Thursday, June 21, 2007

Welcome to Holland



Hi Everyone, I'm back. Today my daughter and two sisters and I are going to a very special golf tournament. It is called the "Tulip Tournament". It is dear to my heart because it effects my family directly. It is in honor of my special grandson Andrew and in support of the Manitoba Down Syndrome Society. I want to share what the guest speaker said at last years tournament. It was entitled "Welcome to Holland"and here's what she shared with us. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I think it describes it so well! I quote:

{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, Michalangelo's David, The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exiting. 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! 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. 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 your 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, 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!}