Thursday, September 3, 2009

visiting memory lane...and holland

Saturday is my mom's birthday, but I already sent her a special surprise box full of all things yellow-her favorite color ever. To me, she is yellow. She is inherently giving and unselfish and...just shines. She was the one who first taught me to let my light shine-to pay it forward and shine on others. This is her essence.

Mom received her box early and called me as soon as it graced the front steps of the house. She thanked me and told how much she liked each yellow gift! It was later in the evening and we were both done with the day, so we took advantage of our time "together". The conversation hopped from one thing to the next, but I was especially touched with a story she shared that is close to her heart. It illustrates how finding the joy and promise in unexpected, unsettling situations is the shine factor, if you will. It's exactly the way my mom has lived and taught me to live...and now, I'm going to pay it forward.


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.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved

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