So, there's this story, which is beautiful, about how a mother copes with life after having a child with a disability.
by Emily Perl Kingsley
Print Version
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.
And how does that apply to me? As I was driving in the car this morning I kept thinking how I feel like I'm strapped in this plane, heading to where, only God knows. I thought my destination was some beautiful place like France, but instead I've been delivered to Africa....Maybe some French speaking country in Africa, nevertheless, I am not in Paris, enjoying fine wine and cheeses. I am struggling to provide the basic necessities of life to my children just as is such a problem in Africa. Healthcare, food, shelter...okay, I have a place to live, but it's not as nice as I'd like it to be.
Anyways, I guess that's my trial, to accept that I did not get a ticket to France after all...I'm trying to save up enough for a ticket, but maybe I just need to accept Africa how it is right now...and enjoy the beauty there is...maybe a Safari? Good thing I'm headed to the mountains today, and Idaho tomorrow. I need the reflection time, and some peace...
Oh, and Africa has good music AND the opportunity to help so many in need...yeah
5 comments:
If we focus on what we don't have or where we are NOT, we tend to miss out on what we do have and where we are. That's what I keep telling myself anyway. :)
Nice post. A long time ago, I signed up for a short trip away from my roots and from everything I considered to be necessary for happiness. My trip was only made in the name of art, and I was eager to return to my "great" homeland. Then...I met someone you know very well. I made the choice to change my trip plans. I didn't choose all the consequences coming with it, and I couldn't measure what it would mean in the future. So, I still mourn the loss of France, of raising my children close to my family, and still get frustrated with being a foreigner with an accent forever.
It is difficult to not compare with what "I knew" was better and the reality, and to not feel cheated of what could have been. I have a hard time feeling the responsibility of my choice without victimizing myself. That's ok. I have time. I'm in for a lifelong trip.
Clarice- you haven't read 'The End of Poverty' yet have you?
Nobody who lives in Utah is ANYWHERE near Africa. The great lie that we all live as Americans is that we are living lives of deprivation. True deprivation walks the roads in Malawi.
Social commentary aside, I will say, from experience, that when you have a bigger home, with bigger bills, and more lawn work to do, and more home to clean, you will undoubtedly ask yourself why you ever thought that would be a good idea in the first place.
It definitely wasn't wrong to move here. But sometimes the Lord teaches us what we truly need and want by letting us enjoy some of what we thought we would want and then we discover that happiness comes from simplicity and from 'sufficient' for your needs.
I miss our house in Orem. The simplicity of living there. Im looking forward to a major downsizing in the near future.
Thank you for such a good post. It is amazing how much we do miss cause we are wishing for something else. :) Thanks.
Sometimes, we insist on buying a bus ticket when what we need is a plane.
Sometimes, we mistake the layover for the final destination.
Other times, we get so bored of sitting in the cabin that we get off the plane before it reaches its destination.
Post a Comment