Angels Among Us

Our annual appreciation of ordinary people with extraordinary hearts.

BY IAN ALDRICH

Into The Wild

s Annemarie Albiston steps into the great room of the Adaptive Outdoor Education Center in Carrabassett Valley, Maine, she spreads her arms wide to introduce the light-drenched space. Before her is a couch, a pair of large comfortable chairs, and a tall fieldstone fireplace. “I came in here one afternoon last winter and I saw just the most amazing thing,” she says. “The fire was going, and all around this room were guests— with prosthetic legs lying everywhere and people in wheelchairs buzzing about.” She shakes her head and rubs her arm. “I still get goose bumps thinking about it.”

A sign hanging over a nearby window reads: “If you can dream it, you can build it.” It’s an appropriate motto for Annemarie and her husband, Bruce, who two years ago built this center, which sits at the foot of the Sugarloaf ski resort and serves as a gateway to the outdoors for people with physical and mental disabilities. Since it opened, there have been a lot of first-time moments for its guests: a first spin on a bike, a first winter glide on skis, a first hike, a first kayak ride. In other words, Annemarie has gotten a lot of goose bumps.

The Albistons, both retired, are native Mainers who’ve spent nearly two decades bringing a slice of their home state—its skiing and sailing, snowshoeing, and hiking—to people of all ages who rarely, if ever, get a chance to experience it. They’ve worked with groups that serve the disability community, such as Maine Adaptive and Pine Tree Camps, and since 2012 they have organized an annual weekend retreat for individuals with aphasia, a condition, usually resulting from a stroke, that leaves them without the ability to communicate.

But in these efforts there were limits to the kind of assistance the Albistons could offer. The outdoor experiences weren’t always as immersive as they liked; program costs priced some people out of enjoying them. So, five years ago the Albistons set out to create their own facility, and in December 2015 they welcomed their first guests to the Adaptive Outdoor Education Center.

On a two-acre lot there’s a spacious lodge that sleeps 25; two large yurts for entertainment, meals, and crafts; an adaptive challenge course; and a recently built handicap-accessible treehouse. Hiking trails snake through the ture she could find and connected with experts, and over a long weekend she volunteered with Bruce at an aphasia center in New Jersey. On their way back to Maine, the couple vowed to create a support network like it closer to home. “I kept saying, ‘We have to do this, we have to do this,’” says Annemarie.

At their first weekend retreat for aphasia victims and their families, held in Rome, Maine, in 2012, guests ate good food, made crafts, and received free manicures and pedicures. “We had 11 people come, and it felt like this huge success,” says Annemarie. “With aphasia, people live in a kind of isolation, and when it was over it was like we were all old friends.”

Among those who attended in 2012 were Beverly Glaude and her husband, was judging him,” Beverly says of the retreat. “On the day we all left, everybody was crying.”

The retreat went on to become an annual event, growing steadily, and the Glaudes returned for every one until this year, when Leo passed away. His paintings now hang on the walls of the Adaptive Outdoor Education Center, which he and Beverly visited in the summer of 2016. “Bruce and Annemarie spend the money to make things right,” says Beverly. “What they’ve created has meant everything to us.”

There is more to come. On a late spring day, the Albistons were mapping out a new interactive hiking trail, which would feature signs that visually impaired guests could scan with a smartphone to learn about their imme- the coming week the couple would travel south to look at an old farm in Cumberland to purchase. Their plan: to build a satellite version of the Adaptive Outdoor Education Center that could also host cooking and gardening classes. There would be more space, more of a population to draw from, and more of an impact to make.

“There’s just so much to do,” Bruce says. (adaptiveoutdooreducationcenter.org)

A MOTHER’S CALLING

In late 2012, Blyth Lord was flying back from Orlando trying to figure out the rest of her life. For the previous decade, the 45-year-old television producer and Newton, Massachusetts, resident had volunteered her time as an educator on issues surrounding the care of a child with a life-threatening illness. She had produced videos on the topic, given parent group talks, and delivered high-profile presentations at physicians’ conferences up and down the East Coast. It was important work, necessary work—but it wasn’t enough, she felt.

“The sense of urgency was profound,” she says. “I was starting to have this calling, and I was horribly afraid that I was not going to heed it. That I would die with regret that I missed something that I was supposed to do.”

Lord’s passion was born out of loss. In 2001, her 2-year-old daughter, Cameron, died of Tay-Sachs disease, a rare and incurable genetic illness that results in early childhood death. But the overwhelming grief she and her husband, Charlie, shared was softened by the medical care they had given to their daughter. “What resonated was that for something that was incredibly sad, it was as good as it could possibly be,” says Lord. “We made the best decisions we could, and we had no regrets.”

Lord, the mother of two other young daughters, says this peace of mind stemmed from the high-level palliative care that accompanied Cameron’s illness. Through it, they navigated thorny issues of pain management and whether a feeding tube should be used to extend their daughter’s life (they decided it shouldn’t). But the Lords’ experience was the exception, not the rule. At the time, palliative care in children’s medicine was still in its infancy, leaving parents with little guidance when it came to making gut-wrenching decisions. Lord wanted to change that.

Working closely with Cameron’s pediatrician, she brought her message of the benefits of creating more complete end-of-life care to groups and medical schools throughout New England. But its reach felt limited, and

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