Splendid Mayhem: This Really Bites!

Welcome To Holland

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.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

This Really Bites!

We are in the car, heading to St Louis. I get a phone call from our hotel- they've had a water line explode and are in the process of evacuating it. So, the dude is suppose to be booking us another hotel for the same rate. Luckily, I have an air card and get on the net while we are driving. I am able to pull up the hotel they would like to put us in- it looks pretty neat. They have an indoor playground and indoor pool- which conveniantly will be closed the 14th through the 21st. Atleast, we can swim tonight. Never mind-- every adult forgot their suit, so the pool being closed doesn't matter! Packed the boys suits. To bad they can't be tossed in the pool and swim :) Oh, this is going to be a trip!

Send some sanity vibes my way. I'm going to need them.

1 comment:

Andrea "The H family"January 14, 2008 at 11:34 PM
I'm updated..read your entries.
Praying for you....and your issues with feminine stuff. (ughh, I'm so sorry honey)
You've got a gorgeous family..pictures and all.
Your an amazing woman honey.
A
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