"We Really Mean It"

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I want to tell you a story that is personal, but I hope not unprofessional.

My wife and I have three wonderful, happy children, all of whom, as newborns, did stints in the NICU, all of whom had health drama surrounding their early days. This was especially true for our eldest, our daughter, who was a bit of a lemon in the health department. She required some serious interventions in her first years of life. And though she’s a thriving, ballet-dancing, book-loving fifth-grader now, she needed some significant surgeries to get launched. The first of those stemmed from the fact that, when she was born, her esophagus wasn’t connected to her stomach (as it should be) and was connected to her trachea (as it shouldn’t be). So when she was this four-pound baby, surgeons had to go inside and fix her plumbing.

On the bell curve of outcomes for people who begin with this starting point, she is on the far end of amazing. Every prayer we prayed seems to have been answered. We are so, so, so lucky. And also, as a result of her medical history, simple colds can snowball quickly into nasty pneumonias and, about once a year, she gets so sick that she lands in the hospital. 

As parents, my wife and I have been searching for ways that we can help her out, can help our kid to land in the hospital maybe every other year rather than every year. And so we've gone around asking doctors for advice: “Is there anything we can do so our child lands in the hospital less often?” And the general response we've gotten has been, “Don't you realize that you're on the happy end of the bell curve? Your kid is doing wonderfully well, given her history.” And we say how grateful we are, how fortunate we feel, and also how, if there are steps we can take to help her be sick less often, we’d like to try them.

At this time last year, we were nearing the end of another stint in another hospital, and the medical care was working and our daughter’s health seemed stable enough, so I headed into school and my wife stayed behind with her. That morning, a doctor came in for morning rounds, and he said, “Just so you know, we're going to discharge your daughter at some point today.” And my wife said, “Great. And just so you know, we're really hoping that we can get some attention from any specialists who might be able to strategize with us about how to keep her healthy for longer. It’s been kinda hard to get folks to pay attention to her.”  And the doctor paused, looked at them both, and said: “O.K., do me a favor. Don’t leave the hospital until I come back to you.” “No problem,” my wife said, and sure enough he returned later in the afternoon, bringing good news: “We’ve got you an appointment with the aerodigestive clinic here. They’re prepared to see your daughter at their next meeting, which is in two weeks.” That alone was amazing. Two weeks? These clinics usually schedule appointments six months out.  

Then he said to my wife: “I want to tell you a story that is personal, but I hope not unprofessional.”

He said, “I want you to know that I was born with the same condition your daughter had. I needed the same surgical repair. And for the first four years of my life, I had the same habit of falling into the hospital once a year or so for the kind of support that your daughter needed during this trip. And my parents went around trying to find doctors who would help me land in the hospital less often. And it was hard for them to find doctors who took us seriously because, apart from those hospital trips, I was doing really well. Finally, seeking a fifth or sixth opinion, my mom took me to Boston Children's Hospital, where we met a doctor who said, ‘I think I've seen this before, and I think I know what this is. And there are definitely things we can do to try to help. And while I can’t promise any particular outcome, I can promise you that we’ll give it our best shot and that we’ll try to take good care of you.’” So he had a procedure up in Boston, and that trip was the last time that he ever went to the hospital for an aerodigestive problem.  

Before leaving the room, the doctor told my wife and daughter this: “I don’t know if what worked for me is going to work for you. I don’t know if there’s a quick fix for your daughter like there was for me. And I can’t promise any particular outcome. But I can promise that we’re going to try to take good care of you.”

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There will be many, many happy moments during the time your children spend at Grace, and I’m excited to celebrate their triumphs with you. I’ll be cheering them on.

But we’ll prove the sincerity of our values not only through the good experiences your children have, but even more in how we partner with you when times are hard. For that’s when we get to play a role for Grace families not so different from the one that kind doctor played for mine. That’s when I hope you’ll see most clearly that the values of our mission are not just pretty words, that we really mean it.  

I make a point during every admissions talk I give to say that, at Grace, we want every student to experience a certain measure of challenge. If families want a school where their children won’t have times of struggle, won’t have times that feel hard, then this is not a good school for them. We think a certain amount of difficulty is desirable, necessary even, for kids to grow. Our definition of academic rigor seeks to ensure that every student feels both challenged and supported. Inside and outside of the classroom, kids will make mistakes. We’ll have incidents of age-appropriate idiocy; schools always do. Some kindergarteners will find it hard to share. Some ninth graders will be tempted to cheat. In a community of this size, it is inevitable that, every year, there will be tragedies we can’t imagine but that we’ll somehow have to face. The world will present us with turbulence, too, some of which we can anticipate; the toughest forms of which we can’t. Even in the best of times, parenthood is an odd mix of wonder, love, and terror. And it won’t always feel like we’re in the best of times.

In such moments, it is a particular and profound privilege to be working in a school like this one, with children like yours and with families like you. That’s when it will be our delight to put our collective experience to use in our partnership with you. That’s when we’ll be able to show you that we know and love your child, that we’ve seen many kids before, that the challenges yours may be experiencing aren’t new to us, that there are things we can do to help. And while we won’t be able to promise any particular outcome, we will promise that we’ll give it our best shot and that we’ll take good care of your child.  

So that’s the one thought I hope you’ll take away from this orientation: that we really mean it. We really care about being good partners to you and with you, and we look forward to trying to demonstrate our commitment to this value throughout your child’s time at Grace. In the meantime, thank you for being a part of this community and for entrusting your children to our care. And welcome to Grace!