Circling Holland

My super-sweet friend Leah shared this really beautiful anecdote on her blog, and I can't stop thinking about it. I know she has other people in her life to whom this can apply, but I couldn't help feeling as if she was sending me a little cyber-hug.  I wanted to share it with  you all...

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?!? What do you mean, Holland?" you say. "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. You'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."

There. That's it. I don't know who said these words, but I'd like to thank that person. Truly, it describes so well the ebb and flow of happiness that you find in your days. I feel as if my plane has been circling Holland for the last year and a half, as I suppose it might continue to do for quite a while. All this time, I now realize, I have been mourning - because when you are given this journey, you do have to mourn a loss...the loss of a "perfect" child and the dreams you imagined in the way that you imagined them. You must begin all over again, trying to navigate a path you don't want to follow and can't understand. Oh goodness, there are certainly those who have been in Holland for a much longer time and with a far more dangerous and frightening and heartwrenching road to travel. They are far stronger than I am! I am thankful for the years I spent in Italy, and I am here and now choosing to find the good, the positive, the wonderful about Holland. 

I'm not saying that I'll never feel cheated or ridiculously sad or inexplicably snippy to my husband, particularly if our plane has to land before changing course. I know I will. Just yesterday I cried in aisle 6 at the grocery when some impossibly adorable little girl who must have been 18 months old kept looking back at me to smile, to get a reaction from me. I'm sure it's not what she was seeking...I hope she wasn't confused. You see, she was also walking, reaching for things, running, almost skipping, and breaking my heart. I kept trying to change course, to find a place she wasn't, but it was no use. I ran  into her everywhere from the salad dressing to the frozen waffles. When I returned home, Ben was playing and laughing and doing things in his own "Ben time" and the anxiety I felt earlier melted away. Now I think maybe it was God's way of showing me that there are always going to be "little trips to Italy" that belong to other people. I can't avoid them. I shouldn't avoid them. And perhaps I should also explain to them how wonderful Holland can be, all the while showing myself the same.  

Anyway, thank you for sharing that really lovely story with me, Leah. I consider you one of those friends God put in my life to be just like a little treasure I discovered!