When the voice breaks

After our newest grandson Calvin was born, my son-in-law couldn’t help noticing something unusual about his cry. It wasn’t just the pitch—it was strangely off. And it wasn’t just the sound—it was unfamiliar in a way that made him stop and listen. It seemed that something was wrong.

The doctors first suspected laryngomalacia, a surprisingly not uncommon condition that causes the soft tissue above the voice box to collapse inward. But further testing suggested something rarer: bilateral vocal cord paralysis. The tiny folds of Calvin’s larynx—the very gateway to speech—are not working right now. With both cords affected, the airway can become dangerously narrow, making even breathing a challenge.

Calvin’s case is not life-threatening, thank God. And the best news so far is that it’s not neurologically related, which rules out some of the scariest possibilities. Still, it’s serious. He remains in the NICU as I write and will be for a while longer.

The road ahead may include delays in his ability to talk, or in the worst case—well, best not to dwell there. We’ll heed the doctors’ advice: Take it one day at a time.

We rarely give our voices a second thought. We use them all day—singing, speaking, shouting—and we take for granted how those sounds are produced. But Calvin’s diagnosis reminded me again of the intricate care with which we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Mark Twain once quipped that Americans learn geography only through war. I think we often learn anatomy the same way—when something breaks. Only through loss or disorder do we come to appreciate the marvel of how our bodies are meant to function.

The voice, in particular, is a feat of God’s engineering. Behind every syllable is a symphony of cooperation. It begins in the respiratory system that supplies the steady airflow needed for speech. That breath passes through the larynx, where the vocal folds vibrate in precise rhythm, producing the raw buzz of sound. From the phonatory system, it moves into the resonatory system, where the sound is shaped and amplified into something distinctively human. Finally, the tongue, lips, and teeth refine the vibrations into recognizable words. All of that happens in a split second, thousands of times a day. A baby’s cry. A mother’s lullaby. A brother calling out with joy.

Speaking of brothers, while my daughter and son-in-law stayed by Calvin’s side at the hospital, my wife and I had the joy of hosting his big brother and sister. One day, we brought 4-year-old Oliver to visit his baby brother in the NICU. I told him, “Calvin knows your voice.” A smile of understanding flashed across Oliver’s face. “He’s been hearing you since before he was born,” I said. “He could hear you through your mommy’s tummy.” I encouraged him to talk to Calvin, because the sound of his voice would be comforting.

Scripture affirms that sound travels farther than we appreciate. In Luke 1, when Mary greets her cousin Elizabeth, both are pregnant. Elizabeth says, “When the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.” That baby was John the Baptist—and he leaped because he was touched by the human voice. Anne Fernald, a Stanford researcher, once called sound “touch at a distance.” That’s what the voice can be—a connection that bridges space and even time.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot this month, because this is also the time of year we host the World Journalism Institute collegiate program. We welcome students into our community and train them in the foundations of journalism—writing, editing, fact-checking, interviewing. But increasingly, we’re training them in voice too: the craft of delivering the news in sound, the spoken word.

Our team at The World and Everything in It reflects that journey. Many on our team started in print. Most had never spoken into a microphone professionally. But thanks to ongoing training, including the persistence of a certain senior producer—Calvin’s momma, who’s been with the program since almost Day 1—we’re prioritizing growth. A trained voice carries warmth and conviction, calm and connection—a steady companion in a distracted world.

But it’s also a gift we should never take for granted. Calvin doesn’t have his voice yet. But he already has people speaking for him, and to him. One day, Lord willing, he’ll use his own voice to do the same—for someone else who needs a touch at a distance