October, 2007

Parent Tip of the Month

By Valerie Morton

When I get down about Merritt's diagnosis, which undoubtedly happens... usually around holidays and birthdays, I always read the "Holland article", as my family has affectionately named it.  It helps to put everything in perspective and it reminds me that this journey we're on is full of wonder and hope, even though it's not the journey we had planned.

 WELCOME TO HOLLAND
by Emily Perl Kingsley.
c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. 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.

Back