WELCOME TO HOLLAND
by
Emily Perl Kingsley
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.
by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved
I have not been talking much about Sam in this blog. In fact I seldom talk about personal things here. That's actually what I meant when I said in my New Year Resolutions post that I want to be more honest in upfront to people. Anyway, I've been thinking, or rather, God has been flooding my mind with things that makes me think on Sam's condition. Things might have been easier for me, in an unfair way maybe, than with Hannah, being with Sam almost all the time. It's hard enough to raise a normal baby with your husband not with you all the time, much more harder I guess, if your baby is sick. It's this guilty feeling that I battle everytime I post something here. For every techie, political, funny entry that I post, i cannot help but think of the Sam-related content that I didn't.
... It sucks how your mind fucks* up with what you feel, or, how your emotion skcuf up how you think.
/*sorry bout that.
Just be there for your wife and bear with her when she gets difficult to deal with. Don't be too hard on both yourselves but try to be more considerate even in the little things...text her, even email her, be there on time, show her how eager you are to go home to her, show her how much you love her. You both need it and will benefit from it. Your baby is loved more than you will ever know...and by God's grace, things will turn out for the best. In anycase, you both know whom you can turn to if you need anything. It will be difficult for all of us but we all do what we can. Chin up!
ReplyDeletewow. i understand completely.
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i never thought 5 years ago that life would turn out like it did. wife, daughter, moving out of my parents' house, leaving my friends behind, rebooting my life to make room for other people.
it's crazy how i never realized how fortunate i actually am until i looked back and saw how much everyone who matters are really proud of what i've become.
it's scary but you should know that you are never alone.
"..and bear with her when she gets difficult to deal with."
ReplyDeleteYou must know me coz i AM difficult to deal with. LOL. But thanks for the stuff you wrote. It makes me feel a little more understood and less alone.
-- The wife. ^_^
Pa - that Holland piece was beautiful. Print out a copy for me, K?
of course she knows you. :). You know her too. care to take a guess? Noticed that she's anonymous? ahh, the paranoia.
ReplyDelete