Some called him the mayor of Concord Hospital, others the mayor of Concord.
Amazingly, other titles fit 30-year-old Brad Niejadlik. He has a 5th grade reading level yet showed me doctorate-like skills in public relations, group counseling, ambassadorship, advertising, comedy, work ethic, love, kindness and morale building.
He’s also perhaps the best dining room attendant the hospital has ever seen. But without adequate assisted living programs for mentally challenged adults in New Hampshire, Niejadlik is being forced to hit the road, to Cape Cod, where his parents will seek an environment to cater to his growing need for independence.
We’ll get to that. Right now, Concord is losing a great natural resource, one the hospital, always paranoid about negative publicity, was thrilled to share with me last week, at Niejadlik’s going-away party.
“This is like a happy time,” Niejadlik told me during a break in the party action. “I’m really going to miss Concord and all my friends. I hope I can take the opportunity to visit people here more and more.”
Niejadlick has been busing tables at the hospital cafeteria for almost a decade. His final day at work was last Friday. His party was held in a window-lit outer room, beyond the main cafe.
There, with cake and punch on a table, co-workers lined up like fans at a book signing, cash-filled, going-away cards in their hands, smiles on their faces, tears in their eyes.
“He’s been a great team member for the organization,” said Kevin McCarthy, vice president of operations at the hospital. “He touches so many people who come in here, he greets everyone who comes in here with a big smile, and he knows everyone’s name. He is really just a breath of fresh air in the hospital, and he will be missed tremendously.”
McCarthy, as an administrator, wore a suit tie, but the bonds Niejadlik formed know no socioeconomic boundaries. Friends wore scrubs, suits and, like him, blue food services shirts and dark pants.
Some, like Keith Dobbins of Goffstown, brought Niejadlik into their personal folds, outside work. The operating room anesthesia technician had a weekly outing with his friend, going bowling, having dinner, seeing a movie. Niejadlik will be at Dobbins’s wedding next month.
“When you look at this and see 50 people here, you have an executive at the top of the chain and someone who has been cleaning the floor for two weeks and everybody in between,” Dobbins said. “When you see a guy like that walk up to you who’s 6-foot-3, he’s a little intimidating at first, but I can see the change in their eyes once he talks to them. It becomes pretty clear, man, that he’s just awesome.”
Niejadlik’s booming voice and laugh have blanketed the cafeteria in fun for years. His parents, Tom Niejadlik, a retired state worker, and Nancy Niejadlik, formerly an internship coordinator for kids with special needs at Concord High School, had little use for any limitations projected for their son.
He was blind at birth from something called congenital nystagmus, and Tom and Nancy were told Brad might never see. His eyes would move side to side, lightning quick, when he tried to focus long distance.
Nancy turned drugstores into classrooms, shaking containers of Tums so Brad could hear the sound and heighten other senses before management would throw them out for not buying anything.
Then, one day, Brad could see.
“At 6 years old we were outside and there was a full moon,” Tom said. “Brad said, ‘Look, the moon,’ and to this day, because we always make a big deal out of it, he says, ‘Hey dad, look, the moon.’ ”
Nancy played cassette-tape books and music to broaden Brad’s horizon. School officials in the Lakes Region wanted Brad, then non-verbal and legally blind, to take a taxi to special classes in Laconia.
“That’s not happening,” Nancy said she told administrators.
Once, Nancy was told Brad would need a bungee cord to replace the laces, allowing him to tie his shoes, probably for the rest of his life.
“Not on my watch,” she said.
The family moved to the Concord School District, even then a pioneer in blending special needs kids into mainstream education, building their confidence, preparing them for life. And after 11 years of practice, Brad began tying his own shoes.
While at Concord High, Brad began his volunteer internship at the hospital cafeteria, and he’s been there ever since, the last nine years as a paid worker.
“He’s doing a great job, he’s meticulous,” said Tom Serafin, who, as the director of food services, has been Brad’s boss since 2007. “But the most value he adds is he not only knows you, he knows your family. He’s asking people every day how everyone’s doing, and that by far is a heck of a lot more valuable than how well he wipes down tables or sweeps up.”
It’s time, though, to move on. For years, Brad has said he’d like to spread his wings, live on his own, at least as much as he can without a driver’s license.
“This morning I asked if he was nervous about his last day of work and the party,” Nancy said. “He said, ‘I just want to live on my own.’ He’s been talking about it since he was 21.”
Nancy says Brad can’t do it here. Not without a state-funded program for special needs adults who are at least 21 and want some independence as high functioning individuals.
“There are no adult services for the disabled in New Hampshire for assisted living, residential living,” Nancy said. “We’re willing to pay if someone has to live somewhere, but there are no options in New Hampshire, while in Massachusetts they have options and the state supplements it. If you need anything in New Hampshire, you’re screwed, pretty much, if you’re a disabled adult.”
And so the family is leaving, moving back to Massachusetts, where Nancy and Tom lived before moving here in the 1980s. They don’t want leave, but feel they must, despite what the hospital has done for their son.
“He learned a lot about social skills at this job that he could not have learned,” Tom said. “With the interaction with all the people there, it was like his college. It gave him more confidence, made him more independent.”
Brad, of course, could stay where it’s safe, with a routine and a clear path. Why leave his comfort zone? Why start over, search for new friends, a new job, a new life?
“We’re all excited for him,” said Carol Hyslop, a hospital coordinator. “It’s change, and it will be a good thing for him. He’s a staple here, and we will miss him.”
He said goodbye on a steamy Friday afternoon, in a back room that featured an endless stream of well wishers. His aid, Darline Lee of Concord, sat at a separate table, sniffling, fighting tears.
“He is the greatest person I have ever worked with,” Lee said. “He makes my day every day.”
The family leaves on July 27. Tom and Nancy have a new home and retired a few years early. Brad’s future is wide open. He doesn’t know where he’ll work or live.
“Today is the last day,” he said. “I’m done. I walk out of here and hope I can just follow my path.”