THERE’S A PLACE

It sits off a quiet little road in Westhampton, called Brushy Neck Lane. When you see the place south of Montauk Highway, it looks very rustic, the grass doesn’t grow well under the patch of big oak trees, that hover above but you can see a struggle goes on to make the place look good in spite of it.

It is people with disabilities like these that inhabit homes like Brushy Neck Lane

Inside the home lives a group of 8 individuals, all struggling to make a life from the lousy cards God, or G-D dealt them. You see there is people of mixed religion, mixed ethnic cultures and most importantly, mixed degrees of disabilities.

But it is a special place to me, because it is the first home my daughter ever lived in, once she left the security of her Mom and Dad. If you enter the home, you will find it inhabited by loving people, fragile and trusting. They live together and each has a personality that transcends the dreary afflictions that they suffer. They are given every chance to experience life and to enjoy as much as possible, never having to ever deal with their physical and mental barriers by themselves.

The place is called an Intermediate Care Facility, or an ICF for short.  It is for people who have difficulty in feeding, toileting and doing the normal everyday occurrences that you and I take for granted. It sounds very institutional and forbidding, yet is homey and inviting. Filled with NY Mets banners, dolls, and pictures of siblings and parents, of animals like puppies and kittens, and special touches that say: I have interests, I have wants and likes and dislikes, I am just like you. Recently I was asked by the agency, AHRC Suffolk, to conduct a walk-through and see how the agency, the staff and fellow housemates were treating my people.

It never seems to surprise me when I leave a place like Brushy Neck, how well run it is and how wonderful the staff are. In the time my daughter lived there, she made personal friends, and so did my wife and I. The residents are all loving and interested in making a place in their home a place for you too. Shy, reserved, talkative and forward, they mix in and speak volumes about the human spirit, about what life really is. Under the skin and behind the eyes of every individual that lives in Brushy Neck, is you, and I, we just were luckier in one respect or another.

As I went through the home, I kept seeing things that reminded me of my daughter Ellen, the chairs she sat in, the bed and bedroom she slept in, her favorite room, (the kitchen, like her father) everywhere I went, there, was Ellen!

We tend to take places like Brushy Neck Lane as a place to put people, as a place that segregates them from us, making it convenient for us to live. Yet Ellen kept reminding me by my flashbacks that she lived there, that she had a home in a community and was part of it. She brought home to me that her personality is very much alive, very much human, very much impacting my life.

As I drove home that day, there was a little school bus and sure enough there on the bus was a little Downe Syndrome girl, staring out the window. She was maybe 4, cute and dressed all in pink. She stared at me and I caught her stare at the red light. And I immediately waved to her and gave her my best smile. I got her attention and she smiled back. I waved again and smiled some more, and she looked with interest once again. It reminded me that she was a stranger who is worth my soliciting a smile from her, letting her know she is and will always be, part of the real world, part of my world and that I am very privileged to be part of this world I share.