Invisible Threads
Description
On an island off the coast of Massachusetts, six miles across the cobalt blue waters of the Nantucket Sound, there is a place where hope flourishes.
The island is Martha's Vineyard. The place is Camp Jabberwocky, a sleepover summer camp for people with a variety of disabilities. During Dr. Gardner's twenty-five years as a volunteer camp physician, he developed surprising ties to individuals with Down syndrome, autism, traumatic brain injuries, cerebral palsy, and manic depression. Instead of focusing on people's differences, he watched the campers and their helpers appreciate what we all have in common. What makes us laugh, cry, and sometimes argue. What makes us human, whatever our background. To borrow the iconic phrase of Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, he felt "invisible lines of connection" with the campers.
Leaving Camp Jabberwocky at the end of those summers, he developed unlikely connections with people from different walks of life, sometimes in unexpected places, including a hospital in Haiti, a down-on-its-luck golf course in Florida, and The Boston Holocaust Memorial.
At a time when people's differences are often used as tools to divide and vilify, Dr. Gardner spotlights our common humanity through the invisible but profound connections he forms with the individuals in these stories, who shared their life experiences with him and forever changed him as a human being.
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Persons
Dr. Steven Gardner is a member of the honorary staff of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School following a lengthy career as a clinician and teacher in internal medicine. As a member of the MGH Global Disaster Response Team, he served as a chief medical officer in Haiti and the Philippines with Project Hope. For twenty-five years, he was a volunteer physician at the Martha's Vineyard Cerebral Palsy Camp ("Camp Jabberwocky"), caring for children and adults with a wide range of challenges. He is a passionate photographer whose images focus on the resilience of people facing adversity and the compassion of the people who assist them.
Dr. Gardner's first book, the Wall Street Journal bestseller Jabberwocky: Lessons of Love from a Boy Who Never Spoke, is an inspirational and loving portrait of a handicapped boy who enriched the lives of all who knew him and changed how people think about disabilities. In this new collection of non-fiction short stories, Dr. Gardner examines the surprising connections among people from different walks of life, connections that reveal our common humanity and provide hope in a troubled time.
Dr. Gardner is a past winner of the Harvard Medical School Humanism in Medicine Award.