little moments

Originally I had planned to do a blog update today about my past week... baseball games, nice dinners on The Square, etc... but today in class one of classmates shared this poem and I believe it speaks for itself...

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.

This poem had my classmates and I almost in tears. It is unexpected moments like these, in the middle of class, that help me through these stressful days.

Another not-so-good-news letter came Monday, and I was discouraged. But I know that I just have to wait for the right door to open. It will. In time.

I love this poem as it reminds me just how special my work is going to be one day. I've said time and time again that I can't imagine doing anything else, and this is still so true. I wish I could put into words how this poem makes my heart feel, how passionate I am, how much I long to help others with special needs, but words never seem to do it justice, no matter how I rearrange them. It is the most amazing feeling in the world and I am so excited each and every time that I think about the future. I know I'm not a parent, and I can't even begin to understand how this mother feels, but I know that I will be part of her journey. Part of lots of journeys. I will be a comfort. I will be a source of information. I will be help. And I am so glad that I have been chosen to do these things. I'm so lucky.

Praying for better letters!

Amy