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Name: sweetcaramalkiss
[ Original Post ]
This is something someone gave to me since my life was turned out totally different then I envisioned it to be.......

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 owuld feel. It's like this.....

When you're going to have a baby, its like planning a fabulous vacation trip--to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks 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 a says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do u mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I 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 u must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of peole 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, 1987


I decided to post this because it made me look at my life in a whole new way. When i was pregnant I envisioned how perfect my life would be and how my child would fulfill al the dreams I envisioned for him. his first steps, his first words, first day of school and just saying mommy I love u. But I never got to experience them. Instead I got stares or what's wrong with him, I was filled with such anger why me. why did this have to happen to me, my son. I did everything right. I did what I was suppose to do. I knew after reading this I had to just accept my life for what it was and instead of having any anger or resent me towards I had to learn to enjoy all the love, excitement and true blessing my son has brought to my life.

Mommy Loves you Anthony Joseph Martinez
You are the inspiration that keeps me going XOXOXO
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Name: lindalu | Date: Sep 22nd, 2006 3:46 PM
Thank you for posting this! it is very nice, and a great analagy of what it is like to have a disabled child! 

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