Welcome to Holland

I really have begun to think about how my life is blessed this week. Several things have happened to others and I have just thought thank goodness that was not me. So I started thinking about how my life has been blessed in so many different ways. One was is the way our family has been blessed with a special little boy. I refer to him as "THE BOY" and he refers to me as "The goddess of the universe". Yes people - I always thought I was a goddess but now it has been confirmed. The boy belongs to my cousin and her husband but I like to think he has a little part of me in him. He is a special boy and God has chosen to make him different from alot of others. He has what is commonly called Aspergers syndrome. I like to think of it as he just sees the world in a different light than others do. He has taught me how to be brave when we are scared and how to learn to control one's self. Although sometimes he might not say the most politically correct thing, it is usually what we are all thinking but because of our political correctness we cannot say it. He just has the most loving heart in the world. You just cannot believe how "THE BOY" has blessed not only our family but so many others that he comes in contact with. Different is not a bad thing, sometimes it is wonderful.

I found this poem online and it is just so true. Although I am not his mother sometimes I feel like I am on the journey with him.

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.