DAY OF LIFE 135 - Welcome To Holland

Today is Monday...

I had a really good day..a really good day...I rested a lot!

My mommy and daddy visited the local NICU today and my mommy left with a lot of unexplainable emotion..

My family was WAY ready for Chapter 1 of my book to end, but sometimes it's hard for my mommy to put this all into words...

She left feeling REALLY happy and relieved that I wasn't at the hospital anymore..and that she wouldn't ever have to pick up the phone to "call in" to see me..

BUT..

She also left feeling kind of sad and a little empty too...she knew that ending Chapter 1 meant that she wouldn't see her good friends very much anymore..these awesome, dedicated people spent one of the most stressful times of life with her and she feels super attached to them...they gave her so much support with me and totally understood what was going on..

She's feeling a little overwhelmed that now she will need to "call" a totally different group of people if I need help and she knows that Nana will be going home soon (unless we can talk Grandpa into getting a home down here - hint, hint) too & she will miss her...

It was just a day of unexplainable emotion..happy, sad and all of the above..(it must be a mommy thing...it's a good thing that I had a "good" day, right?)

She was reminded today of a story that she once heard in the NICU parent hour and then again from her good friend....

Welcome to Holland!!  What a beautiful place to be!! 

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by
Emily Perl Kingsley.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved

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.