I heard about this poem and really makes you think about the child you are expecting to give birth to and have a child that is born with a disability...that is what the poem is about:
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.
This analogy is great! As I read it, I was visualizing a parent of a child with a disability shaking their head and saying, "EXACTLY!" The ending is so right, You have to not dwell what could have been but what IS and the splendor that really comes with it.
ReplyDeleteI always loved this story!
ReplyDeleteThis is great. You have to make the best out of things that happen in life. Everyone knows that life is unpredictable.
ReplyDeleteThere is a website called "The Hands That Touch the Heart" they also have a workshop coming up in April at the Danville Community Center. The lady spoke in one of my other classes, they make puzzle pieces for Autism Awarness. The kids in the program made all of the puzzle pins that were worn in the Miss America Pagent, the girls pinned them on their Sash.
ReplyDeleteWow! I loved this, it was a really really good analogy. This could be applied to just life in general, like Daniel said life is unpredictable but just because we aren't where we had planned doesn't mean that there isn't beauty where we are.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely loved this poem. It makes you look at life in a different perspective. I thought it was a great analogy. It makes you think about parents that have children with disabilities and what they are feeling. We have to live life with the cards we are dealt even if its not the hand we wanted.
ReplyDeleteI loved reading this, even got a little teary eyed because of how spot on it seems to be. It also reminded me of this quote:
ReplyDelete"Nobody has things just as he would like them. The thing to do is to make a success with what material I have. It is a sheer waste of time and soul power to imagine what I would do if things were different. They are not different." --Dr. Frank Crane