There is an amazing bistro/restaurant/bakery in Montreal called Exception. The dairy food selection is great, but most outstanding are the desserts. Yum—trust me that there is nothing like it here in this area. They also bake the most palate-pleasing whole wheat challahs you can imagine. We are always requested by our kids to bring some back for them on our return trips. The beauty of the cakes and pastries served there are works of art, as well as outstandingly tasty. The bread and rolls are as also yummy. Perhaps that is the reason for the name Exception. Frequently we say to each other how much we miss sitting on the terrasse outside of Exception and having a latte with a piece of pastry.
However, lately the words exception and exceptional have been used to describe other types of phenomena. As some may know, we are the proud parents of Naama Bracha, our severely handicapped daughter. When Naama was 5 months old we moved to Montreal from Boston where she had been born. Upon birth and for several months no one noticed that Naama had anything wrong with her. She developed as a normal baby until she stopped developing at the pace of other children.
Shortly after our arrival in Montreal she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. We were told that she was retarded and that the prognosis for her future was very bleak. In fact, there were those in the medical field who suggested to us that we make a decision not to keep her. Believe it or not it was possible at that time. Families were encouraged to refuse to take such a child home from the hospital. We immediately decided that our family was going to make the very best of a difficult situation and that Naama would be included as much as possible in everything we did.
In retrospect, I cannot even begin to explain how much we all gained from having her in our family. We took her everywhere: apple picking on tractors, tobogganing down ski hills—many times she stayed in her wheelchair and we carried her on to everything.
The school that Naama went to was called the MacKay Center for Deaf and Crippled Children. It was the highest caliber special needs school in Montreal and there were those who doubted that she would have enough intelligence to keep up with the work there. Of course, she fooled them all.
Often, I was asked by friends from New York if Naama was attending a Jewish school and I would respond that there is no such option for us. Our concern was that she get the best possible opportunity to help her fulfill her potential, and that is what she is getting. Ironically, her school for all of the years that she attended was free (18 years).
After Naama had been attending MacKay for a number of years, there was an outcry from the community that the school change its name. The word crippled became a dirty word and the world was now using such words as challenged or exceptional! MacKay eventually did change its name to the MacKay Rehabilitation Center. As I am writing this I wonder why people weren’t concerned about the fact that rehab might connote drug or alcohol use.
Then, before I knew it, our Naama was no longer handicapped or retarded, she was a challenged person, and then she became an exceptional person. Honestly, I cannot figure out what we are trying to hide. I still have to smile when I think about this. True she is exceptional, as are her special siblings, as are all my amazingly wonderful grandchildren—what Jewish parent doesn’t have exceptional children? What grandparents don’t think that their einekels are exceptional. Suddenly Naama became like everyone else. I have news for the world. She doesn’t look like everyone else, she doesn’t act like everyone else; she is her own person, just as each individual is their own self. Exceptional, okay—as yummy as the challahs in Exception; as delicious as the pastries that we can’t get enough of; as sweet as the mint tea they serve with so much pizzazz! Sadly, she will never be what is considered normal and no description of her will change that. Her smile and her enthusiasm, her obsession with her nephews and nieces, her giggle are exceptionally wonderful. I challenge anyone to dispute that claim.
Hurrah for our Naama the most wonderfully handicapped person with cerebral palsy that I have ever met. Thanks, Naama, for teaching us all about life and what is important. That is what is exceptional about you!
By Nina Glick
