'With Joy, Surprise, and Pride'

On October 29, 1987, Pamela Montgomery stood next to Washington, D.C.'s mayor as 1,500 people gave her a standing ovation. Her broad smile exuded pride, excitement, and triumph, prompting a friend who was in the audience that day to say later, "She looked like she was running for president." Pam did not have two fingers extended in a candidate's "V" for victory, however; her upraised hand formed the American Sign Language sign for "I love you."

Twenty-five years ago, Pam lived in a world of silence and isolation. A deaf child with cerebral palsy, she was declared mentally retarded and committed to Forest Haven, an institution outside Washington, D.C., at the age of 6. It wasn't until six years later that any effort was made to give her language training so that she could communicate.

In 1972, a seminarian visiting Forest Haven discovered her at the institution. He talked with members of the Christian Family Community in Washington, D.C., who had four deaf children living in their home. Pam was 15 when she was introduced to community members Cathy and Charley Maresca, but her education level was that of a 3-year-old, according to Cathy.

Pam began visiting the community on Saturdays, and her skill at American Sign Language steadily improved around the other deaf children. Before long she began spending all her weekends with the Marescas. They pressed officials at Forest Haven to place Pam with them as a foster child, but the institution didn't have such a program.

Pam finally moved in with Cathy and Charley on an "extended home visit" basis. That home visit lasted nine years, until the Marescas successfully secured a release for Pam from Forest Haven. The institution is now being closed by court order because of substandard conditions and treatment there.

Pam thrived in the secure and loving environment of the Maresca home. In 1977, she graduated from the Washington Hearing and Speech Society School. She then received training in housekeeping at the Woodrow Wilson Rehabilitation Center in Virginia.

Cathy helped Pam look for work. They ran into vast walls of insensitivity. Employers seemed to think that someone with cerebral palsy couldn't do custodial work -- one suggested that Pam should look for night work in a vacated office building where no one would have to look at her disability.

Cathy turned to Sojourners. Pam first began doing custodial work at our day-care center. When the center closed, she started working at our magazine and outreach office.

Pam has been working with us five mornings a week for five years, and on Wednesday afternoons she cleans the offices of the National Health Care Foundation for the Deaf (NHCFD). She now has her own apartment in the basement of the Marescas' home, and for 10 years she has been taking Adult Basic Education classes at Gallaudet College, learning to read and write.

IT WAS THE IDEA of Doris Stelle of Deaf-REACH, a ministry of NHCFD, to nominate Pam for the city's "Handicapped Individual of the Year" award. Doris and nine of her co-workers signed a glowing letter of recommendation for Pam. Additional letters were submitted by a counselor at Gallaudet College and by Linda DeGraf of Sojourners.

Pam knew nothing about the nomination. "I was so excited, I was crying," she says of the moment she received the news she had won. The luncheon at which she received her award from the mayor was an event Pam will never forget. She carries pictures from it in an envelope that also holds her birth picture.

The journey between those points has been long and often difficult. Pam says she was depressed at Forest Haven, but she had no words to give to her feelings. She remembers what a struggle she had learning to walk. She recalls that a lot of the other children fought, "but I was quiet and good," she says.

There is no shred of bitterness when Pam talks about those days. Cathy remembers that, even in the bleakest days at Forest Haven, Pam had a positive spirit that continues to mark her life today. She has painstakingly walked from the silence of an institution to a life of almost complete independence. When asked to describe herself now, Pam says, "I am happy and excited. I am patient. I am an adult."

Choosing not to dwell on the past, Pam looks toward the future and hopes some day to get a full-time job, to get married, and to have a home of her own. But she also celebrates the present. As Linda DeGraf wrote in her letter of recommendation, Pam "has taught us how to rejoice in simple pleasures, to enjoy people for who they are, and to experience life for the good it has to offer."

Linda stated further that if Pam were to receive the award, "she would receive it with joy, surprise, and pride." She did. And we at Sojourners are privileged and proud to be able to share her triumph with her.

Joyce Hollyday was associate editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.