I would like to share an amazing poem with you....
Those who know me well know that my journey into motherhood has not been like that of most people around me. My journey began fruitlessly and transitioned into loss, of various types. Unlike so many women who get a positive pregnancy test, tell everyone they know right away, and 9 months later cradle their baby in their arms, my journey was never so sure. I have mourned the fact that my path has been painful and difficult, and often wondered why. Over time, I have discovered my own interpretation for why. I am positive that those painful experiences have changed my view. I do not take pregnancy or my children for granted, as perhaps I might have otherwise. I do not complain about so much that others do, because from the beginning, I have looked through different lenses; lenses of deep gratitude and appreciation. I found this poem, written by a woman who wrote for the TV show, Sesame Street. She was asked to describe what it is like raising a son with Down's Syndrome, and wrote this poem as her response. I identify with "Welcome To Holland" because I have never experienced the journey so many others have been on; I've never been able to take sweet beginnings for granted. But if I were to continue to grieve that loss, I would be unable to appreciate the beauty of where I am today, and the gift of perspective that looking through these lenses has given me.
"Welcome to Holland" - Emily Perl 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…
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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 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…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 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.
