Welcome to Holland

As most of you know, if you are a regular reader of my blog, I have a mom in a long term care facility. When I arrived to visit yesterday, Friday, the rec staff was just hustling her off to travelogue. Travelogue is a little virtual visit to a country of choice. Yesterday's country was Holland. The staff, get little pieces of memorabilia and crafts as well as, some sweet treat that is typical of the country of choice. Then there is a little movie to welcome the tourists to Holland. For most of the presentation my mother didn't realize it was me talking to her in polish, and all she wanted was the treat and then out. Well of course I didn't comply, I made her stay for the whole thing. I'm not sure what she is rushing off to, Oh yes I am, she's claimed a spot in the common room that is "hers" and no one is allowed to be there except her, so she sits there day in and day out watchfully guarding it. Well she lost her spot, because she was really in Holland. What a lovely presentation, and such a tasty treat, a great diversion from life in front of a T.V. which is not always on. Our next "trip" is Italy.

I must say that the whole while we were visiting Holland, I couldn't help thinking of the poem :

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.

And while my mother doesn't have a disability, she is disabled, and having taken this trip before, I know it to be an enjoyable trip that I am so glad I've been on, and if I never get to Italy that's o.k. with me, I only wish that my traveling companion was a little more co-operative.