I thought I had it all figured out. Then my daughter Victoria taught me I knew nothing at all.

I met my wife in medical school during a clinical rotation at a hospital in Brooklyn, NY. She was a PA in the emergency room. She's from Bulgaria, I'm from Romania. We both immigrated as children, so we understood each other's journey.  

We moved to Malone, NY, in 2014 with our one-year-old son, Christian, and life felt perfect. We were paying down the mortgage, building careers. When we got pregnant again, everything seemed like a fairy tale.

Victoria was born on New Year's Eve at Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital. Things seemed fine, but she wasn't meeting her milestones. She cried constantly and had trouble lifting her head. At five months, an MRI revealed the devastating truth: She'd had a massive perinatal stroke. Most of her brain had died.

We brought her home under hospice care. In her final hour, I couldn't bear to watch my own child die. My wife couldn't either. Our mothers held Victoria as she passed at nine months old.

The guilt nearly destroyed me. I'd cry between patients, wear sunglasses so strangers wouldn't see my tears. For years, I couldn't talk about her.

I found healing by doing something unexpected — providing hospice care for my patients. I comforted their loved ones. I sat with them as they died. I secretly hoped they'd talk to Victoria for me.

Each time I helped a family through their darkest moment, I understood my own grief a little better. Everyone carries their own cross. Some have lost two children, some three. As Ram Dass said, we're all walking each other home.

Two years later, Leo was born. His middle name is Victor, after his sister.

Victoria changed how I see every person. Behind every smile might be someone crying behind sunglasses. You never know what someone's carrying until you really listen.

My heart will always have a missing piece until I see her again. But she taught me the most important lesson of my life — the deepest pain can lead to the greatest compassion.

Dragos Banu is a primary care internal medicine doctor and division chief of primary care for Alice Hyde Medical Center, Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital, Porter Medical Center and Elizabethtown Community Hospital. He has been with us since 2014.