Still, both reflect an important truth recognized increasingly in neonatal medicine:
A newborn is not only a collection of vital signs.
Development occurs through relationships and sensory experiences as well as through medicine.
Gentle, carefully managed contact can be part of a supportive NICU environment.
“Tell Me About This Child”
Whitlow approaches each baby with respect for that complexity.
Before he begins, he asks the medical team what he needs to understand.
He wants to know what the baby is receiving.
He wants to know whether there is anything unusual he should pay attention to.
He watches the monitors.
He follows the nurses’ instructions.
Over eight years, that routine has become familiar.
But Whitlow does not describe the infants as interchangeable.
One baby might settle quickly.
Another might be restless.
One might respond to quiet talking.
Another may simply need to sleep.
Part of becoming effective at the role, he has explained, is learning what works for each individual child.
It sounds simple.
Yet that individual attention is at the center of good caregiving.
You notice.
You adjust.
You remain patient.
The View From Ten Inches Away
For much of his professional life, Whitlow had to see the big picture.
As a government manager, he thought about systems.
Now he measures success differently.
He can sit only inches from a newborn.
He can watch a tiny face relax.
He can feel a tense body settle.
He can spend an hour without trying to solve anything beyond the needs of the child currently resting in his arms.
It is an enormous change in scale.
And perhaps that is why the work has become so meaningful to him.
Retirement is often described primarily as an ending.
The career ends.
The commute ends.
The meetings stop.
The alarm clock can be turned off.
But for many people, retirement also raises a difficult question:
What happens to the sense of usefulness that came from being needed?
Whitlow seems to have answered that question not by trying to recreate his former career, but by finding an entirely different form of responsibility.
He no longer manages communities.
He holds babies.
And somehow, the smaller task has given him an enormous sense of purpose.
“Grow Strong. Grow Smart. Grow Kind.”
Before he places a baby back into the bassinet or incubator, Whitlow repeats his personal blessing.
“Grow strong. Grow smart. Grow kind.”
The sentence is simple enough to remember immediately.
But each part carries a different hope.
Grow strong.
For a child in intensive care, strength is not abstract.
It may mean reaching a healthy weight.
Breathing independently.
Recovering from surgery.
Learning to feed.
Moving one step closer to going home.
Grow smart.
It is a hope for everything still ahead.
School.
Curiosity.
Learning.
Discovering the world beyond hospital walls.
And then comes the final word.
Grow kind.
Whitlow has said that kindness is something he wants from people in general.
Perhaps that is why the last word matters so much.
Strength can help a person survive.
Intelligence can help a person succeed.
Kindness determines what that person may choose to do with both.
The babies cannot understand his words yet.
Some may be sleeping when he says them.
Others may never consciously remember the elderly man who once held them in an intensive care unit.
But Whitlow says the words anyway.
Because they express what he hopes their futures will contain.
More Than 500 Beginnings
Children’s Hospital of Richmond says Whitlow estimates he has held more than 500 babies during his years volunteering.
Some of those children are no longer babies at all.
At a NICU reunion, Whitlow had the opportunity to see children who had once fit into his arms as fragile premature infants.
They were now seven and eight years old.
They were running.
Playing.
Laughing.
For someone whose NICU work happens in moments of uncertainty, seeing those children years later offered a remarkable contrast.
In the unit, the future can be difficult to imagine.
Parents may focus on one day at a time.
One feeding.
One gram of weight gain.
One encouraging test.
Whitlow usually meets children near the beginning of that journey.
Then they leave.
He does not get to watch most of them grow up.
So seeing former NICU patients return as energetic school-age children provided a glimpse of what his six-word message actually looks like years later.
Grow strong.
Grow smart.
Grow kind.
They had certainly grown.
Support for the Whole Family
Children’s Hospital of Richmond describes its philosophy as treating the whole child and family, rather than focusing only on illness or injury.
That approach requires more than doctors.
It involves nurses, therapists, social workers, support staff and volunteers.
No volunteer replaces a trained medical professional.
But medicine is also delivered in an environment created by people.
A calm room matters.
A supported family matters.
A nurse who knows a trusted volunteer can comfort a restless infant while other urgent work is happening may gain valuable breathing room.
And a parent who knows their baby is being held safely while they step away may feel less guilt about leaving for a short period.
This is where Whitlow fits.
Not at the center of the medical treatment.
But within the community surrounding it.
The Babies Give Something Back
It would be easy to describe Whitlow’s story entirely as one of generosity.