Charlotte was 4 years old when she received her first cochlear implant. A small, curved device behind her left ear. She started covering it with her hair. She felt uncomfortable when it showed.
Her father, Alistair Campbell, noticed. He didn’t say anything grand or make a speech. One day, before Charlotte received her second implant, he shaved his head completely. And he got a tattoo, in the exact same place where his daughter wears hers, of an identical drawing.
No one asked him to. There is no way to erase it. And when he did it, there wasn’t a camera waiting for the moment.
“It’s a tribute to her, not to me”, Alistair said.
When Charlotte saw it for the first time, she didn’t cry or ask complicated questions. She looked at it closely, touched the drawing with one finger, and said a single word: “Cool”. Then she turned her father’s head to check whether he had one on the other ear too.
In that house, deafness is neither a secret nor a tragedy. It’s part of the family: her mother, Anita, also uses a cochlear implant. Her brother Lewis wears hearing aids.
There are fathers who say “you’re not alone” with words. Alistair Campbell said it with his skin, forever.