LOS ANGELES, 8 February 2005 — Spend a few days with Stuart and Rebecca Klein — he’s quadriplegic, she’s paraplegic — and they’ll nearly have you convinced that their biggest challenge as parents of infant twins will be reducing the speed on their motorized wheelchairs, as they have vowed to each other they will, once the boys start to crawl.
“The speed of the wheelchair will be on low always,” promises Stuart. “If we want to back up, we’ll have to call out to each other and ask (where the twins are).”
The notion that they might have to slow themselves down a bit — they’re practicing now to get used to the idea — reflects the Kleins’ worldview. They take their challenges in stride, despite the hurdles they face just getting up and dressed, let alone taking care of their fraternal twins Yaakov Aryeh and Yosef Netanel born in July.
Call Rebecca, 27, on the phone and suggest “You must be busy,” and she replies, “Yes, thank God.”
Press a bit and Stuart, 42, tears up for a moment when he mentions his sadness at seeing other fathers cuddling their newborns — the “holding and the bonding” that he couldn’t do — but then his mood quickly rebounds as he notes that other things can compensate.
“You talk to them, you tell them how much you’ll love them throughout their lives and that you’ll be there for them,” he says, his blue eyes beaming at Yaakov as Rebecca gives him a bottle. “And you know that right from the beginning, they’re hearing you somehow.”
The Kleins are Orthodox Jews and their strong religious faith provides an anchor and inspiration for their lives. They get plenty of support from family, friends and strangers who lend a hand, whether it’s chipping in to buy the baby paraphernalia they need in duplicate or their 10-year-old neighbor’s dropping by at dinner to play with the twins.
But their challenges run beyond the physical. They struggle financially and must brave suggestions that they’re not up to the task of parenting. People on the street occasionally make disparaging comments when they see the Kleins rolling down the sidewalk in their wheelchairs, she holding the babies in both arms or now, as they’re getting bigger, pushing their double stroller with a specially equipped side handle.
Some strangers have told them that having the twins — whom the couple say were conceived naturally, not in vitro as most people assume — was not responsible. “They say, ‘These are your kids? How do you plan to raise them?’” Rebecca says. “We say, ‘Just like you do. God forbid you’d lose your balance and fall down.’ I learned in life that whoever has a negative comment, to feel sorry for them. Why do I need to remember what they said? They don’t even know me or my husband.”
The Kleins rely on government assistance to pay many of their bills. Stuart tutors schoolchildren as much as he can in the afternoon and evening. A part-time aide comes to get Stuart up, washed and dressed each morning, then returns in the evening to help him back to bed. A live-in nanny helps Rebecca do the housekeeping and care for the babies six days a week.
Now that they’re a foursome with a live-in nanny, they are bursting out of their $1,600-a-month apartment. The Kleins sleep in the master bedroom, giving their nanny, Hilda Gudiel, the other bedroom. The living room couch and computer desk now fight for breathing space with the two specially designed cribs that open from the side (enabling those in wheelchairs easier access to the babies); a play mat atop what once was an exercise mat for Stuart; a double stroller and assorted other gear, along with another set of manual wheelchairs for the Sabbath, when mechanized equipment is not supposed to be used.
Rebecca, who in the Orthodox Jewish tradition keeps her hair covered at home and tops it with a wig when outside, drives the family around in a specially equipped van that her father bought a few years ago. Stuart, who can move his wrists and hands slightly, manipulates the lever on his electric wheelchair and backs it up into the van, maneuvering it into a wheelchair anchor on the floor where the passenger seat would normally be.
Then Rebecca rolls in, using her arm strength to hoist herself into the driver’s seat. Even with a cushion, her tiny legs (she’s about 4 feet 11) dangle only halfway to the floor.
The couple finally persuaded the city to designate a space in front of their apartment building for the disabled; however, they often return home to find other cars parked there, a big problem because their building’s elevator doesn’t descend to the garage level. If they opt to park in the garage, they face a steep climb up a ramp.
When possible, they prefer to roll to places themselves. When premature labor put Rebecca into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for two weeks before the twins’ birth (by Caesarian section), Stuart would ride over from the Fairfax district (where they were temporarily staying with Rebecca’s parents) every day in his wheelchair, each day trying to find the fastest and least-bumpy sidewalk routes. He brags about trimming his one-way time from 35 minutes to 20. That beat taking the government-funded van for the disabled, which requires advance booking and has little flexibility if doctors or appointments run late.
Those who know the couple well say they’ve rarely, if ever, seen the Kleins’ optimism waver. Neighbor Dave Jaffe, 75, who has known Stuart for 15 years and attends the same synagogue, notes, “If I were in his shoes, I think I’d be a lousy guy. But on the outside, at least, he’s a super guy. I struggle more than he does, I think, as far as attitude.”
Stuart was paralyzed in a bizarre fall — from a couch — as a senior in college 20 years ago while on a ski trip. Ask how he dealt with it and he’ll note that he “obviously wasn’t a happy camper” initially, but then adds how “fantastic” it was to regain sensation after some bone chips were removed a few months later, describing the “incredible blessing” of being able to feel a touch as well as pain “down to my toes.”
Although his wrist movement is very limited, Stuart can still type about 30 to 40 words per minute (with one finger), using a sort of rubber-tipped pen attached to a brace.
He can use a computer mouse and crudely manipulate a fork or spoon between his first two fingers to eat. He keeps a cordless phone on his lap, hooked to a headset.
Rebecca’s bout with polio as a toddler in Jerusalem (because of a skin condition that persists today, doctors thought it better not to immunize her) left her mostly immobilized from the waist down. She compensates by using her arms and upper-body strength to do daily activities like bathing and cooking; she’s able to lift, change, dress and feed the babies. In the kitchen, she typically switches over to a more bulky wheelchair that can thrust her up high enough to reach the stove, countertop and sink. She keeps food and often-used dishes in the lower cabinets for easier access.
The couple so inspires Aaron Nourollah, owner of the nearby Glatt Mart, a kosher Middle Eastern emporium full of exotic fruits, vegetables and flatbreads around the corner, that when he learned Rebecca had given birth to twin boys, he offered to pay for the bris. The Kleins didn’t know what to expect; they didn’t know Nourollah well, although Stuart tutors his nephew. The couple accepted, but privately worried that there might not be enough food to go around, because the ceremony is open to anyone, and after all, these were twin boys born to unusual parents.
The Kleins were delighted — and very touched — when Nourollah laid out an elaborate feast of bagels, assorted fish, salads, danish and cake for the 200 people gathered at the nearby synagogue hall (where his brother Moshe is the rabbi, and which the Nourollahs also had decked out with blue balloons).
“They are a very lovely couple,” says Aaron Nourollah, who notes that the Kleins are in marked contrast to the many couples that bickered their way through his grocery aisles, before the store burned down in a fire on Dec. 27.
“All the couples, with all their health, are not as happy as they are,” he says. “I watched the way they appreciate each other and they talk to each other...other couples come in and the husband doesn’t trust the wife even enough and vice-versa.”
Although she had dated able-bodied men, when she went with dates or friends to Disneyland or Universal Studios she would be left behind when they went on rides. And she started to think it might be better to date someone else with a disability so she’d have company. She’s glad now, she says, because when the twins are older and friends take them on hikes and the like, Stuart can remain with her on easier turf, and together they can look at photos of the twins’ “firsts” that they can’t witness firsthand.
