Our Babies
Luke and Claire
"Welcome to Holland"
By Emily Perl Kingsley, 1987. All rights reserved.
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.Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Another day...
Right now: Luke, me, and the two dogs are enjoying Top Chef and a beer while Melissa is typing away at her final paper for the class she is taking. She can't wait to get done since I begin school next week. We are both excited about that!
We had a great day yesterday. One of our therapists came to meet Luke and showed Melissa lots of things to help him with his neck control among other things. We need to get his neck strong before we can start working on other things. He really is making strides toward that, but we just need to keep working with him!
I went to go visit my friend Eric earlier this week. He recently found out that he has advanced stomach cancer. Out. Of. No. Where. He doesn't smoke, doesn't have a family history of cancer, barely drinks. Just crazy. Anyway, don't really want to talk too much about it, this isn't his story and I wouldn't want to tell his story without his permission. However, he looked great and I'm very grateful he is doing as well as he is. I'll be thinking a lot about him the next 6 months. If you think about it, please say a prayer for him. He needs them just like Luke does.
Goodnight and Goodluck dear reader.
Ahh, yes we went through the whole "held all day long at daycare" too;-) They just can't resist! Afterall, they don't have housework, homework, cooking to do or much of anything else to do while they are "working!"
ReplyDeleteLots of prayers for Luke & Eric as well as for you guys, Patrick & Melissa in the crazy next 6 months of your lives!!
Patrick and Melissa,
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful young man you have! Out growing clothes, working on holding his head up, and all those amazing, joyful, moments to come; God truly has blessed you as a family!
I Love Tulips!
Ruth