Welcome to Holland! by Emily Pearl 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 guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, the Michalangelo 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 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 go out and buy new guidebooks. 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, 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." The pain of that will never go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss. But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you will never be free to enjoy the very special, very lovely things about Holland.
June is a difficult month for me. It marks our Autism Anniversary. The time that the stewardess came and said, "Welcome to Holland." We also celebrate Gavin's birthday on June 29th. I have been thinking as his birthday approaches of all the things he would be doing as a 'typical four year old'. I believe in signs. I stumbled upon this poem two days ago. Today, as I was driving, I noticed the licsence plate on the car in front of me. It said "Hollnd".
I do understand this poem, however, I do not agree with it entirely. Yes, my dreams for my third son were lost. However, I can say now after my period of grief, that my dreams for my third son, Gavin, changed. We were suppose to arrive in Italy. Instead we arrived in Disneyland. A land where dreams can come true. My dreams for Gavin are not the same as when the doctor placed him on my round belly on June 29, 2008. My dreams for Gavin is that I can provide him with the best possible life that includes love, acceptance, and understanding. My dreams include finding his key. They key that unlocks his mind.
Thanks for taking the time to check in. I am looking forward to celebrating Gavin's birthday. Be watching for a blog update this weekend.
Fondly,
Paula
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