A post to make you cry

Kate621

Someone shared this with me while Jack was in the NICU. It was just posted again on another board I'm on and I wanted to share. Grab a tissue.

Welcome to Holland
by Emily Perl Kinglsey


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 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...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 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.

mrsmacias2008

Love it.