Newsday
June 6, 1993

In Some Ways, Love Is the Same For Everyone
by Merle English

Like a lot of other young couples, Marni Fliesler, 27, and Christopher Jamieson, 25, will be joined in holy matrimony today. They will have a traditional wedding ceremony at Milleridge Inn on Long Island. A week later, they will set off on a honeymoon cruise to Bermuda, and they won't be chaperoned.

In some ways, however, Marni and Kris aren't average newlyweds. They live now -- and on their return home will remain -- in what is known as the HeartShare supportive Apartment Program for persons with developmental disabilities.

Marni and Kris are mildly mentally retarded. They will attend to their shopping, housekeeping, cooking and other chores with guidance from counselors at HeartShare Human Services of New York, a nonprofit agency that, among an array of services, assists people who require minimal supervision but need support.

The agency takes pride in offering programs that help individuals like Marni and Kris -- his abbreviated name for himself -- "progress toward increasingly independent living and foster their personal dignity and right to aspire to heir fullest potential," said spokeswoman Patricia O'Connell.

Marni can attest to that.

She bubbled with joy at an engagement party HeartShare staff and friends in HeartShare supportive apartments in Brooklyn and Queens held for her at the agency's Brooklyn Heights office just over a week ago.

"To get married has always been my biggest dream," Marni said, "even when I was a baby growing in my mother's stomach."

But she said she felt her dream of companionship would remain just that, a dream, because of what others saw as her limitations.

"People had been telling her for many years that she's slow, that she wouldn't be able to do this," a Heart Share employee said.

In between kissing and hugging people, opening presents and dancing to disco music with Kris, Marni told a visitor how the negative talk once chipped away at her self-assurance.

"There were times when I had my doubts," she said. "My friends had boyfriends and I guess I just felt kind of left out."

Full of confidence she gained as a participant in HeartShare programs, she now considers herself a role model for others who are similarly mentally challenged.

"I say, hey you're different, but it's OK to be different," she said. "Yes, you can get married. Just don't let anyone discourage you. Too often you hear you can't do this, you can't do that, it's not realistic."

Marni and Kris agree that it was love at first sight when they met in 1985 while attending an occupational training center run by the Association for Neurologically Impaired Brain Injured Children in Bayside, Queens.

"It was chemistry right away," she said.

Qualities they share intensified her interest in Kris.

"He is very bright. We have the same sense of humor, the same taste in music," she said. "We both like discos. He is very creative. He is very original, very witty, very smart. He's very good with his hands. Very practical. He's romantic at times. He's my best friend."

Kris, who has more difficulty speaking than Marni, told how he proposed to her with his parents, Pat and Doug Jamieson, serving as interpreters.

He said he popped the question as she was taking out garbage at a Halloween party they both attended three years ago.

"I said I can't wait any longer," he said.

Marni explained why it was important to wait.

"We both wanted to get educated. We both wanted to find out who we were and get settled in a career," she said.

Kris has a job as a cleaner at Kids "R" Us. Marni said she was laid off by a children's clothing store in March. Both are in a special program at LaGuardia Community College.

They have individual quarters in HeartShare supportive apartments, but will move into an apartment for couples.

Marriages such as theirs are rare, HeartShare administrators said. But as testimony to their possibility, among the guests at the engagement party were William Sheehan, 50, and his wife, Christella, 74.

The interracial couple, married for 19 years, met at the Willowbrook Developmental Center. They live in a HeartShare supportive apartment in Park Slope.

For them, too, it was "love at first sight," the couple said.