A Calling to Comfort: Reflecting on the ICU Grandpa
Earlier this week, I came across the story of David Deutchman while researching a project for the diocese, and I couldn’t stop reading about him. Known affectionately as “the ICU Grandpa,” David spent the last 14 years of his life volunteering at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, holding and comforting premature and sick infants in the NICU and Pediatric ICU. After a successful business career, he chose to spend his Tuesdays and Thursdays offering warmth and presence to babies too small to know his name and to parents too weary to say much more than “thank you.”
Over the years, David quietly cradled and comforted more than 3,000 babies—each one a fragile little life, held by a man who saw love not as a grand gesture but as a steady practice. And while the national media discovered his story in the last year of his life, his most powerful ministry happened in rooms no one saw, in moments too tender for headlines. David didn’t do it for applause. He did it because there was a need, and he had time. It turns out that holding premature infants significantly increases their chances of thriving, and science has backed this up for decades.
There’s something holy about that.
Christian vocation isn’t just about titles or jobs or roles with a spotlight. It’s about presence. We are each called to a ministry of showing up—whether that means rocking a baby, holding a hand, offering a prayer, or simply sharing a sandwich. Our callings don’t expire when we retire, slow down, or step back. They don’t depend on our bank accounts, résumés, or reputations. They depend on our willingness to say, “Here I am—how can I help?”
David Deutchman’s ministry of presence is a quiet sermon to the rest of us: there is always something we can do. Always someone to comfort. Always a place to serve. And when we use our time to comfort the vulnerable, we do the work of God. We become—if only for a moment—an angel of comfort in someone’s darkest hour.
May we all be so bold. May we all be so gentle. And may we each find our own neonatal ICU—those places where love is needed, and grace is waiting to be cradled.
Pax et Bonum!
Fr. Ben +
