The first thing that hits you is the sound.

It’s not the frantic chaos you see in movies. It’s a terrifyingly calm, rhythmic pulse. The steady, metronomic beep of the heart monitor. The soft, mechanical hiss-thump of the ventilator that breathes for him. For Gordy’s parents, sitting in the hard plastic chairs beside his bed in the Cardiac ICU at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, it’s the soundtrack of a nightmare that won’t end.

Their son, Gordy, is four years old. His body, small and fragile under a pale blue hospital blanket, is a map of a war he’s been fighting since his first breath. Wires sprout from his chest, thin tubes snake from his arms, and a larger tube disappears into his mouth, taping his pale lips shut.

This, the third open-heart surgery, was supposed to be the milestone. The Fontan procedure. The one that would finally, finally, give him a chance at something resembling a normal childhood. A chance to live into his 20s, maybe his 30s. A number that feels both like a blessing and a curse.

But something went wrong.

Just days after the grueling surgery, Gordy’s tiny body, already pushed to its absolute limit, began to falter. His lung collapsed. Fluid started to build, a suffocating tide rising against the very heart they had just tried to mend. And now, he’s back in the ICU, fighting harder than he ever has before, just to stay.

His parents watch the numbers on the screen. They haven’t slept in days, not really. They exist in a fog of stale coffee, antiseptic smells, and a primal fear that settles cold and heavy in the pit of the stomach.

To the world, he is a medical case. A complex history. A chart full of terms that steal sleep.

But to them, he is just Gordy.

He is the little boy who, despite it all, entered this world with a spirit that refused to be broken.

The fight started the moment he arrived, six weeks too soon. He was fragile, a tiny, bird-like creature in a plastic box, and the fight for his life began before they even knew his name. Then came the diagnosis, delivered by a doctor in a quiet room with gray walls, the words falling like stones: “Severe congenital heart defect.”

It was a path they never asked for, a language they never wanted to learn. Other new parents were worried about diapers and sleep schedules. They were worried about surgical margins and oxygen saturation levels.

At just three weeks old, when he should have been curled up in his mother’s arms, Gordy was wheeled into an operating room for his first open-heart surgery. His parents stood by the elevator, watching the gurney disappear, a piece of their own souls rolling away with it.

That surgery was just the beginning.

It was during one of those early, terrifying operations that the unthinkable happened. A stroke. A complication, they called it. A brain bleed that would leave its mark forever.

It left him with cerebral palsy, a weakness locking up the entire left side of his body. While other toddlers were learning to run and jump, Gordy was in therapy, fighting to make his left leg obey. He didn’t take his first independent steps until he was almost three. They were halting, uneven steps, his left foot dragging slightly, but to his family, it was a miracle. It was a victory lap.

That’s the Gordy they know. The boy who falls and gets back up. The boy who, despite his physical limitations, is bursting with life.

He’s the boy who absolutely adores sweet treats, whose whole face lights up at the mere mention of candy or cake. He’s the boy who sings “Barbara Ann” by The Beach Boys at the top of his lungs, completely off-key and with a joy so pure it’s contagious. He’s the boy who attends a Montessori school and floods his teachers with questions, his curiosity about the world untouched by his medical realities.

His spirit is a bright, defiant light in a body that has betrayed him. He can’t run as fast as the other kids. He can’t always keep up. But that has never, not for one second, stopped him from dreaming.

And Gordy’s dreams are big.

He dreams of becoming a doctor. Maybe it’s because his entire life has been surrounded by them. Maybe it’s because, in his heart, he knows what it’s like to hurt and he wants to be one of the helpers. He talks about it with the certainty of a four-year-old who knows exactly what he wants to be when he grows up.

He also dreams of dancing. Specifically, he wants to take clogging lessons.

His parents, weary and heartsick, have to smile when they think of it. Clogging. A boisterous, rhythmic folk dance. It’s not exactly a common hobby in Rome, Georgia, and it’s certainly not an easy one for a boy with cerebral palsy affecting his leg. But that doesn’t matter to Gordy. He talks about it with excitement, his eyes bright. He dreams of the noise, the movement, the music.

That music feels a million miles away from this silent, sterile ICU room.

The only movement here is the rise and fall of his chest, forced by the machine. The only rhythm is the electronic beep.

His parents cling to those dreams. They are the anchor in this storm. They are the proof that the real Gordy is still in there, beneath the tubes and the sedation.

In the quiet moments, when the nurses are changing shifts and the hallway outside is dim, the “what ifs” are deafening. The Fontan procedure isn’t a cure. They know that. It’s a re-plumbing. A temporary fix that buys time, but the clock is always, always ticking. They know his future is uncertain. They know he will always be a heart patient. They know the life expectancy they were given—20s, maybe 30s—is both a gift and a raw, gaping wound.

How do you plan for a future that short? How do you celebrate milestones when you’re terrified you’re running out of them?

You do it by focusing on the now. On the joy. On the sound of him giggling as a therapy dog, a big fluffy golden retriever, nuzzles its wet nose into his hand. Those moments of pure, unadulterated childhood, stolen from the jaws of the hospital, are everything. They are the memories they are stockpiling, the moments of sunshine they are saving for the days they know are still to come.

His family describes him as brave, as joyful, as determined. But those words feel too small for the magnitude of his fight. He is a warrior. He is a child who has faced down death three times before his fifth birthday and has done it with a smile.

Right now, that smile is gone, hidden by the breathing tube. His determination is channeled into the simple, agonizing act of staying alive. His bravery is in the flutter of his pulse on the monitor.

His parents sit and watch. They pray. They hold his small, unresponsive hand, rubbing their thumbs over his knuckles, whispering to him. They tell him about the clogging lessons they’ll find. They tell him he has to get better so he can learn to use a stethoscope. They tell him the therapy dogs miss him.

They are asking, pleading, with friends, with family, with the entire world, to please keep Gordy in their prayers. To send strength, to send hope, to picture him not in this bed, but on his feet. Dancing.

Gordy is more than his collapsed lung. He is more than his broken heart. He is a little boy who wants to sing “Barbara Ann” and eat cake and figure out how the world works. He has so many songs left to sing. He has so much dancing left to do.

He is not done dreaming. And his family, and everyone who hears his story, is not done dreaming for him.

Please, hold this little fighter and his family in your heart. Pray for his healing. Pray for his lungs to strengthen. Pray for the day he can breathe on his own, and sing, and finally, finally, take that dance class. He is not done fighting.