In all the most important ways, Melissa Marshall is exactly like any other 35-year-old woman in Wallowa County.

She loves movies (“Grease” and “High School Musical” are her favorites), music (to her, Justin Timberlake is tops), camping, traveling, get-togethers with family and friends, and – above all, perhaps – babies.

Actually, there’s only one thing different about Melissa. She was born with severe cerebral palsy. That’s why she is unable to talk, walk, stand, crawl or perform any other daily activity most people accomplish without thought or effort.

For those who know and love her, however, the topic of what Melissa can’t do only reminds them of how she’s just like everyone else.

“She understands everything we say,” said Missy Marshall, Melissa’s mother and sole housemate. “She is very in tune with her environment. She can make her will known very easily; even though she cannot speak, she communicates well.”

Beyond grief

When Melissa was born in Reno, Nev., Missy had no idea anything was wrong with her new baby.

“It was a very difficult delivery,” she recalled, “but as far as I knew, I had a normal, healthy baby. I guess if I had other children to compare to, I would have seen that she was a bit stiffer, that her hands were tighter than normal.”

Melissa was 13 months old when she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, which causes physical disability in human development. There is no cure for CP and, after mental disabilities, it is the second-most expensive developmental disability to manage over the course of a person’s lifetime, with an average lifetime cost per person of $921,000 in 2003 dollars, according to the Internet encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

“I was devastated, naturally,” Missy said. “You go through a great deal of grief because you no longer have a healthy, normal child.”

Within a week of learning that Melissa was disabled, Missy’s husband filed for divorce. Since that time, apart from the help of caregivers who have watched over her daughter while she was working, Missy has raised Melissa by herself.

After a few years living in the Portland area, mother and daughter moved to Wallowa Lake, where they lived for seven years. About 26 years ago, they moved up the road to Joseph, where Missy currently operates Missy’s Uptown Art gallery.

A remaining challenge

Although Missy says she and Melissa manage to “live on the fringes of a normal life,” a few formidable challenges remain. The biggest, perhaps, involve their regular trips to the Oregon Health & Science University in Portland for Melissa’s never-ending medical and dental care. During the summer, three or four round-trips are usually required, but sometimes Melissa’s health dictates they go as often as once a week.

Jo Ruonavaarra, a close family friend, has witnessed this event so many times she can describe it by heart, in painstaking detail:

“Imagine (the diminutive) Missy lifting (the 85-pound) Melissa up out of her chair and into the seat of a borrowed pickup, fastening her in, wrestling (Melissa’s 140-pound, non-collapsible) wheelchair into the truck, securing it, driving to OHSU, getting Melissa and her wheelchair out of the truck, seeing the doctor … and then turning around and doing it all over again to get home,” Ruonavaarra said. “It is quite an ordeal.”

Not only that, the entire scenario, beginning to end, typically unfolds over a mere 24 hours.

“Normally, we leave for Portland at about 3:30 a.m. and we often get home at 3:30 a.m.,” Missy said. “It’s a real marathon.”

Hoping to lessen the difficulty of this marathon, a band of Missy and Melissa’s friends have found a used van, in mint condition with all the “bells and whistles” for travel, specially designed for a person in a wheelchair.

A 2001 Freedom Class B Dodge Leisure Travel Van that’s racked up just 31,000 miles, the vehicle would be priced at about $85,000 new – but it’s being offered to Missy and Melinda for just $25,000.

With a van equipped like this one, life for Missy and Melissa would be greatly improved. Their few camping trips, so important to Melissa, would be safer and more comfortable. More importantly, their trips to and from OHSU would be much less daunting. At the very least, it would be a safer and much less stressful journey for both mother and daughter, who – as their friends point out – already have more than their fair share of challenges.

“We are asking for your help, if it would be in your heart to do so,” reads a letter signed by the friends and distributed throughout the county. “We are private individuals just like you who have been shown an opportunity and, because of how it came about, believe that it was meant for Missy and Melissa.

One goal in mind

“Our goal is $25,000, and we have already raised $3,500. We are pursuing other avenues as well, for example, United Cerebral Palsy Association. Your contribution will help improve the lives of this special family.”

To help, checks should be made payable to the Wallowa County Family Youth Center, earmarked for the M & M Marshall Van Project, and mailed to Box 400, Joseph, OR 97846. For more information, call Kelly Wick (541-426-4037), Lori Brandt (707-946-1958), Jo Ruonavaarra (541- 432-8885) or Mary Plumlee (541-432-0903).

“With someone who is disabled, you just go in through the back door instead of the front door,” Missy Marshall says with a cheerful, sincere smile.

Her friends’ only hope is to make that back door a little easier to open.