Every time Lori Brady grabs her keychain, she thinks of her dad, Peter Lehmann, who passed away last year. The keychain features the 66-year-old Seaford man’s fingerprint, taken in his final days as family gathered around him at Plainview Hospital.

“This reminds me of him and how special my dad was,” Brady said. “And I remember not to take every day for granted.”

The memento is part of a special program at the intensive care unit at Plainview Hospital designed to help families as they say goodbye to loved ones. It's the passion project of two Plainview teens, Aidan and Zoey Taylor, who spent days at the ICU with their mom, Heidi, before she passed away in 2019.

The teens were able to make plaster molds holding hands with their mom, as well as handprints — items they treasure to this day.

“It always feels like she’s there,” Aidan, 15, said. “Those are more than just crafts. They have a lot of emotion behind them. They have her spirit.”

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They started the program, Heidi’s Helping Hands, and raised money to fill a closet in Plainview’s ICU with crafting items, plaster molding kits and even books about grief geared toward children.

The teens are expanding the program to Syosset Hospital, and — if fundraising goes well — on to other facilities, said their father, Stephen Taylor.

“Our journey of healing is not done, and it may never be done,” Taylor said. “This was one way to help us on our road … the kids said they wanted everyone to have a chance to do what they did.”

Heidi Taylor was a crafty mom with a big heart and a wicked sense of humor, her family said. She suffered from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that affects connective tissues such as skin, joints and blood vessel walls.

She was in constant pain, which often made crafting difficult, but she still found ways to engage her family in activities, even while she was sick in bed, Aidan said.

After taking too much of her medicine after “one bad day,” she ended up in a coma, Stephen Taylor said.

Before she passed, hospital staff made sure Zoey and Aidan were able to spend time alone with their mother.

An impression of Heidi Taylor and her daughter Zoey's hands made by Zoey after her mom passed away at Plainview Hospital in 2019. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca

Amanda Filippazzo, coordinator of patient and customer experience at the hospital, wanted to find another way to help the children and reached out to specialists at Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New Hyde Park, who brought materials to create the hand molds.

“The hand mold with my mom especially means a lot to me because we had this handshake, pinky swears — so I got to do that,” Zoey, 13, said. “I knew I was always going to have that.”

Dr. Sienna Moran, director of the ICU at Plainview, said the Taylors are “inspirational.”

“In the darkest time of their life, they had the ability to think about other people and want to do something to help other people,” Moran said.

Filippazzo said the program has created multiple “legacy items” for more than 100 families incorporating molds, fingerprints, snippets of hair and EKG strips, often in lockets and keychains.

“Losing a loved one is a really hard emotional thing to go through, and no family is ever really prepared,” she said. “This offers families a tangible item that they can have to comfort them in their grief and take with them throughout the rest of their lives.”

Heidi’s Helping Hands was especially important during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic when families could not be at the bedside of their loved ones, she said.

“What we have learned is every single age really does benefit from this,” Filippazzo said. “I’ve made lockets for people in their 90s who have lost a spouse of 60 years.”

Stephen Taylor with his children Aidan, 15, and Zoey, 13, holding hand impressions they made with their mom before she passed away. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca

The family has received thank you cards from people who found comfort in the mementos and crafts.

“There’s a 70-year-old man somewhere on this planet walking around with a big wooden butterfly with his wife’s thumbprint in the middle of it,” Stephen Taylor said. “He’ll wear that forever, and that’s great.”

For Brady, the program provided comfort during a hectic, heartbreaking time. Her dad had an infection that spiraled into other serious health issues.

“We went from thinking we would end up in wound care and be able to take him home to hearing he’s not going to make it, he can’t swallow,” said Brady, who lives in White Plains. “We really didn’t have time to come to terms with it because it happened so quickly.”

Filippazzo asked Brady if she and her family members wanted to have her father’s fingerprints placed in a locket or keychain.

“I was so thankful for that because I just thought at least my kids can have something and my sisters and I can have something to carry him with us every day,” she said.

Lisa joined Newsday as a staff writer in 2019. She previously worked at amNewYork, the New York Daily News and the Asbury Park Press covering politics, government and general assignment.

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