths cross again.
Sometimes in a hallway.
Sometimes in an elevator.
Sometimes, like this morning, in a waiting room before clinic begins.
His daughter looked taller.
Happier.
More grown up than the last time we'd seen her.
The years have started measuring themselves that way.
Not by calendars.
By children.
We talked.
Not about craniosynostosis.
Not about surgeries.
Not about diagnoses.
Just...
Life.
School.
Kids.
Growing up.
The ordinary things that become extraordinary because both of you understand everything that doesn't need to be said.
That's one of the gifts this community has given us.
We don't always have to explain ourselves.
We already know.
Then someone called Zoey's name.
The conversation stopped exactly where it was.
No awkward goodbye.
No promises to catch up soon.
Just smiles.
A wave.
"We'll see you again."
Because we probably will.
Maybe next year.
Maybe sooner.
That seems to be how this community works.
We followed the nurse down the hallway.
For years, this part of the day looked very different.
We were the ones moving.
Room to room.
Hallway to hallway.
Waiting room to waiting room.
Always listening for someone to call Zoey's name.
Every time they did, something tightened somewhere deep inside me.
Not because I thought something bad was about to happen.
Because every call reminded me she was a patient.
Then COVID changed everything.
Oddly enough...
For the better.
Now we stay.
One room.
One place.
One little corner of the hospital that quietly becomes ours for the day.
The doctors rotate.
The families don't.
It is difficult to explain how much calmer that feels.
No gathering backpacks every twenty minutes.
No wondering where the next room is.
No sitting in another waiting room listening for another name.
Instead...
We wait for a knock.
There is something profoundly peaceful about that.
The room slowly becomes ours.
Backpacks collect in one corner.
Water bottles find the counter.
Brothers spread out with books, coloring pages, or whatever quietly keeps them occupied.
Parents finally have a place to breathe.
The stress doesn't disappear.
But it softens.
The room has its own atmosphere.
The air always feels a little too clean.
Purified.
Filtered.
Almost absent of the smells that make life... Life.
Somewhere beneath that is fresh coffee.
Hand sanitizer.
Paper.
The quiet hum of fluorescent lights that somehow manage to feel both too bright and strangely cold at the same time.
Hospitals have a way of removing the ordinary senses of everyday life.
Maybe that's why the laughter of children seems to echo just a little louder inside them.
Before the first doctor ever knocked on the door, Zoey received her passport.
This is our seventh year at clinic.
Seven passports.
Each one with twelve little spaces waiting to be filled.
Each specialist earns a sticker.
Each completed visit marks another step through the day.
When clinic is over, the passport goes into her keepsake box.
Seven passports.
Seven years.
One little girl growing up one sticker at a time.
The first knock came just after 8:20.
Ophthalmology.
The first appointment always feels the easiest.
Or maybe it only feels that way because the day is still young.
Everyone is smiling.
Everyone still believes the schedule on the wall.
The doctor stepped in, greeted Zoey by name, and immediately started talking to her.
Not through us.
To her.
I've come to appreciate that over the years.
These appointments are about my daughter.
The conversations should begin with her.
A few lights.
A few questions.
Drops to dilate her eyes.
A reminder to come back a little later once everything had time to work.
The first sticker found its place in her passport.
Eleven to go.
Not long after came speech therapy.
Speech has been part of Zoey's story since she was three years old.
Some years feel like giant leaps.
Others feel like inches.
This year the conversation changed.
She's coming home.
Back to homeschooling.
Now the discussion wasn't simply about progress.
It was about building a plan for what comes next.
One more reminder that no matter how far we've come...
We're still moving forward.
While we were talking, another familiar face quietly stepped into the room.
Audiology.
No dramatic entrance.
Just another specialist slipping naturally into the rhythm of the day.
Our annual hearing appointment is already scheduled.
The hearing aids are doing well.
New molds soon.
A different app to help manage everything.
Another conversation.
Another sticker.
By now something had started happening that always seems to happen.
Time stopped behaving normally.
The clock kept moving.
The day somehow stood still.
Appointments no longer felt separate.
The room became its own little world.
Knock.
Conversation.
Sticker.
Knock.
Conversation.
Sticker.
The hallway outside kept moving.
Inside...
Everything slowed down.
I noticed something while everyone else was talking.
Zoey wasn't nervous.
Not anymore.
Seven years of clinic has transformed this place from something unfamiliar into something almost routine.
She knows where to sit.
She knows another sticker is coming.
She knows which doctors are going to make her laugh.
She knows the questions before they're asked.
Watching that confidence is strange.
Part of me is incredibly proud.
Part of me wishes she had never needed to learn any of it.
The knocks on the door continued.
Eyes.
Speech.
Hearing.
ENT.
Dentistry.
One sticker after another slowly filling the passport.
By now, time had started behaving differently.
The morning no longer felt like separate appointments.
It had become one long conversation with different faces.
Then came another knock.
One I've quietly looked forward to every year.
Dr. Jennifer Rhodes.
Fourteen years ago, before I even knew she had entered our story, she was already walking toward my daughter.
Our midwife had just returned from Australia.
While she was there, she had helped deliver a baby with a condition remarkably similar to Zoey's.
The day before Zoey was born, she had lunch with Dr. Rhodes, sharing everything she had learned.
When our midwife realized something wasn't quite right after Zoey's birth, she already knew exactly who to call.
Before I even knew Dr. Rhodes had been to the NICU...
She was there.
I didn't hear that story until the second day Zoey was in intensive care.
Looking back now...
It still feels remarkable.
Every year since, she has walked through that same exam room door.
Sometimes with students.
Sometimes with residents.
Sometimes alone.
Always with the same calm presence.
People sometimes ask me what it's like seeing one of the best craniofacial plastic surgeons in the world.
The honest answer?
That's not what I'm thinking about when she walks into the room.
I'm thinking about the woman who has watched my daughter grow.
Not just physically.
As a person.
She remembers surgeries.
Milestones.
Setbacks.
Victories.
The little things.
The things that never seem to make it into medical charts.
She doesn't walk into the room looking at a diagnosis.
She walks into the room looking at Zoey.
Not her chart.
Her.
That distinction matters more than I know how to explain.
When you've spent years watching someone care for your child, trust stops feeling like something you give.
It becomes something quietly built.
Appointment by appointment.
Conversation by conversation.
Year by year.
This year was a good visit.
No looming surgeries.
No unexpected concerns.
Just another careful examination.
Another thoughtful conversation.
Another year of watching.
Another year of waiting to see who Zoey continues to become.
One of the phrases we've heard more than almost any other over the years is this:
"We're waiting for Zoey to show us who she is."
I didn't like that sentence at first.
I wanted certainty.
Plans.
Answers.
Timelines.
Now...
I think I understand.
They weren't waiting because they didn't know what to do.
They were waiting because children grow into themselves.
Every surgery changes something.
Every year changes something.
Every milestone opens another possibility.
Medicine isn't simply treating a condition.
It's following a child while she becomes herself.
And somehow...
That feels like a pretty good way to describe parenting too.
By the time the last specialist stepped out of the room, it was a little after eleven.
Our part of the day was over.
Theirs was just beginning.
Somewhere inside those walls, the team would soon gather around a table.
Plastic surgery.
Speech.
Audiology.
Ophthalmology.
ENT.
Dentistry.
Every specialty bringing a different piece of Zoey's story.
Not to compare notes.
To compare perspectives.
One child.
One conversation.
One plan.
Over the days that follow, they will continue those conversations.
Reviewing notes.
Comparing observations.
Looking at the whole picture instead of individual appointments.
Eventually, a packet arrives in our mailbox.
We have learned not to rush it.
Every recommendation.
Every follow-up.
Every next step.
Not because it makes life easier for the hospital.
Because it makes life easier for families.
I've spoken with cranio families from all across the country.
Many wish their hospitals worked this way.
So do I.
Every child deserves to be cared for as a whole person.
Not simply a collection of appointments.
Before we head home, there is one more tradition.
One we've quietly repeated every year.
The photograph.
Just across the street from the Children's Hospital stands my favorite building in the entire city.
Richmond's Old City Hall.
Gray granite.
Green copper roofs softened by time.
Slate shingles.
Tall Gothic windows.
Heavy stone.
A clock tower that has stood watch over generations of Richmond families.
I've admired that building for years.
If money were no object...
I honestly think I'd live there.
There is something about old stone that speaks to me.
Strength.
Endurance.
Permanence.
Some mornings the slate roof is still dark from an overnight rain.
Other years the first light catches the old copper, turning it into something that almost glows against the gray stone.
In winter it feels stern.
Almost severe.
In summer, surrounded by green trees and morning light, it somehow feels welcoming.
I've looked at that building every year for more than a decade.
It never looks exactly the same.
Somehow...
It always feels exactly the same.
Inside the Children's Hospital...
We've heard news that took our breath away.
We've been handed answers we desperately wanted.
We've also been handed questions no parent ever hopes to hear.
We've celebrated victories.
Prepared for surgeries.
Held our breath.
Exhaled.
Cried.
Laughed.
Walked back out into the sunshine carrying hope and uncertainty in equal measure.
Then I look across the street.
And that building is still there.
Exactly where it has always been.
Unmoved.
Unshaken.
Standing quietly over another generation of families whose lives are changing inside the hospital beside it.
Maybe that's why I've grown to love it so much.
It reminds me that some things are meant to endure.
Every year we gather the kids beneath those windows.
Same place.
Same skyline.
Same family.
Different children.
A little taller.
A little older.
A little wiser.
Another year farther from the NICU.
Another year closer to whatever comes next.
The camera captures smiles.
Backpacks.
Children growing.
The skyline.
What it never quite captures...
Is time.
When I look back through those photographs, I don't see seven pictures.
I see one family.
Growing.
Healing.
Learning.
One ordinary year at a time.
The photograph changes.
The building doesn't.
Maybe that's exactly the point.
People occasionally ask why we bring the boys.
It would certainly be easier not to.
The drive is long.
The day is exhausting.
The room is crowded.
They miss part of their summer.
Truthfully...
It would be much easier.
That's exactly why we don't.
Some day...
My wife and I won't be here.
I don't write those words lightly.
I write them because they're true.
Every parent eventually prepares for a day they hope never comes.
When that day arrives...
I don't want Zoey wondering who understands her story.
I want her to look beside her.
Not because her brothers suddenly had to learn it.
Because they've been living it all along.
They already know the language.
Not English.
Cranio.
They know the doctors.
The clinics.
The passport.
The waiting.
The victories.
The unknowns.
They know what has been tried.
They know what still might come.
They know the phrase we've heard more times than I can count.
"We're waiting for Zoey to show us who she is."
They're learning now.
Not because they'll need it tomorrow.
Because one day...
They might.
And if that day ever comes...
I want them carrying understanding instead of fear.
I want them to know exactly where to stand.
Exactly who to call.
Exactly how to walk beside their sister.
Not because we prepared them for tragedy.
Because we prepared them for love.
By the time we climbed back into the van, the day had already started becoming a memory.
Lunch.
A quick stop by my mom's house.
A few laughs.
A few stories.
Then the familiar drive south.
Back toward home.
Back toward ordinary life.
The conversations slowly faded.
One by one the kids drifted toward sleep or distraction.
The excitement of the morning finally giving way to the exhaustion that always seems to follow clinic.
The roads became familiar again.
The miles disappeared beneath us.
Virginia quietly became North Carolina.
The day slowly gave us back to ourselves.
Every year I leave that clinic feeling two things at the same time.
Relief.
And gratitude.
Relief that another year has passed.
Gratitude that another year was possible.
There was a time when these trips felt overwhelming.
Every appointment carried the possibility of another surgery.
Another unknown.
Another difficult decision.
Now...
The fear has softened.
Not because the questions disappeared.
Because we've learned we don't have to answer them all at once.
One appointment.
One year.
One ordinary day at a time.
I started writing CranioDad because I wanted to understand what it meant to be the father of a daughter born with craniosynostosis.
Somewhere along the way...
I realized I wasn't documenting a diagnosis.
I was preserving a family.
One ordinary day at a time.
Maybe someday these pages will simply become stories my children read.
Stories about baseball games.
Birthday cakes.
Road trips.
Chicken coops.
College classes.
Work.
Faith.
And one annual drive to Richmond that quietly became part of who we are.
If that's all they ever become...
That would be enough.
Much love.
Stay safe.
Wash your damn hands.
