TESTIMONY & PRAISE REPORT TIME!! Just learning of Stephen’s photography talent testifies to the Glory and Greatness of God! Back in 1963 when my parents took Stephen to various doctors trying to find out my their son age 2 did not speak, these idiot stupid doctors told my parents that Stephen, then a two year old child would never amount to anything, could not be trained, could not learn and that they should give up and place him in an institution, which in those days would have been Willowbrook. I Thank God every day for my parents faith and persistence that their child could and would learn.
Those of us over 45 know and remember the horrors Geraldo Rivera discovered at that terrible place. Thank you Lord that my parents did not listen to the dumb doctors but took their son, my brother home to raise him as normal as possible. Today thanks to my parents, the caring staff people at QCP & AABR, my brother Stephen Vincent Palmer is a living testimony in what God can do in and with the lives of developmentally disabled/mentally challenged persons if they get the right help, support & encouragement. Also remember that a few months ago Gov. Andrew Cuomo wanted to cut the budget for developmentally disabled citizens of New York once again condemning them to the warehousing of 1960s & 1970s. Wake Up People!! Without kindness, compassion and professionalism of Ms. Lopez at QCP Stephen might have never discovered and cultivated this hidden gift for photography. Please don’t allow our government to short change our disabled American citizens!! A person is not a label or a disability. They are more than what or who society says there are. Stephen is living proof of that! I’m also very Thankful and give much gratitude to AABR Stephen’s training center for nearly 30 years which has equipped him with job skills that give him a place in the workplace and a sense of personal pride and accomplishment!
Stephen and I in December 1961.
While at the QCP (164th Street in Queens) Holiday party I discovered that my brother Stephen is a budding photographer. Stephen has taken some outstanding photos. Ms. Mynra Lopez, the Artistic director for QCP is seeking gallery space to showcase the excellent photography skills of developmentally disabled adults at QCP. We’re looking for a Spring 2016 debut. Oh yes an interesting addendum to all this is that our Dad Edward G. Palmer was avid photographer so I suppose Stephen and I both possess the photography genes. Please email, private message or call me so we can make this happen for adults with autism and cerebral palsy. Thanks!
As some of you may know my brother Stephen Palmer is developmentally disabled but he does not let that stop him from enjoying life. Autism? What autism? He works and has a full social calendar. I should be so lucky!! LOL!
Stephen received an excellent report from his teachers and instructors at AABR. Stephen has 20/20 vision. No diabetes. His high blood pressure and cholesterol are under control. At age 52 he is in perfect health. Stephen always enjoys expressing himself through art. He likes to draw so I will get him some art supplies.
He uses his stipend to romance 2 ladies, Maxine and Robin. Robin is his dance partner at QCP Friday night social. They probably spend lots of time dancing to Michael Jackson who is Stephen’s favorite singer/entertainer. Stephen also likes to but Cologne and sunglasses. He’s living la vida loca!
Even with some cognitive difficulties Stephen is able to make his needs known, perform janitorial work at various locations, enjoys a fitness program that includes walking the treadmill, lifting weights, swimming and learning to play soccer.
To make himself understood he uses his own form of sign language. Obviously it works for him and Maxine and Robin are happy to enjoy Stephen’s company. LOL!! My brother the Ladies Man!!
To all the doctors who back in 1963 told our parents Edward & Mable Palmer that Stephen at only age two was hopeless and would not be able to learn or improve, to just put him away in an institution, God is laughing at you now!! Praise God that my parents did not listen to the doctors negative reports but took Stephen home and raised him in a normal, happy, loving home environment. Stephen has surpassed all expectations and I’m sure our parents are smiling down from Heaven at his amazing progress. To all parents and siblings of special needs children ~ BELIEVE! Believe in God, yourself and most of all your child’s ability to overcome any disability and go beyond any medical diagnosis!!
Me protesting in front of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Office Friday, March 15th.
I felt extremely empowered at the March 15th Rally against the 6% budget cuts yet at the same time I’m profoundly sad, a little frightened and very worried that we live in a society and a culture that can shun and throw away disabled people like my brother Stephen, the poor, the working class, yet celebrate the rich, wealthy and moronic celebrities. How is it in America, my country that I love and served in the Military (U.S. Army) to protect, has become a place where the poor and disabled have to fight for the basic dignities of life, whereas the Koch Brothers, Mayor Bloomberg, Rockefellers, Bushes, Rupert Murdoch, and the 1% are automatically entitled to not only the basics but even the small luxuries that should be available to all Americans. Disability Rights and Activism is also part of the Gospel of Inclusion. We refuse to go back to the days when developmentally and physically disabled children and adults were hidden away in attics or cast into torture chamber institutions never to be seen or heard from. Let’s view disability in a different light as being differently abled, not less than but a person with unique and special abilities.
It’s a crying shame the way we’ve devalued people with disabilities! We should have an allegiance to our most vulnerable populations, especially the disabled. It’s scary to see things moving backwards. I don’t want to see my brother Stephen warehoused in some institution. Willowbrook was a living nightmare for developmentally disabled people and a true disgrace. However each of us has to stand up and fight. Me, Stephen and four van loads of his fellow residents went up to Albany on Tuesday in all that pouring rain to face off our elected officials. I’m doing my part to make sure the disabled are not cast aside like garbage on the trash heap. We need more alternative Voices. We all must speak up. The Rally more than proved that for me. We must not be lulled into apathy and compliancy by fear or the right wing media. We need to return to the civil disobedience of Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Rosa Parks.
Stephen and I in Albany ready to meet the Legislators
One of my girlfriends from the Bronx informed me that I made the 11pm Channel 7 Eyewitness news and on the local Bronx Cable station. I believe that God hears the cries of his children especially the disabled and he will turn Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s heart towards us and restore the 6% budget cuts. Faith without works is dead. We have to make our government accountable to our most vulnerable citizens and for all Americans. Protest. March. Advocate. Be an Activist. Indifference equals death to our basic rights and freedoms. Be the Solution and make it So!!
My father’s family has attempted to demonize my mother but though she was a woman troubled by the many demons schizophrenia forces into residence inside your head she loved us more than she loved herself.
Despite some of the trauma I went through as a child over all I had a good childhood. Funny how when you get older you put things in perspective plus some of the illnesses your parents have visited your doorstep.
Mable Elizabeth Palmer — DeBorah Ann Palmer
How do you quash a lie that seems to gain new life and resurrect with every generation? The Past, we often seek to bury it but only succeed in hiding it but like the undead its gnarled dirt encrusted six fingered rips off the death shroud, tears off the lid of the casket and pushes through layers of earth to reveal itself.
Out of the smiling photos of the 50s and 60s I’m a mini-me of my Dad with his full toothy grin and that twinkle in his eye always reading to play a practical joke or mimic the scary monster from Chiller Theater but I’m internally composed of my mother’s keen powers of observation and dry humor that served her well in dealing with challenging situations.
Betrayed by the playmates of my youth Condemned to an endless purgatory search for love, acceptance & belonging.
Wandering A Wasteland Of sorrow and disappointments, seeking and desiring a bond that never truly existed.
We who have been cast out from the tribe abandoned only to know longing but never fulfillment. Trapped by lies and falsehoods that should have long been discarded. Caught in an emotional web of deceit hoping for escape, a kind of salvation, a type of redemption. Oh where is my savior who will rescue and mend my broken soul. Locks shorn, sitting in sackcloth and ashes I await the delivering Angel of Death.
My Mom passed away in August 1998 but with all the 2012 drama I’ve felt closer to her than ever before. I believe she is speaking through me charging me to tell her story. Her spirit and mine are one flesh, our souls are reconciled one to another, the veil of death lifted for a time such as this. The small town girl born in Davy, WV, raised in Jim Crow, Dayton, Ohio who marries the big city boy (my Dad Edward Palmer) from Harlem, USA. The battle began when a small town country girl vs the sophistication of the Harlem Niggrati or what we now call Ghetto Fabulous. She was the cornerstone rejected and misunderstood by her husband’s family.
Way back then they was not knowing that cells have genetic memory. The in-laws tried to make the simple girl from Dayton, Ohio into a pariah after the birth of their disabled son but the reality of the discourse was not to be. I’m here to cease the motion of 15 years of lies, fable, tall tales and innuendos. I exist to give validation to the voice that was never heard. The child Stephen fertilized with essence seed from without the boundaries had come to save us. His is the seed of many generations back, the DNA that coalesces make believes with reality. His earthly soul is subject to the confines of this life’s limitations but Stephen’s spirit soars with the Angels whose quest is to serve the Lord.
Mable was held in a panorama spun by coveted lovers, who were harlots through celibacy making death a closer journey to Heaven.
With this confession my Mother’s Soul residing within me is at rest. She rages no more, her anguish has been extinguished.
My mother and I share broken lives, shattered in similar places we cut ourselves on shards of pain, our fractured lives seeking to mend.
Now I attempt to retrieve the scattered pieces, seeking to restore the jigsaw puzzle of Isis, long in disarray, bent and twisted from misuse, abuse and false accusations. Fraying the edges making impossible even imperfect fits.
Sitting across from her flesh & blood ghost, linking hands we grant each other absolution long sought from others outside our circle but only possible for us, from us.
In retrospect I have become her, a woman of strength, fortitude, courage, virtue and character; strong willed and loyal to a point.
My mother taught us basic human decency, a trait sorely lacking in many children and adults.
After I graduated from college at age 43, actually even before that I battled depression. I’ve been hooked on all types of anti-depressants, pain killers and have an off and on dalliance with drink. By the way doctors and therapists knowingly make drug addicts out of their patients. I stopped taking all my anti-depressant medicines in 2007. As you know medical science has since proved those medications turn you into a zombie and cause depression/suicidal thoughts. I’d rather be depressed and a functioning human being than a suicidal zombie.
Now I not only understand but know what my mother felt. Even though my Mom had been gone for years I’m closer to her than ever before, because I’m more like her. In a way I am her and me at the same time.
In the ensuing years since that incident I too have battled depression. I have attempted suicide several times as recently as earlier this year. The demons are forever with me. However they are held at bay through faith in God, prayer and my brother Stephen.
Stephen has become my earthly salvation, my reason for being. How can I leave my beautiful brother alone on this earth knowing that for him the earth, moon, stars and sun revolve around me? Whenever he sees me his whole face lights up. When the workers at his residence or his teachers at his day treatment program ask him Stevie who’s that? He proudly answers my sister. One day I was feeling really down, depressed and discouraged and Stephen’s group home called to tell me they were coming by for me to sign some paperwork. I met the van outside and before the worker could place the papers into my hands Stephen leapt out the van and gave me a big hug! I was pleasantly surprised because people with autism are not really physically expressive. Stephen hugs but usually gingerly. This time he gave it his all. Somehow he must have known or God told him that I needed that hug.
To any of the doctors who might be reading this today and originally diagnosed Stephen back in 1963, Stephen has a job which he loves, enjoys living in his group home, participates in many social activities, has had girlfriends, etc… Yes Stephen has broken barriers. The barriers of doubt and labels from the medical community and from society.
My Mom Mable Elizabeth Palmer finally received the medication she needed in 1995 after my Dad had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. My father Edward Palmer passed away on May 13, 1995. Mom and I were left with each other. The medicine cleared her mind so we could really get to know one another. I asked her why. She said I was overwhelmed. I understood. By then I was an adult woman in my 30s. My mother and I made peace with each other and became good friends. Alas this paradise of togetherness only lasted three years. Cancer claimed Mommy August 2, 1998 sending my life into a tailspin from which I’m just now beginning to recover.
Espiritu en Fuego/A Fiery Spirit 