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.

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.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Another year…

Well, another year has passed.  I am one year older… I just want to put the brakes on!  Why does it seem to go by so much faster as we get older.  It makes me sad because I know in a blink of an eye, my kids will be grown and I will have grey hair saying, where did the years go?  Anyway, we had a great 4th this year.  My day started off with breakfast in bed.  My boys spoil me!  I am so lucky!  My niece, Megan, is here going to school at BYU (GO MEGS!) so she came down and spent the day with us. That was really sweet of her.  We went swimming at the Spanish Fork pool and that was fun for the boys, especially Mitch.  As you know, that is his favorite thing to do!  No pictures though, I was an idiot and forgot my camera.  In fact, I didn’t get many pictures of anything now that I think about it.  I used to be the most camera happy fool, I don’t know what has happened to me!?!    We had a barbeque later that evening.  Lindsey and her girls came for that and the kids had fun playing.  Then of course, we let off some fireworks!  My favorite part!  My neighborhood went all out this year.  It was so fun!  It was like our own private viewing of Stadium of Fire!  lol! 

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Posted by Courtney at 12:20 PM

1 comment:

  1. AnonymousJuly 14, 2011 at 9:23 PM

    What a fun day to have a birthday!! The fireworks were a lot of fun this year in the neighborhood. And you are right, the older we get the faster the years go!!!

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