spring

It's a funny thing. 70 degrees and snow. As I drove home from work today I saw probably 50 people out on the lake ice fishing. . . and it's 70 degrees! I can't imagine things work out that way too often. Tonight we grilled out while wearing t-shirts, yet still trudging through snow. Or maybe this happens every year and I just never remember it, but I don't think it does. I certainly do get easily taken away by the feelings of hope and happiness spring brings.

On an unrelated note: in my field of work, it amazes me that anyone ever has a developmentally "normal" child. I know a LOT of two year olds, and being that not one of them would qualify as "typically developing" I realize this skews my opinion. Still when you learn about all the things that can go wrong, it is amazing to me to get a healthy child. I usually depersonalize this, and don't think of the potential for this to be my child. No one ever expects to have a child with a disability. Yet these days they say 1 in every 150 kids has autism. damn, those are not good odds. I don't know which would be harder, to know at birth that there was something different about your child or to find out slowly as they get older. Then there are those birth to 3 people who have to be the ones to tell you that there really is something bigger going on with your child. . . and all those plans you had might need a little adjusting. I really didn't think about this part of the job when I started, pretty stupid of me not to realize it. . . but I didn't. It's one of those things I really can't relate to either, not being a parent myself. I think having children will make me much better at my job. Until then. . . families are stuck with me as I am, childless and inexperienced, but with the best of intentions.

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