We’ve made it to the day most dads dread—your daughter becoming a teenager.
It’s funny how often Kinley’s birth date has been announced over the past few months. Every time she gets a meal, we have to give her birthday as proof of who she is. Every hospital check-in. Every round of chemo. Every blood transfusion. Every time someone donates blood in Kinley’s name. Over and over again—we give her birthday.
Coming out of Thanksgiving, we were lucky enough to have a week at home away from treatments. It gave us space to reflect—not just on this year, but on the year Kinley was born.
She was supposed to arrive around Thanksgiving, but she was a few days late. Megan went into labor late at night and, for reasons I still don’t understand, let me sleep “a few more hours” before waking me up. Then we headed to the hospital.
Megan was adamant about a natural birth—no pain medicine. After about eighteen hours of labor, Kinley finally made her appearance. I had no idea how completely my life was about to change.
So this year, we wanted to make her birthday special.
We planned a surprise party at our restaurant. Megan and some of our team helped Kinley and her friends roll their own sushi. Then a party bus picked us up and took us around town for a scavenger hunt. Everyone wore ugly Christmas sweaters, and our first stop was Dollar Tree, where each kid got five dollars to buy accessories to make their outfits extra ridiculous.
From there we sang karaoke at the park, rode go-carts, and grabbed ice cream. The night felt like a dream.
When we pulled up to the go-cart track, the bus doors swung open and Kinley ran down the steps toward the track. It was the first time she had run in months.
In April, she was playing soccer. That’s when we first noticed the fatigue—needing more breaks, running a little less, sitting out more often than usual. We couldn’t have imagined why.
By the end of May, she could barely stand on her feet.
That night, she ran.
That’s Hopified to me.
Not pretending things are fine.
Not ignoring how hard this year has been.
Just choosing joy where we can find it—and letting it count.