Today is September 19th, 2026 and I spent reminded about the preciousness of life and the suddenness of death. I spent part of the day celebrating life at the Georgetown NICU reunion and family fun day with my daughter Zia, who spent 10 days in the NICU with NAIT. And I part of the day remembering my friend Jake Brewer, who died eleven years ago today. I’ve written about both before on Substack (and they are some of my best writing).
On Life
If you or your kid is a graduate of the Georgetown NICU, I encourage you to check it out the NICU Reunion and Family Fun Day. If you were in any NICU you should see if they do any sort of reunion.
First, it’s empowering to go back to scene of a lot of emotional trauma and come to see something joyous. Everywhere at the NICU reunion you see happy screaming kids and tired parents (but not as tired as they were in the NICU), with all of the adults having a slight look on their faces that says they appreciate how lucky we are to be here. And all of us understand the attendees are self-selected, the happy cases, the ones who made it home, a quiet recognition of the fear that fate could’ve been ours that lived inside every parent every minute their child was in the NICU. Later there’s a prayer for those families and children who couldn’t be there.
Second, they do an amazing job turning a hospital courtyard into a party with Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tubeman, bounce houses, clowns, ballon animals, face painting, free t-shirts and books, lunch, ice cream, and cake. It’s one heck of a great party.
Third, you get to see the NICU doctors and nurses who care for a baby 24/7 and then when they’re wheeled out the door they often don’t get to see the patient again or see the long-term impact of their efforts. Retired doctors and nurses come back (why wouldn’t you) and delight in how big everyone has gotten.
Zia got to say thank you to Dr. Mohammed Kabir Abubakar, the Chief of Neonatology for MedStar Medical Group, and one of the doctors who help save her life in the NICU.
Fourth, they do this thing where you take group photos based on your NICU experience. Did you have to take a transport (ambulance or helicopter) in? Are you a multiple (twins, triplets, even quadruplets). They did two groups one with babies UNDER two pounds at birth (holy shit) and one group for babies between two and eleven pounds at birth (holy shit in the opposite direction).
It was, in an age where I most of my time worried about the unyielding AI advancements and humanity’s potential loss of control, nice to see what the advancements in medical technique and technology had done for this NICU. When the Georgetown NICU was formed 49 years ago (big 50th anniversary party next year) many of those babies on stage for photos today might not have survived. Now even a sub two-pound baby has a chance. It is nice to imagine that AI might help bring some good to the world through new medical breakthroughs in the NICU world. A man, and hopefully someday his fully aligned and controllable agent swarm, can dream of that future.
Last summer on my daughter’s fourth birthday, I wrote a blow-by-blow account about how she came into the world, how we almost lost her, and her ten scary days in the Georgetown NICU. It remains one of the hardest times of my life, but the kind you deal with my processing the crisis step-by-step and not letting the fear inside of you crack out of you too often, or you won’t be able to go on. We were lucky to bring Zia home from the NICU, not everyone is so lucky, and it is nice to be reminded of that joy at things like a NICU reunion.
On Loss
While the NICU reunion was a reminder of the preciousness of life, today was also a reminder of the suddenness of loss. It has been eleven years since we lost my friend Jake Brewer to a bicycle accident, leaving behind a pregnant wife and a small child, and there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t miss him. I think I used most of my elegance in my post about the ten year anniversary of Jake’s loss.
But I went looking for the words I wrote almost as soon as I heard the news, posted of course to Facebook, and I think they hold up even eleven years later.
Jake Brewer was, quite simply, the best of us.
He had more empathy in him than the rest of D.C. combined. He believed to his core that there was good in all people, regardless of ideology or party. He was the antithesis of every example of the terribleness that #thistown can create. He saw service, in the public and the private sector, as a life-long calling and the noblest of pursuits. That the challenge of our great public policy problems was a noble pursuit and a lot of fun. Family was most important thing to him and his friends were like family. He knew that we are stronger connected together, by technology and emotion and friendship and love, than we are apart. He showed us, showed me, that heroes don’t have to wear capes to help save the world.
Rest in Peace my friend.
Love you brother and miss you. Love to MK and your family too.
Just beautiful, on every level! You are deeper than you let most of us ever see.