Welcome to Holland: We skipped town… guess where we went?

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.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

We skipped town… guess where we went?

We can’t help ourselves. We love it there… yes, I’m talking about San Diego. One day we will live there. (I hope!)

This trip was so fun…. we went to Old Town this time, we’ve never done that before. It was really fun. And of course, we went swimming. Our fav. The boys had a particularly fun time because Rhett and Trent came to swim with them. Hal and Becky were so sweet to us… they took us out to dinner and a movie with the twins also. We had a really great time. I have to share this story… we were a little late getting to the movie and we walked in during the previews. Hal and Will were getting popcorn and treats for the kids so we went in. It was a packed theater and the boys went with the twins up top and found seats up there and Becky and I were standing there wondering where the heck we were going to sit because all of the handicapped seats were taken (not by handicapped people, mind you). I saw this lady get up and start walking towards us from a group sitting in the handicapped seats and she walked up to me and told me how sorry she was that they sat there and that they would move so we could sit there. I was amazed! This kind of thing never happens in Utah! NEVER! I was very impressed especially because they had to sit in the very front to watch the movie. I love it when people display such kindness!