By Steve Landwehr
Everyone's life has a story. In "Lives," we tell some of those stories about North Shore people who have died recently. "Lives" runs Mondays in The Salem News.
MARBLEHEAD — Water was Graham Gardner's elixir. Not in the sense that it could transform ordinary metal into gold through the legendary alchemy of the philosopher's stone; no, not that.
You see, the transformative power of water was even more valuable to him than a pile of gold. Neither gold nor silver nor any other precious metals conjured up by mythical powers could buy what water gave Gardner without charge.
Freedom.
Water was the one place his body could be released from mechanical or human support. Strapped to nothing more exotic than a life jacket, he could float on the currents and rise and fall with the swells like any other beachgoer.
Which he wasn't.
Born with cerebral palsy, Gardner's waking hours were usually spent in a wheelchair or walker. That is, when he wasn't engaged in some outdoor activity like bicycle riding with his father — 40 miles of the Pan-Mass Challenge on one occasion — or hiking to the top of Vermont's Mount Tom with his mom or windsurfing on the Charles River.
He loved every minute of it, but those things still required special equipment.
In the water, it was just Graham, all Graham.
You'll have to decide whether that makes his death a poetic ending or cruel irony, for its circumstances were set in motion in water.
Gardner died of cardiac failure after suffering a seizure in the swimming pool of the YMCA in Salem on Saturday, Feb. 6. He was 23.
Cynthia Gardner said his birth was uncomplicated, and she was not only healthy, she walked five miles before going into labor.
He seemed like a normal child at first, and Cynthia and her then-husband, Steven Gardner, reveled in the magic of a beautiful baby boy. Although the couple later divorced, their only child remained an unbreakable bond.
At about 2 weeks, Gardner became irritable, beyond just a fussy baby.
"He never slept more than an hour or two at a time until he was 4," Cynthia said.
The one thing that helped calm him was being outdoors, and Cynthia said she walked the streets of Marblehead with him eight hours a day, day or night, no matter the conditions.
"He loved the weather on his face," Cynthia said. "I was just happy he was peaceful."
Pioneer, world traveler
Although he was nonverbal all his life, Gardner could make sounds his parents understood and was able to communicate pleasure or displeasure.
The beautiful baby grew into an uncommonly handsome boy and young man, so good-looking, his mom says with complete sincerity, he was a babe magnet.
Gardner was enrolled in the Marblehead school system at a time when educators were just beginning to realize the value of sending children with special needs to their neighborhood schools, and he became something of a pioneer.
Teachers soon realized the benefits of "inclusion" weren't limited to kids with special needs. Their presence provided opportunities for countless life lessons about respecting diversity.
"He impacted generations of kids growing up in Marblehead who were unafraid of people with differences," Steven said.
By the time he was 12, Gardner's needs had outstripped what the local schools could provide. So his parents placed him in the Crotched Mountain rehabilitation hospital and school in Greenfield, N.H.
"It was difficult at first," Steven said. But it had one particularly attractive amenity, a heated swimming pool.
Every Friday afternoon, Cynthia was there to take Gardner home to Marblehead, and during spring break and other school vacations Steven and his son would travel to some warm destination where he could bask in the sun and water.
No matter the disability, schools are closed to students once they turn 22.
They tried putting Gardner in a group home.
"It just didn't work," Cynthia said.
Steven, a physician, decided he wanted his son living under his roof, and that is where he lived until his death.
The seizures began when Gardner was 11รขÑ2 years old. Although they were often severe, none had ever resulted in cardiac failure.
He was flat-lined by the time he got to the hospital, all vital signs gone. When Cynthia arrived in the emergency room, doctors said there was nothing more they could do, but she'd have none of it.
She wrapped her arms around his head and told him he needed to come back to her.
"Graham, this is really an undignified way to die," she said, and his heartbeat resumed without intervention.
It couldn't really be called "living," because every single organ in his body had been deprived of oxygen far too long to survive.
Whatever state he was in, it lasted 18 hours, enough time, Cynthia said, to bathe and groom him.
"It was his parting gift to us," she said.
Staff writer Steve Landwehr can be reached at 978-338-2660 or by e-mail at slandwehr@salemnews.com.
