Opal

How a NICU nurse taught me that miracles don't promise championships, they simply promise tomorrow.

Hi everybody and a very pleasant evening to you, wherever you may be.

I have written extensively on this page about how my son was born three months premature, and this entire year has been about figuring out ways to cope with that scenario and process the doomsday feelings that linger within you after watching your child fight for his life in the NICU for an extended period of time.

Writing has always been an outlet for me, a way for me to process things. When we finally got home from the hospital this summer, I told myself I wanted to write thank you letters to each and every person in the NICU that made us feel even a little bit more at ease. It seemed like an easy undertaking, but as anyone who has had a small baby in their home will tell you, something as small as going to the washroom or taking a shower becomes a mountain to climb on a daily basis. So here I am, months later, just beginning to write out some letters.

Today I want to talk about Opal.

The Smile That Never Left

Opal was one of the nurses in the hospital who cared for our son, and from the first time we met her, I don’t think the smile ever vanished from her face. She has this genuinely bubbly energy about her, and we during the first few weeks, we found ourselves saying to each other on the drive to the hospital “I hope it’s Opal taking care of our son tonight.”

What they don’t tell you explicitly at the beginning of your hospital stay is that you can request a list of core nurses to look after your child. Obviously, they cannot be the same ones every single day, but they’ll do their best to schedule the people you request as often as possible. We knew immediately that Opal would have to be on our core nurse list.

Story Time

I started doing something on our nightly visits that might have been more for me than for my son, but Opal was the first one to notice; I would read chapters of the books I was reading to him each and every single night — story time — just to remind him that dad was there and so he would remember my voice. And I’m not talking baby books — we read our fair share those too, of course, to the point where all of our friends found out and started sending us their favourite children’s books — I was reading full blown baseball books to him at every chance I got.

The first book I read to him was Why We Love Baseball: A History In 50 Moments by Joe Posnanski. I specifically remember getting to the chapter about the Jose Bautista bat flip and immediately being flooded with emotions. It was the first time that it really hit me that I would be passing on the things I love to this little baby, that I would be able to become a true dad by telling him about this monumental baseball moment from my life. I was now the person who would have his son roll his eyes at him because I knew I would be telling him this story for decades to come and he is going to become sick of hearing about that wild seventh inning. When my wife saw me pause while reading, she didn’t quite know what to do and helped me finish reading the chapter. I will never forget that moment.

Another book I read to him in the hospital was 24: Life Stories And Lessons From The Say Hey Kid by John Shea. I’d never truly done a deep dive on Willie Mays and so it was a fascinating look on his career. When I would read these chapters by my son’s bedside, him barely cracking his eyes open as a baby the size of my forearm, I didn’t think anyone was paying attention.

Someone Was Listening

When you’re in the NICU, the nurses have one hundred things to do and they’re always running from bed to bed at the constant beeping and buzzing from all the monitors hooked up to these precious little babies. We would see all of our nurses move from one bed to the next, seemingly unfazed by all the alerts, casually going about their work day.

One chapter of the Mays book focuses on when the Giants first moved to San Francisco and the rampant racism from residents neighbouring Willie Mays’ house who were furious that he had moved in. They believed that having a black family living in their neighbourhood would decrease their property values. There were some nasty quotes from people from the fifties and a story about how someone threw a brick through Mays’ window after he officially moved in. That was one of the first times that Opal looked up as she was handling a baby in the bed next to ours and said “Really? People were really that nasty to this man just because he was black?”

I never thought anyone was listening and yet here was Opal, providing commentary on my book. I explained to her that it was the fifties when racism was rampant and she just shook her head and said “What a horrible time to be alive.”

We became friendlier. We learned about her love of classic films and her hatred of eighties movies (I am still upset that she has never seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off). Knowing I was a baseball fan, she would constantly ask me about the Blue Jays and whether or not they had a shot this season. She would see a highlight on TV that didn’t quite make sense to her and ask me what had happened. When Vladimir Guerrero Jr signed his massive contract, she told me she heard some chatter about it on the radio and asked me if he was worth that much money. I told her that he would have to do a lot to be worth so much money; I had no idea how magical he would be during October. She would hear about a game-winning homerun and ask me if I was excited and I would, inevitably, tell her it was great that they won but they had no chance at winning the World Series.

I look back at that time in May and laugh at how little I knew about how this season would actually unfold. When I was reading about ERAs, homeruns, batting averages and exit velocities, Opal was making sure that oxygen saturation levels, CCs of milk and grams gained were tracked for my son. Little did I know that by the end of October that both my son and the Blue Jays would be defying every prediction I’d made. Both would be thriving when I’d told myself to expect nothing. Both would make me believe again.

Fast forward to September and our little guy had to have another short stay in the hospital. We ended up running into Opal in the cafeteria and mentioned to her which room we were in. I will never ever forget her walking into the room, telling us that she had someone covering for her for ten minutes and desperately wanting to catch up as fast as she could in the limited amount of time that she had. She looked at our son, now triple the size from when she first met him, and I could see the joy in her eyes that he looked so plump. Being the kind heart that she is, she asked if she could hold him and I said “Of course you can hold him, Opal, you’re part of the reason he’s still with us and I will never be able to repay you for how much you helped”

The Birthstone of October

I looked up the meaning of the word Opal recently when I decided to sit down and finally write this. Opals are precious stones or jewels, and in ancient Rome, they were a symbol of hope and good fortune. It is sometimes called the stone of inspiration and it boosts the will to live and the joy of one’s earthly existence. Being one of the core nurses for my son, I can’t help but feel a sense that she was meant to be a NICU nurse and she was meant to bring hope and good fortune to my family and my son’s life.

But the one that hit me the hardest? Opal is the birthstone for the month of October.

“October is the opal month of the year. It is the month of glory, of ripeness. It is the picture-month” - Henry Ward Beecher

October 2025 brought with it some of the most memorable games and moments in Toronto Blue Jays history. There are moments of joy and despair that will stay with me for as long as I live. The Blue Jays were unstoppable. Hope and fortune smiled on them throughout the entire playoff run just like Opal smiled at us for the months she helped keep our son alive.

And yet, as good as they were all of October, the Blue Jays lost the World Series on November 1st, the very first day Opal’s birthstone was no longer in season.

The symbolism is not lost on me. October had done its job. The Blue Jays had given us a month where anything felt possible, where comebacks became expected. But World Series titles, like NICU graduations, aren’t guaranteed by hope alone. They are gifts that require hard work, effort, and a little bit of luck, and October had already given us everything it had.

When the final out was recorded, I wasn’t angry. I was sad, of course, but my wife had the wherewithal to pat me on the back and somehow came up with the same wise words my father used to tell me when the Toronto Maple Leafs would eventually be eliminated from the postseason: “It’s okay, Zan, somebody has to lose.”

After the game, I just sat there on my couch, my son asleep on my chest, and realized something: Opal had already given us everything we needed. October was never about guarantees—it was about hope. It was about being alive to see November.

Opal is October’s stone, and in October, the Blue Jays seemed invincible. But birthstones, like baseball, have their season. They don’t promise you’ll win everything—they promise you’ll make it through. They give you what you need to survive the moment, to get to the next chapter, to keep fighting. They promise that no matter what happens, win or lose, there’s always next year.

The Toronto Blue Jays did not win the World Series this year. My son will not remember those nights in the NICU, but I will always tell him about how fondly I remember visiting him and seeing the nurses taking care of him and updating us on how his day went in the same way I will tell him about the Bautista bat flip, about Willie Mays, and about how in October 2025, the Blue Jays were inches away from winning the World Series and I got to hold him in my arms as I had a nightly mental breakdown over a baseball game because of nurses like Opal.

Everlasting Hope

I think about Opal often now. I think about her smile in those dark NICU nights when I didn’t know if my son would ever make it home. I think about how she listened to me read about Willie Mays and the bat flip, how she cared enough to ask questions, how she made me feel like a father when I was terrified I might never get the chance to be one. I think about how she ran up to our room in September with only ten minutes to spare because she needed to see that our boy was okay—that her October miracle had lasted into the fall.

You never forget the people who show up for you in your darkest moments. Opal didn’t just show up—she brought light with her. She brought hope when hope felt like a luxury we couldn’t afford. She made us believe our son would come home, even when the monitors screamed and the days blurred together and every small setback felt like the world collapsing all over again.

I don’t know if Opal knows what she means to our family. I don’t know if she realizes that when I watch my son giggle uncontrollably now, or when he takes his first steps, or eventually swings a baseball bat in our backyard, I’ll think of her. I’ll think of how she was there at the beginning, when he was the size of my forearm and fighting for every breath, when she would guide us on how to hold him correctly, how to bathe him and how to help as best as we could as parents. I’ll think of how she always smiled at us like our miracle was inevitable, even when we couldn’t see it ourselves. And I’ll think of her every time I watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

The Blue Jays gave Toronto an October to remember. Opal helped give us a son to raise.

One of them ended in November. The other will last a lifetime.

Thank you, Opal. You were hope wearing scrubs with a smile that never fades. You were our precious stone, our symbol of good fortune, our reminder that even in the darkest places, there are people who choose to bring light.

You were our October. And now, every October for the rest of my life whether the Blue Jays are in the postseason or not, I’ll carry you with me. In every autumn breeze, every playoff game, every World Series. In every moment where hope feels impossible and someone smiles at me anyway.

You will be there.

You are there.

You always will be.