Welcome to Holland

For a while now, I have thought about starting a blog.  I just never knew exactly what I had to write about.  I decided that being a mom of a son with special needs gives me lots to say.  I also find that sometimes I have things weighing on my heart that I don't share with anyone else.  This gives me a forum to share those thoughts and feelings instead of keeping them bottled up inside.  And maybe someone who is going through a similar situation will stumble upon this blog one day and find something that I have written to be of comfort to them. 

I'm sure you are wondering about the title I have chosen.  Let me explain where it came from.  A little over 5 years ago, shortly after my son was born, I received an email from a friend.  We were just coming to terms with the fact that our little boy wasn't exactly what we were expecting.  This email contained a story, told by Emily Perl Kingsley, a mother of a child with disabilities.  The story was titled "Welcome to Holland" and it perfectly described how I was feeling.  It goes like this:

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.

After reading this story 5 years ago, all I could focus on was landing in Holland instead of Italy.  That's how I was feeling.  I had dreamed for so long about having a baby.  I dreamed of holding him for the first time in the delivery room, and leaving the hospital with him in my arms.  I dreamed of all he would become and all of the things he would do.  I dreamed of hearing his first words and watching his first steps.  I dreamed of teaching him how to play baseball or how to throw a football.  And now, none of that was going to happen.

But now, 5 1/2 years later, I have learned to focus on the rest of the story.  I've gone out and bought new guide books and I've learned a new language and I have met some fabulous people who I otherwise would have never met.  I've learned to enjoy Holland.  And even though I still dream of going to Italy someday, I would not trade the time I've spent in Holland for anything.  It has shown me a strength I never knew I had and I have learned to do things I never thought I could do.  So Holland is where I am, and Holland is where I will stay.