Holland

Its sort of a right of passage. At some point every new mom and dad whose little one has been diagnosed with some sort of "special needs" condition receives a copy of an essay by Emily Pearl Kingsley entitled Welcome to Holland. If you have never read it, I will quote it below:

"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 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"

Now for myself, this Holland analogy hasn't taken hold in any real way. Mostly because if parenthood were a journey, I haven't even gotten off the airplane yet.  The landing gear have not deployed. Sure, they told me Mid-flight that I'd be landing in Holland instead of my originally intended destination. But the reality of what it will be like living my parenting years in the land of the Dutch hasn't really "hit" me yet.

Maybe today I got my first taste of it. Just a sample. A tiny forkfull of those famous dutch pancakes if you will.  I don't want to be difficult or belligerent. I don't want to wind up one of those grumpy people wandering around Holland International Airport grousing at everybody because of the flight change. You know the people I mean, the ones you can NEVER say anything right to. The ones its best to just avoid.

But today I had an issue. Today, I wanted to grouse. Basically I had an encounter with somebody who felt compelled to tell me that my baby will have "lots of difficulties" but  she went on to express pleasure at the fact that my family seemed so willing to chip in and help. I wanted to say things. But I didn't. I realize that she was just trying to say what she "knew" and I was being hormonal and taking it personally.

As the mom of a little girl with SB, I  represent the entire spina bifida community. I cannot afford to grouse at people just because I'm pregnant, hormonal and/or impatient with what they do not know.  When people stop me one day to ask me weird questions about my child or when people make assumptions about her, I will have to try doubly hard not to call them to the carpet. I want to change the perceptions about Spina Bifida, and I certainly cannot if I become grumpy about the subject and give snarky answers instead of real ones.  So, for me, the real challenge is not that I've gone to Holland. Its the way I have to represent...be an ambassador for my native country and show people that spina bifida isn't what they think. That kids who have spina bifida are not damaged goods in any way. For even though I never signed up for the job, I'm not just a mom, I'm an ambassador!

Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. 1 Peter 3:9