Perspectives from Holland: Minot Reunion

"Welcome to Holland"

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.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Minot Reunion

FINALLY!!!! Two years after leaving Minot, we finally managed to schedule a reunion with some of our best friends. Although we were disappointed that Patrick couldn't swing the trip, it was awesome to see our friends. M-Rod and D-Rod (Molly and Doug Rodriguez), and B-Rod, their baby in the oven had Luke and I to stay the weekend in Warrensburg, MO.

David and Angela Scott and their two beautiful twins, Anderson and Callie, met us for the weekend. To top things off, Lisa and Pat Hook and their kiddos, Jack and Charlie, invited us over for dinner Friday night. Our friends Maria and Joe McKenna and their kiddos Joey and Luke just moved from California to Leavenworth, KS, so they drove over for the evening as well. Somehow we all managed to throw Molly and Doug a little baby shower without them having the slightest idea!!!

All of the kiddos LOVED playing together!!! Luke was so lonely when we finally made it back to Shreveport Sunday afternoon. Not only was he tired from the weekend with his new friends, but he had just spent a week with Grandpa and Grandma Malone while I worked out of our Atchison, KS facility.

Here are some of our favorite pictures from our trip: