David Gray, 8, is missing the middle of his brain, his father says.
While that makes the routing of information, such as how to perceive a visual image, more difficult, it doesn’t deter David from getting on a carousel horse and beaming with pride at his accomplishment.
“See the horse?” his father, Aaron Gray, asked rhetorically as he directed David’s hands to feel the saddle of a majestic, multi-colored carousel horse with an untamed orange mane.
Initially, David withdrew, but gradually, he reached out, climbed up with a boost from his father, and then, broke into a broad smile.
For a moment, in the sunshine on the lawn of Adele Lebowitz’s 18-acre estate in McLean, he was freed from the constraints of multiple disabilities that make him unique in all the world, his father says.
At the age of eight, after nine surgeries in his first four years of life, “He has been hospital-free, finally for more than half his life,” said his father, Aaron Gray, Hunter Mill District Representative to the Fairfax County Disabilities Services Board.
Father and son came to celebrate the groundbreaking at Clemyjontri Park Saturday. It is the first park in Fairfax County to include features equally accessible to all children, with and without disabilities.
The donor, Adele Lebowitz, was inside her yellow house just a few yards away, enjoying the sound she said she wanted to hear when she gave away 18 acres of land with inestimable commercial value. To Lebowitz, the mother of four healthy children for whom the park is named, the sound of children laughing is worth more.
“You are going to hear the laughter of young people a year from now” at the park,” said Dranesville Supervisor Stuart Mendelsohn.
“We are so happy she did this,” said Michelle Barrett, who works with children with disabilities. “Can you imagine not being able to swing as a child?
“To children with mobility problems, it is the most wonderful thing in the world. Everybody deserves to be able to play on a playground,” Barrett said.
Her mother, Pamela Barrett, chairs Fairfax County’s Disabilities Services Board.
“There are no parks in Fairfax County with swings for children with special needs,” she said.
Fairfax County Park Authority development staff member John Pitts said there is one park with a set of swings adapted for children with disabilities.
But nothing like what children will find when Clemyjontri Park is finished next year, according to Kevin Fay, Dranesville District Representative to the Fairfax County Park Authority.
He stood patiently outside Lebowitz’s door Saturday as he waited for the moment when she would appear briefly to wave at the crowd gathered on her lawn. In the distance, a trackless train trundled across her fields and children gravitated to a moon bounce and tents where ice cream and popcorn were given away.
“This park will provide special equipment for children with disabilties, who have trouble climbing through wood chips,” Fay said. “It will provide a place for them to play.”
But what was obvious Saturday was Fay’s assertion that the park will serve all children: “It is for children with special needs, and children of all needs who just need a great place to play,” he said.
“We’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting” for the park to open, said Sam Mariam of McLean, who brought his children, Sophia and Nicholas, to the celebration. They couldn’t wait to climb up on a carousel horse like the ones that will carry children on a carousel at the park.
For Lu and Jabij Tupponce of Vienna, the swings and carousel will give their twin daughters, Avesta and Genevieve, a chance to feel the wind rushing through their hair.
The girls, 3 and a half, can’t walk because they have a rare genetic disorder, Angelman’s Syndrome.
“The tough part is knowing it is not a condition that will be heavily researched,” he said. “It doesn’t have a lot of starpower behind it. This park will help normalize our lives a little bit.”
Because the girls can't walk, “There are only a few things they can do,” said their mother, Jabij. “As they get older, their feet drag” in swings for toddlers, said their father, Lu, who was trying to handle an ice cream cone and his daughters at the same time.
At Clemyjontri, “They will be able to explore and access things other children are able to do,” he said.
And their parents will be able to talk to other parents who face parenting duties that can, at times, seem overwhelming.
“Because [the twins] don’t walk, it is hard for us to mingle with other parents,” said Jabij Tupponce. “We don’t get to socialize much.”
To finance the equipment at the park, the Fairfax County Park Foundation is trying to raise $500,000 by Dec. 31 by offering sponsorship opportunities for the 14 carousel animals and also, different quadrants of the park.
“If you want to make a large donation, there are quadrants of the park you can have naming rights for,” Whitney said.
“Next fall we will be cutting the ribbon” for the park.