Living in Holland

My Friend and I read an amazing piece written by Emily Perl Kingsley.  What makes it so wonderful, was how it spoke to both of us and I am hoping you as well. 

I made up my mind that I will live in the moment.  I am still amazed that God does what he does.  I am even more determined to live in my “Holland” with joy.  I don’t want to miss the details of it.  I am not going to pine over what I don’t have.  I am not going to say things like “why is it that my son can’t be like that other child. You know the one in university, not smoking and is gainfully employed.  Yeah that child that is different from the one I really have.” He is a part of my Holland experience.  He asked me the other day “Am I not doing okay?  Am I not going back to school?”  I have been guilty, if I were charged, of telling him about “Italy” and how much I wanted him and I to be there – not in HOLLAND.  I am not going to pine over what is not and what could have been.  I am going to live in the moment.

 

For my friend, she writes:

I can hardly believe that it has already been 1 week since my baby's PSARP. I am amazed by his strength and resilience. I guess after 6 hours of surgery I did not expect him to be sent home 3 days later with Tylenol (as needed) and some Polysporine cream for the incision. He is a happy baby and is doing wonderfully well.  God knows we had a rough time getting those colostomy bags to stick when he came home from the NICU but today I am happy to report they are sticking for at least 24 hours which is a victory for us.

Someone shared this poem with me and I wanted to share it with you because it helped me put things in perspective. A little sad but it really spoke to the sadness and worry I felt last week.

 

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