Paralyzed Man Needs Help To Find New Home: 'Good-Bye Is Scary'

HAMPTON BAYS, NY — Matt Raynor of Hampton Bays, was paralyzed after a diving accident in Southampton in 2019, when he was just 29 years old — and while he has endured many unthinkable challenges, he's now faced with another hurdle: His family home is being sold and he needs to find a new place to live.

"The Raynor household — in the family for over 100 years, it's being sold," Raynor wrote on Facebook this week.

Looking for a place to live on the East End is difficult task for many —but for Raynor, paralyzed from the neck down, the experience is daunting. And yet, he's maintained his sense of humor and optimistic spirit.

"Quad outdoor living in February? No, please," he wrote, adding: "I really could use some help from the community finding a nice apartment or house to rent. I'd even be open to co-ownership," under the right conditions, he said.

The possibilities are there to secure a stable, secure living situation are there, he said, including the possible renovation of a basement for himself, with a portion of a home dedicated to short-term rentals — so that he could generate income while still having a place to call home.

"If anyone has any leads, let me know," he said. "I think this is the next step in my new life, and it will really make me much happier. I just need one big room with a big bathroom on the first floor. C'mon guys, ideas? Leads? "

Speaking with Patch this week, Raynor painted a verbal image much like his photography, which he displays at shows across the East End — rich with meaning and texture.

Describing his family's Hampton Bays home, the place where he began, Raynor said: "A short walk to the local school in a safe town. When I was younger this walk seemed like an eternity especially in the winter months. Strange to think of time being slow, as it seems to fly by now."

The home evokes a lifetime of memories.

"I grew up here," he said. "I grew up in the woods and in my father's 100-year-old garage. It's an old-style barn with large, sliding doors adorned with clumps of paint which can only be accumulated over years of peeling and painting. "

Inside, he said, old and interesting tools adorn the walls from different eras. "An old Coke can here, an ancient harvest/weeding scythe parked high up the wall, a rusty cast-iron metal bending tool randomly tucked in a corner. The past and present surrounding a younger me. It was my holy place, a place I could find almost anything."

In the life before everything changed, Raynor said the garage symbolized his essence.

"Projects and building things have always been a passion of mine and that garage seemed to have a magical ability to summon the most obscure items necessary for whatever high school creation I was making," he said. "Pop open the drawer and somehow, there would be the right bolt or nut."

Leaving a lifetime home elicits sadness, but for Raynor, it's so much more. "A final good-bye is scary. Leaving while riding high on my two feet at 18 was one thing but leaving in four wheels as a full-bearded adult is another. The idea of a home base, a place to go if all else fails, and the comfort of a home from times past, well, has faded over the years. Times change and things are not what they once were. The sunny warmth of a home has transformed into the bleak reality of being out on my own as a severely disabled adult."

Raynor often reminds himself that the times of hiding as a spirited 5-year-old inside the rows of a warm and sunny vegetable garden are gone — and gone for good. "Along with the feeling of comfort," he said. "Now I'm out in search of a new home in an area where property values are skyrocketing. Being disabled combined the uncertainty of my financial/caretaking situation fuel a deep fear. Fear of change, fear of being alone, the fear of not knowing what is to come. Concern for my ability to be taken care of — all the while knowing rising property values mean dwindling opportunities. Opportunities in a place where everyone I know lives and where everything I am familiar with exists."

And yet.

His inner fortitude and grit, and an unshakable sunny optimism, fuel his journey forward.

"I am hoping for the best," Raynor said. "I think I can grow substantially in the right situation. I can find that warm sunny vegetable garden again, just the adult version. I will certainly need a hand in finding it or creating it. The community has always rallied for me and I'm hoping they do once again."

Since he was first paralyzed, the community has come together to help find Raynor an aide, and to attain a new heating system that he needed to help with nerve damage; they have also supported his journey as an artist, creating photography with the use of a drone, work that he's shown across the East End and online.

And now he hopes those who have rallied for him in the past can once again, help him to find a new place to call home.

"In my mind I'm visualizing a place where I can create, meet new people and foster new relationships, a place of safety and security," Raynor said. "Somewhere I'm hoping the terrors the past three years will fade into a normal positive and progressing life but we will see. I'm also a realist."

Speaking to Patch in past months, Raynor opened up about his life before and after the accident and explained how finding photography in his new life, framed by unthinkable circumstances, saved him.

Before his accident, Raynor lived for his life as a commercial fisherman on the water. "The water has always served as my holy place. A place of peace and solitude, far from the anxieties of life. Regardless of how rigorous the work could get, life as a waterman was an unabated source of calm for me," he said.

Deep-sea fishing, along with surfing and spearfishing, satisfied his yearnings for adventure.
"I've always been a risk-taker and thrill-seeker," he said. It was a coping mechanism for my own demons and character flaws. The likes of such we all face."

The work was extremely strenuous, mentally and physically. On one trip he worked for 36 hours straight, he said. When he turned 27, Raynor said life slowed down a bit.

He still loved fishing, traveling, and thrill-seeking. In the winter of 2019, he went offshore for three weeks to come in and work three weeks on his bay scallop boat, then headed back offshore again for another three weeks. By the end, he had severe tendonitis.

To ease the pain, he would dive at Towd Point in North Sea, Southampton.

And then came the day that changed everything.

"One morning I did several dives and on the last one, I smacked my head. The next thing I know I am staring through the frigid, emerald-blue, water completely paralyzed. Time slowed; I felt as if I was in a waiting room," Raynor said.

His whole life presented itself, from start to finish, in its entirety, he remembered.

Next, Raynor said he woke up staring at his close friend Jerome Lucanis' face on the beach. Lucanis had swum out and pulled him to shore.

"He told me my eyes were wide open; I was motionless and my lips were blue. He had to do CPR. So much for my clock hitting zero. Back from the dead."

After his "extraordinary spiritual experience on that beach," Raynor spent three months in the hospital.

"Unfortunately, I never recovered much," he said. "I couldn't move or feel 85 percent of my body. If we all have our own personal hell — I've lived mine," Raynor said. "And it's worrying every day if you're going to have someone to help you. To get you out of bed, use the toilet, get dressed, eat — everything."

His injuries resulted in the paralysis of his upper chest through his lower extremities; he now has limited control of his arms and hands.

Raynor's story is one of courage, perseverance — and an abiding belief that out of the most unthinkable circumstances, hope and beauty can be born.

With his indomitable spirit and fierce inner will, as well as some self-professed "clever innovation," Raynor discovered that he could operate a drone and pick up his old hobby of photography.

Now, Rayor exhibits his work at spaces, art shows, and festivals on the East End; he had an exhibit at the Southampton Cultural Center and a presentation at the Parrish Art Museum; he also exhibited his work at the Maritime Festival in Greenport, HarborFest in Sag Harbor and at farmers' market in Westhampton Beach.

He's also found meaning in his experience — joy in creating work that uplifts, as a disabled artist, and shares his inspirational story in an online vlog.

"I slowly crawled out from my own personal hell. My concerns shifted more from just surviving to what can I do with my life? I know full well what I can't — but what about the possibilities?"

If you would like to contact Raynor with a lead on a new home, email him at Mnraynor90@gmail.com. For additional information on his photography and to learn more about his journey, click here.