WELCOME TO HOLLAND

    I will explain the title of this post in just a moment.  I couldn't sleep tonight, and felt very strongly I needed to post this.  A couple weeks ago I was really having a hard day.  I don't know what it is, but it's as if people can read my mind and know what I need at that time.  Later that day, a woman of my faith I've never met, brought by this letter, called "Welcome to Holland."  I first want to thank her for giving me what I really needed that day.  When I read it for the first time, I cried and cried.  Later I found out this woman has a child with down syndrome, and she was given this letter when she was struggling.  This letter really reminds me everyday how lucky I am to have such an unique human being, Madilyn.  And even though it isn't what I expected, (Italy)  it is Holland, a very special, very lovely place!!!!  So I take my new guide book, and learn all I can about this place!!!  

 Welcome to Holland.

I'm 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 lie planning a vacation trip to Italy.  You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans.  The coiseum. The michelangelo David, the gondaolas 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, they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of famine and disease.  It's just a different place.

So you must go and by a new guide book.  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 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 what 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 my never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

Enjoy Holland!